vivo T1 5G Review

Late last month, vivo brought its T series to the Philippines and one of them is the Snapdragon 778 5G-powered vivo T1 5G. While it looks like your usual premium mid-range smartphone, it behaves differently with its gaming-centric features. So, how well does it perform as a gaming phone? Find out in our review.

Design and Construction

the vivo T1 5G sports a 6.44-inch AMOLED screen with Full HD+ resolution. It has a waterdrop notch at the top for the 16MP selfie camera. Placed just above it in the bezel is the earpiece.

On the left, we have the volume and power/lock buttons. They’re made of plastic and clicky, but placed near the middle of the frame, so they’re easy to reach.

Up top, we have the secondary microphone.

Down at the bottom, we have the dual nano-SIM card tray (sorry, no microSD card slot here), main microphone, USB-C port, and the loudspeaker.

At the back, we have this huge protruding camera module for the 64MP main, 8MP ultra-wide, and 2MP macro cameras.

Despite being a tall device, the vivo T1 5G’s frame is narrow so it’s easy to grip. It’s mostly plastic but the metallic paint job gives a nice premium look to it. The back panel, on the other hand, has curved sides which make the device feel thinner than actual. It has a frosted glass finish which gives off a nice shimmer depending on the angle. The texture also feels nice and is good at repelling smudges and fingerprints.

Display and Multimedia

The vivo T1 5G’s screen is crisp and vibrant with accurate colors and thin bezels. However, the waterdrop notch seems too large, considering that many Androids right now use smaller punch holes. Consider this a minor gripe, though, as you can hide the notch in the settings or you’ll just get used to it eventually.

The screen has a maximum refresh rate of 90Hz with the ability to lower it automatically to 60Hz according to the task to preserve battery life. It also has a visual enhancement feature to improve color and contrast when watching videos whether it’s local, on YouTube or Netflix.

The screen is good for watching videos or playing games. The loudspeaker, though, is ordinary. It’s crisp and loud, with mostly trebles and very weak bass. It would have been nicer if it had stereo speakers to compensate.

Cameras

The vivo T1 5G has three cameras at the rear, consisting of the 64MP main, 8MP ultra-wide, and 2MP macro. The camera performance is good. Photos taken by the main camera have punchy yet accurate colors with plenty of details and a high dynamic range. Portrait effects were nicely implemented as well.

Ultra-wide shots are decent. Not as sharp as the main and have cooler temperatures, but good enough. Macro shots are not that impressive. Yes, you can get close to a subject but the details are not as sharp and the colors are too bland.

It performs well in low-light environments and was able to illuminate the scene without blowing up the highlights and produce enough detail without the noise. Even in situations where the lighting is off (food photos, dim with blue ambient lighting), it was still able to produce nice results.

Selfies are handled by a 16MP shooter. As we all know, vivo is good with selfies and the resulting images have accurate skin tones with fine details, even in dim scenarios.

When it comes to videos, it can shoot up to 4K at 30fps or 1080p at 60fps. The quality is similar to shots taken with the main camera and can implement standard or ultra video stabilization for a smooth shot. However, there’s no video recording using the ultra-wide camera.

OS and Apps

For the software, we have Funtouch 12 based on Android 12. It’s a simple interface that uses colorful icons and a combination of home screens and app drawer to house the apps. vivo has its own apps pre-installed like the V-Appstore, iManager, vivoCloud, GameCenter, and Easy Share. There are third-party apps as well but you can select and remove them all at once.

What I don’t like here, though, is that the built-in browser keeps on releasing notifications of trending news on the web, while the V-Appstore frequently recommends apps. I suggest disabling them or just turn off notifications from these.

One of the things that mobile gamers will like about the vivo T1 5G is the Ultra Game Mode. You can activate it by tapping on the Ultra Game Mode button in the drop-down menu. But normally it will automatically activate once you launch a game. At this point, the device has already optimized itself by clearing your memory, putting to sleep unnecessary background services, and taming down your notifications for smooth gameplay.

While you’re in the game, you can also swipe from the left, and it will pull up a dashboard that lets you choose between Balance and Performance modes, and access features like Eagle eye view which enhances the colors, activate Background calls, Mute notifications, Reject calls, Record Screen, 4D Game Vibration, and Screenshots, to name a few.

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the vivo T1 5G is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 778 5G with an octa-core CPU, Adreno 642L GPU, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. It also has a Vapor Chamber Cooling System to dissipate heat while gaming.

The configuration is powerful enough to run graphics-intensive games like Genshin Impact, Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds, and Asphalt 9: Legends. There are times that will experience some stutters but they’re minor and won’t irritate you while playing. The device will also get warm but generally cool thanks to the Vapor Chamber Cooling System. Overall, solid performance as expected of a premium mid-ranger.

Check out the benchmarks below:

• AnTuTu v9 – 542,120
• AnTuTu v9 Storage – 42,554, 1035.1 MB/s (Seq. Read), 820.5 MB/s (Seq. Write)
• 3D Mark – 2,435 (Wild Life), 14.6 fps, 695 (Wild Life Extreme), 4.2 fps
• PC Mark – 9,632 (Work 3.0)
• Geekbench 5 – 787 (Single-Core), 2,867 (Multi-Core), 2,307 (OpenCL)

Connectivity & Battery

We have the usual connectivity features on the vivo T1 5G, there’s dual-SIM with 5G, WiFi, Bluetooth 5.2, USB-C, and GPS. There’s no 3.5mm audio jack, so you’ll need to go wireless or use an adapter. For biometrics, we have a fingerprint scanner on the display.

For the battery, we have a 4,700mAh battery which is a decent capacity for a whole day of moderate use. PC Mark’s battery test rated the battery life at 19 hours and 12 minutes, while our video loop test got us 28 hours and 40 minutes of playback. These are good results that show the power efficiency of the Snapdragon 700 series. For charging, it supports 66W fast charging and can replenish the battery in a little over an hour.

Conclusion

The vivo T1 5G at first glance, whether by its looks or spec sheet, seems to be your typical mid-ranger. It has a beautiful design, a nice set of cameras, and a powerful chipset. However, these are common characteristics of smartphones nowadays. However, vivo took an effort to give it software features normally found in “gaming” smartphones. This will not just help the device perform well, but it will also provide its users with a good gaming experience

The vivo T1 5G comes in Turbo Black and Turbo Cyan and is priced at PHP 16,999.

vivo T1 5G specs:
6.44-inch FHD+ (2040 x 1080) AMOLED display, 409ppi
90Hz refresh rate
Qualcomm Snapdragon 778 5G SoC
Adreno 642L GPU
8GB RAM
128GB storage
Triple-rear cameras:
• 64MP F1.8 main
• 8MP F2.2 ultra-wide
• 2MP F2.4 macro
16MP F2.0 front camera
Dual-SIM
5G, 4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth 5.2
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BDS, QZSS
USB-C
Fingerprint scanner (in-display)
Funtouch 12 (Android 12)
4,700mAh battery w/ 66W fast charging
159.7 x 73.6 x 8.5 mm
180.3g
Turbo Black, Turbo Cyan

Source: Yugatech