vivo Y73 Review

vivo Y73 is the brand’s new upper entry-level smartphone that packs a 6.44-inch AMOLED display, a 64MP main rear camera, and a fast 33W fast charging tech. But at the price of Php14,999, will it be worth it? Here’s our vivo Y73 review.

Design and Construction

First, let’s first talk about that trendy design. This phone sure aims to be artistic, especially with this Diamond Flare variant that we have. It’s supposed to give a diamond-cut appearance, but it honestly looks like a mosaic design. It doesn’t look that premium, yet it doesn’t appear cheap either.

Its body is made out of plastic and it has an anti-glare glass coating on top which repels fingerprint smudges. This also makes the phone comfortable to grip. Plus, it’s lightweight, weighing in at 170 grams.

Found on the upper left corner is the minimally protruding camera module that looks similar to vivo’s previous flagship devices. There is still a camera bump but putting a case on reduces the matter.

On the front, the Y73 flaunts a 6.44-inch display with slim bezels and a slightly thicker chin. There’s also a water-drop notch on the top end that houses the 16MP front camera, and the earpiece just above that.

There’s no Gorilla Glass protection mentioned but thankfully, there’s a pre-installed screen protector in place for an extra layer of protection.

As for buttons and ports, located on the right are all the buttons, specifically the power trigger and volume rocker.

Then on the left side is a triple card slot for 2 nano-SIM cards and a dedicated microSD card slot.

Alone on top is a secondary microphone, while at the bottom are your speaker grille, USB Type-C port, main microphone, and a 3.5mm headphone port.

Display and Multimedia

For its display, it sports a 6.44-inch AMOLED screen with a 2400 x 1080px resolution and a pixel density of 409ppi. The display makes it great for video-watching, and details come out looking crisp and sharp. As for color reproduction, with an AMOLED panel, we get vibrant colors and deep blacks.

In the settings, users have the option to adjust the color temperature of the display and there’s an Always-on display option too.

Audio quality is where things start screaming budget as there is only a single downward firing speaker that is only good for voice calls and is loud enough without getting distorted.
We recommend using your favorite pair of headphones or external speakers if you desire better quality.

Camera

Now for cameras — we have a triple-camera setup consisting of a 64MP main, a 2MP depth sensor, and a 2MP macro lens. Then for taking selfies, it has a 16MP front shooter.

Images produced from the vivo Y73 looks pretty good when you get ample lighting. Daytime shots produce vibrant colors and details are present. Highlights, however, tend to look overblown in some scenarios which kills off the shadows. The portrait mode does a pretty good job of separating the subject from the background though sometimes it can be quite a hit or miss.

When it comes to low light shots, it isn’t the best as details come out muddy but still usable for usual social media posts.

As for selfies, images produced look pretty modest, with nice details and good colors. They’re usable enough for social media posting. Just be careful using the beauty mode as it looks too overdone.

As for video capabilities, the vivo Y73 can shoot up to 4K at 30fps and the quality is average at best. It also doesn’t feature any form of image stabilization.

OS, UI, and Apps

Running the software department is Android 11 skinned with the fun-looking FunTouch OS 11.1. There’s an app drawer option in the settings and you have the option to use navigation keys or gestures. Expect it to be highly customizable with a lot of features you can play around with. There is some bloatware and very few pre-installed apps, including Google apps, Netflix, and Facebook.

For other features, the Y73 has a Digital Wellbeing & parental controls, Jovi Home, Ultra Game Mode wherein you can enhance your gaming experience, E-sports Mode, Game picture-in-picture, 4D Game Vibration and Accidental touch prevention.

Out of the 128GB base storage that came with the device, we were left with a usable space of just 110GB out of the box.

For biometrics and security, it comes with an in-display fingerprint scanner and facial recognition. Both scanners are snappy although the fingerprint scanner is positioned on the lower part of the display which can be awkward to reach and make take some getting used to.

Performance and Benchmarks

MediaTek Helio G95 chipset powers this device which includes a Mali-G76 MC4 GPU, 8GB of RAM with 4GB RAM extension, and 128GB of internal storage. It’s good enough to handle basic tasks such as browsing the internet and heavy social media use.

The phone’s performance seems to be fine when playing graphically intensive games. You might encounter stutters, especially if the scene starts getting crowded or busy. The RAM extension feature does help with multitasking. It would have been a lot better if the OS does a better job of keeping system apps to a minimum.

Check out the benchmark scores that we got below:

• AnTuTu v9.3 – 353,164
• AnTuTu Storage Test v9.3.1 – 23,590, 513.4 MB/s (Seq. Read), 203.7 MB/s (Seq. Write)
• PCMark – 6,692 (Work 3.0)
• 3D Mark – 423 (WildLife Extreme), 2,641 (OpenGL ES 3.1)
• Geekbench 5 – 464 (Single-core), 1,553 (Multi-core), 2,208 (OpenCL)

Connectivity and Battery

The vivo Y73 has modern connectivity features — including WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0, 4G LTE, GPS and it also has FM Radio. As for the battery, we get a massive 4,000mAh Li-Ion battery with 33W fast charging support. Using the device lasts us a day or two of moderate usage.

We also ran it through PCMark’s Battery Test and the vivo Y73 yielded a score of 12 hours and 4 minutes. Charging time can go as fast as zero to 60% in under 30 minutes.

Conclusion

Priced at Php14,999, the vivo Y73 is not an easy phone to recommend considering there are other devices from competitors that can deliver better performance for the same price range. The Php15k is such a very crowded and competitive price segment in the smartphone market.

That being said, the vivo Y73 is still a reliable daily driver with its large display, trendy design and good cameras. If you’re a vivo fan, then this device would be able to offer you a decent Android experience without breaking the bank. As long as you’re not into heavy games, the Y73 definitely deserves your consideration.

vivo Y73 specs:
6.44-inch FHD+ (2400 x 1080) AMOLED display
MediaTek Helio G95 SoC
8GB RAM (+4GB Extended RAM)
128GB storage
microSD card slot (dedicated)
Triple-rear cameras:
• 64MP F1.79 main
• 2MP F2.4 depth
• 2MP F2.4 macro
16MP F2.0 front camera
Dual-SIM
4G LTE
WiFi
Bluetooth 5.0
GPS, BEIDOU, GALILEO, GLONASS, QZSS
USB-C
Funtouch OS 11.1 (Android 11)
4,000mAh battery w/ 33W fast charging
161.24 x 74.37 x 7.38 mm (dimensions)
170 grams (weight)
Diamond Flare, Roman Black

Source: Yugatech