Vivo did a pretty good job with V3 series. Now it has come out with a Y series handset, called Vivo Y55L. The handset was announced for the Indian market earlier today but the company offered the device to us, much before the official release, for review. So here is our findings of Vivo Y55L.
Design
Vivo’s devices (especially the high and mid range ones) have been appreciated in the past for their design and this new phone won’t disappoint you in this segment either. With a metal body, it feels tough and Vivo was wise enough to give it a smooth finishing, thus it isn’t slippery. The curved sides raise the comfort factor a notch higher. A metallic thread around its sides add some bling to it as well. However, the front bezels around the display are in milk white colour which, in my view, is a dampener. Vivo should not only think about utilising this space wisely, it should also do something to jazz it up, so that the phone would look even more good than what it looks like from the back.
Another criticism, though a minor one, is that the Vivo Y55L looks much the same as its siblings. Vivo should have tweaked its overall appearance slightly to make it stand out from the crowd.
However, there are plenty of good factors about Vivo Y55L’s design. To start with, the rear camera module is not protruding and hence its lens is less prone to scratches. The brand name is engraved in shiny metal and hence it won’t tear off easily. A microphone is at the bottom panel for noise cancellation and alongside it lies the micro USB port and a speaker grill. Unlike its competitors, the Y55L has a dual SIM tray besides a dedicated micro SD card slot – the former is in its left hand side while the expandable storage tray is in its top. So you don’t have to compromise between expandable storage and an extra SIM.
Above the display, lies a speaker grill, a font camera and a proximity sensor. Below the display lies three touch buttons – Menu, Home Return (from left to right).
In a nutshell, the phone looks good but not mind-blowing.
Display
The Vivo smartphone has a 5.2 inch display. The screen has high definition (1280×720 pixels) Resolution which seems sufficient. The colour output was nice and so was the touch response.The display’s brightness might not be enough for bright outdoors during Indian summers. However, it comes with a feature called “Eye Protection” that tweaks the screen colour to relieve visual fatigue- a welcome feature indeed.So if you are one of those who hooked onto the smartphone for long hours on a stretch, this feature will come handy.
Performance
The Vivo Y55L has a 1.4 GHz Snapdragon 430 octa core Processor and 2 GB RAM. Thankfully, this phone has the Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow operating system. Note that it has Funtouch OS 2.6 user interface which is simple but quite different than the traditional Android UI. In the Funtouch, the quick settings are located at the bottom panel. There is no internal page and everything is thus in the home screen itself. Swiping from top will show you recent notifications. From eye protection feature to screen recording, multi window and other gesture inputs are there in the Funtouch UI which is more or less fun to use.
As far as the processing power is concerned, I played the Injustice Gods Among Us and Maze Runner with quite ease, even while multitasking. It never otherwise showed any lag during review.
But the best thing about Vivo Y55L is its battery back up and storage facility. With a dedicated micro SD card slot, it won my heart right from the start. So you do not have to compromise between two SIMs and micro SD card. Further it has decent 16 GB of internal storage. Further, it has OTG support as well.
The Vivo Y55 has a meager 2650 mAh battery but it is well optimised and managed to run through the day without needing any recharge despite active WiFi connection througout with auto brightness, one SIM and constant usage. Note that during this I was using the phone for about 1 hour gameplay as well.
As far as connectivity is concerned, the Vivo Y55L is as good as others. It has dual SIM, 4G, micro USB port with OTG, 3.5 mm jack, WiFi, WiFi Hotspot, DLNA and Bluetooth. There is GPS for navigation as well.
But the best aspect of Vivo Y55 is its cameras. The 8 Megapixel rear camera and the 5 megapixel front camera are quite able to click pictures in both low and bright light. While clicking selfies, you can use the display as a flash as well. I clicked several pictures in different times of the day and was satisfied most of the time. There was no issues vis-a-vis colour output or focusing.
You can check out the sample pictures here.
The Vivo Y55L though does not offer fingerprint sensor which is becoming a common feature to most devices and is undoubtedly much better and easier security option.