Vivo V30 Pro Review: Ready to take on reigning champions?

Vivo V30 Pro Review: 

Price: Rs  41,999 onwards

Vivo's mid-range line-up has garnered acclaim for its aesthetic appeal and impressive camera prowess. Elevating these qualities, the V30 Pro establishes itself in the competitive mid-range smartphone market with its captivating design, a robust camera system developed in collaboration with Zeiss, and a battery that ensures prolonged usage. However, the question remains: does it possess the requisite attributes to challenge the reigning champions?

Design

The Vivo V30 Pro exudes an exquisite, streamlined profile, measuring a mere 7.45mm in thickness. Despite its slender build, it accommodates a substantial 5000mAh battery, ensuring prolonged usage without compromising on comfort. Its satin-like finish on the rear not only adds a touch of sophistication but also prevents unsightly fingerprint marks. The black variant of my review unit boasts a subtle shimmering effect, making it a true eye-catcher. Vivo maintains a minimalist design on the rear, featuring a slightly raised camera module accompanied by the Aura Light (flash) at the top left and Vivo branding at the bottom left.

The sleek metal frame houses the power button and volume controls on the right side, while the speaker, charging port, and SIM card tray are located at the bottom. Positioned at the top panel is the "Professional Portrait" branding, signalling Vivo's commitment to enhancing the photography experience.

While these features contribute to the device's allure, the soft finish renders it notably slippery. However, Vivo addresses this concern by including a silicone case in the package, offering protection against accidental damage and mitigating the slipperiness. Nonetheless, the addition of the case does detract from the device's premium design.

Furthermore, the Vivo V30 Pro is equipped with an IP54 rating certification, ensuring dust and water resistance. This certification provides reassurance against minor splashes and environmental debris, offering peace of mind in various conditions.

Display

Vivo has added a 6.78-inch AMOLED display with minimal bezels, extending an expansive view from edge to edge. With a resolution of 1260 x 2800p and HDR10+ support, the display guarantees vibrant colours and deep blacks, enhancing the viewing experience for movies and games. While the Standard colour setting delivers satisfactory visuals, I found the bright profile more to my liking and adjusted the colour temperature accordingly.

It supports up to 120Hz refresh rate – an industry standard, resulting in buttery-smooth scrolling and animations without compromise. The display also boasts commendable sunlight legibility, ensuring convenient usage for photography even in harsh lighting conditions. Additionally, there's a Visual Enhancement setting too which has been disabled by default, but it enhances colour and contrast, supported across platforms like YouTube and Netflix.

Camera

Undoubtedly, the standout feature of the V30 Pro lies in its camera system. Boasting a triple-camera setup on the rear, it is spearheaded by three 50MP sensors: a primary sensor, an ultrawide sensor, and a telephoto sensor. Partnering with Zeiss brings forth ZEISS Optics certification for all three lenses, elevating the camera app with Zeiss filters and effects.

Navigating through the camera user interface is seamless, with a clean and intuitive design. The default photo mode facilitates easy switching between lenses, ranging from 0.6x for ultra-wide views to digital zoom capabilities up to 20x. Positioned at the top center is the colour style setting, offering options like Vivid for vibrant and lively images, Textured for a vintage and layered aesthetic, and ZEISS Natural for capturing accurate and lifelike colours. Across all modes, the image quality remains consistently impressive. While images captured in Vivid mode are worthy of instant sharing, my preference leaned towards the shots with ZEISS Natural, which delivered sharpness and detail, particularly in daylight conditions. The phone's low-light performance is commendable, effectively minimizing noise while preserving detail.

A notable addition is the Aura Light, a distinctive light ring accompanying the regular flash, which detects low light conditions and enhances brightness, accordingly, proving invaluable for capturing portrait shots in dim settings. Moreover, akin to the flagship X100 Pro, the V30 Pro features ZEISS Style portraits, offering a variety of background blur effects such as Distagon, B-Speed, Biotar, Planar, and Sonnar. Additionally, users can explore creative options with ZEISS Cine-flare and Cinematic settings, complemented by standard styles and beautification features.

In terms of video capabilities, the phone supports 4K video recording at 30fps, with the night video enhancement feature automatically optimizing the effect when capturing videos in low-light environments.

On the front, the 50MP front-facing camera excels in capturing detailed selfies, rounding out the V30 Pro's impressive camera offerings.

Performance

The V30 Pro is fuelled by the MediaTek Dimensity 8200 chipset, a proficient mid-range processor, and my review unit boasted 12GB of RAM, although an 8GB RAM with 256GB storage variant is also available. Running on FunTouch OS 14, based on Android 14, the customized interface presents a tidy appearance with a handful of pre-installed apps.

With its robust hardware, the phone effortlessly tackled daily tasks, smoothly transitioning between apps, web browsing, and social media engagements. While it handles most games well on medium to high settings, dedicated gamers might yearn for the additional power provided by flagship processors. The sole drawback was the mono speaker, which could have significantly enhanced the entertainment and gaming experiences.

The inclusion of 512GB of onboard storage appears to be a prudent decision, particularly considering users are likely to capture and experiment with photos and videos extensively.

Battery Life

With its 5000mAh battery, the V30 Pro effortlessly sustained a day of extensive camera usage and screen time. With moderate usage, it could easily extend to a day and a half on a single charge. Vivo has incorporated 80W fast charging support into this phone, ensuring rapid replenishment of the battery. Using the bundled adapter, the battery reached 50 per cent capacity in under 30 minutes and achieved a full charge in approximately 50 minutes. While this may seem comparatively slower compared to newer phones that achieve full charges in under 30 minutes, it still represents a relatively swift charging experience.

Verdict

The Vivo V30 Pro stands out as a stylish smartphone that caters admirably to mobile photography enthusiasts. Its versatile camera system is well-equipped to handle a variety of shooting scenarios, making it a compelling choice for those passionate about capturing moments on the go.