Vivo V30 Pro Review

Vivo’s V29 Professional, which was launched final 12 months in India, was a fairly good smartphone on paper and in real-world use as nicely. Its successor, the brand new Vivo V30 Professional, additionally has a number of new tips up its sleeves with some attention-grabbing Zeiss-branded cameras. The trio of 50-megapixel cameras declare to supply some attention-grabbing portrait images options known as ‘Zeiss Model Bokehs’ that goal to imitate high-end Zeiss digital camera lenses. The model has additionally pressured the inclusion of Zeiss-branded cameras, which, for the very first time, can be found on a V sequence smartphone. However all these fancy digital camera options include an above-average mid-premium price ticket. After totally testing out this cellphone, let’s discover out if it is worthy of its price ticket and the way nicely it stacks up towards the competitors.

Vivo V30 Professional Assessment: Value in India

The Vivo V30 Professional is accessible in two variants: one with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which is priced at Rs. 41,999 and one other with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, priced at Rs. 46,999. It is available in two color choices, Andaman Blue and Traditional Black, in India, in contrast to the worldwide variant, which is accessible in 4 color choices. The smartphone competes with the OnePlus 12R, Samsung’s Galaxy S23 FE and the Nothing Cellphone 2.

The Vivo V30 Professional comes with an 80W adaptor

Vivo V30 Professional Assessment: Design

We acquired the Andaman Blue color choice, and this variant has a shiny glass rear panel, which, based on the model, resembles the emerald waters of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The shiny floor is fast to draw fingerprints, however this shiny colourway doesn’t spotlight them as a lot as a darker shade would. The smartphone does not look very totally different from its predecessor. There’s a squared-off aura gentle on the again under the digital camera module, in contrast to the round aura gentle on the V29 Professional.

The raised digital camera module does not protrude by a lot, so the smartphone doesn’t wobble when positioned on flat surfaces like a desk. It makes use of a three-camera setup on the rear that’s aligned in a rounded sq. with the newly added Zeiss branding.

The smartphone doesn’t wobble on the desk as a lot as a result of broad digital camera module

The silver-coloured Vivo branding is on the backside of the rear panel. The ability and quantity buttons are on the fitting of the curved chrome body. The speaker grille, microphone, USB Kind-C port, and SIM slot are on the backside.

I additionally tried the Traditional Black color choice. It feels a bit extra premium and sports activities a shimmery black glass again panel that doesn’t entice fingerprints. Nonetheless, I preferred the Andaman Blue colourway.

The smartphone has a premium in-hand really feel, and the curved glass sandwich design presents good grip. It weighs 188 grams, which could be very gentle for a smartphone with a 5,000mAh battery and a glass rear panel. At simply 7.45 mm, this can be a very slim smartphone.

The bezels on the left and proper sides of the Vivo V30 Professional are nearly non-existent because it makes use of a curved-edge show that blends with the curved sides of the body.

The smartphone presents an IP54 certification for mud and water resistance. Whereas it’s good to see Vivo supply this ranking, it’s fairly fundamental so far as IP scores go. Different smartphones, each at and under this worth level, supply significantly better safety from the weather. Xiaomi’s Redmi Word 13 Professional+, which we lately reviewed, gives an IP68 ranking at Rs. 31,999.

Vivo V30 Professional Assessment: Specs and software program

The smartphone comes outfitted with the 4nm MediaTek Dimensity 8200 5G SoC, which is a barely dated processor (launched in 2022) that competes with Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 SoC obtainable in some mid-range smartphones priced between Rs. 25,000 to Rs 30,000. The Vivo V30 Professional presents a most of 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and as much as 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. It makes use of a dual-nano sim card tray to accommodate two 5G sim playing cards however doesn’t have area for a microSD card.

Different options embody Bluetooth 5.3 and a USB 2.0 Kind-C port for charging the machine and information transfers. The Vivo V30 Professional is powered by a 5,000mAh battery that may be charged utilizing the supplied 80W charging adapter. 

Vivo V30 Professional will get two main OS updates and three years of safety patches, based on the model

On the software program entrance, it runs on Funtouch OS 14 World, which relies on Android 14. The interface is sort of clean throughout the board, but it surely nonetheless has a few pre-installed apps; not all of those will be uninstalled. Vivo guarantees two OS upgrades and three years of safety patches for the Vivo V30 Professional.

The Vivo V30 Professional makes use of an in-display fingerprint sensor, which works tremendous more often than not. Nonetheless, I didn’t discover it dependable, because it couldn’t recognise my registered fingerprint a number of instances in the course of the evaluate interval. It additionally randomly triggers contained in the pocket from time to time.

Vivo V30 Professional Assessment: Efficiency

In our benchmark testing, the Vivo V30 Professional delivers mid-range efficiency in sure areas and delivers first rate outcomes. Nonetheless, it falls horribly brief when in comparison with different units at this worth level, such because the OnePlus 12R. It scored 9,58,187 factors in AnTuTu, which is barely increased than its predecessor, however for Geekbench 6, it scored 979 factors in single-core and three,931 factors in multi-core checks, which is barely lower than the Vivo V29 Professional.

Gaming on the Vivo V30 Professional is first rate. I performed Asphalt 9: Legends, which ran easily, and the smartphone didn’t lag whereas doing so. It helps the 60 FPS mode and performs the sport lag-free with Excessive-High quality visible high quality chosen. Name of Responsibility: Cell labored easily and I did not discover any body drops with the Excessive graphics settings turned on. Nonetheless, with Very Excessive graphics high quality and most body price, the sport does lag a bit of, and it is not a clean expertise. The smartphone didn’t get very heat in the course of the gameplay both. 

The Vivo V30 Professional didn’t overheat whereas gaming

The 6.78-inch full-HD+ curved-edge AMOLED panel presents a 120Hz refresh price and a claimed peak brightness of as much as 2,800 nits. By default, the show produces good colors that are not overly saturated. It will get fairly shiny open air however the colors get washed out when viewing the show in direct daylight. The smartphone has a single down-firing speaker that’s loud sufficient, however the lack of a second speaker is disappointing at this worth level. 

The show is HDR10+ licensed

The 5,000mAh battery carried out nicely in our battery video loop check. It ran for 19 hours and 10 minutes, which is nice and a bit of higher than its predecessor. In our charging check, the smartphone charged to 71 % in half-hour and accomplished the cost in 60 minutes utilizing the supplied 80W charging adaptor.

Vivo V30 Professional Assessment: Cameras

The Vivo V30 Professional is a camera-centric smartphone that comes outfitted with fairly a number of helpful options. It has three rear-facing cameras, together with a 50-megapixel (Sony IMX920) major digital camera with an f/1.9 aperture and optical picture stabilisation (OIS), a 50-megapixel (Sony IMX816) f/1.9 telephoto digital camera with 2x optical zoom and one other 50-megapixel ultrawide digital camera. The cellphone has a 50-megapixel digital camera with an f/2.0 aperture and autofocus for selfies.

The 50-megapixel major digital camera captures very detailed pictures in daylight with good dynamic vary. It produces pictures that are not overly saturated and do not look over-processed, both. I discovered the seize velocity to be a bit sluggish, it takes a few milliseconds to click on a photograph at instances, particularly with HDR pictures. 

Photographs shot utilizing the first digital camera in shiny daylight have loads of element (faucet picture to develop)

The 50-megapixel telephoto is nice for daylight pictures. It maintains the identical color tones as the first digital camera and produces pictures with good particulars within the highlights and shadows. Nonetheless, it processes the photographs a bit extra, in order that they typically come out softer than the first digital camera regardless of having the identical decision. There’s additionally an choice to click on pictures at 4x zoom, however the pictures at this level are very gentle and solely usable generally. 

Vivo V30 Professional telephoto digital camera pattern. (faucet picture to develop)

The ultrawide digital camera makes use of the identical 50-megapixel decision, but it surely produces pictures in a completely totally different trend. The color scheme does not match that of the opposite two cameras, the photographs come out softer, and also you solely get good pictures when there’s loads of gentle. 

The ultrawide digital camera has a special color scheme when in comparison with the opposite two cameras (faucet picture to develop)

The 50-megapixel front-facing digital camera handles harsh lighting conditions nicely, however there might be some situations the place the photographs are inclined to have ramped-up shadows, particularly with the backlit pictures.

Entrance going through digital camera clicks pictures which are wealthy in distinction and have barely increased saturation ranges (faucet to develop)

Earlier than discussing this smartphone’s low-light capabilities, let’s focus on Vivo’s Zeiss partnership.

Zeiss and Vivo have partnered for the X sequence of smartphones for fairly a very long time, however that is the primary time that the 2 manufacturers have collaborated for a V sequence smartphone on the Vivo V30 Professional and never the vanilla V30. This time it isn’t totally the identical factor, for the X sequence, Vivo has the Zeiss emblem and the enduring T emblem printed across the digital camera module which signifies that the digital camera has not solely been co-engineered with Zeiss but in addition makes use of the T coating.

The smartphone sports activities a three-camera setup on the rear

This isn’t the case for the Vivo V30 Professional; it solely has the Zeiss emblem with out the T* signal, and as confirmed by the model, the lenses shouldn’t have the coating.

So what this implies is that the Vivo V30 Professional does have the Zeiss lens emulators throughout the digital camera app when you click on portraits however the outcomes is not going to be pretty much as good as those shot on a X sequence smartphone.

Portraits shot with Zeiss filter, with out aura gentle (left), with aura gentle (proper) (faucet to develop)

I did mess around with these filters (known as Zeiss Model Bokehs) and it’s a good addition for a mid-range smartphone. I attempted these out with the brand new aura gentle and managed fairly good portraits. The aura gentle can accommodate the color temperature in accordance with the lighting setting routinely or one can manually modify it too.

Low-light images on the Vivo V30 Professional is a combined bag. The first digital camera clicks visually beautiful pictures regardless of no gentle being within the body. I shot some pictures in pitch darkness, and the digital camera nonetheless managed to deliver up the colors with good particulars in them. Regardless of the smartphone taking longer to shoot at the hours of darkness, I did not get blurry pictures, because of OIS being current on this one. 

Photographs shot with evening mode take barely longer to click on. Shot with major digital camera (faucet to develop)

The telephoto digital camera pictures aren’t excellent in pitch darkness, however they produce good pictures with scenes which have some gentle in them. The saturation ranges are first rate, however the pictures do look over-processed and are softer than normal. The identical is the story for the ultrawide digital camera as nicely. The pictures taken with it are softer and don’t preserve the identical color scheme, which could be a bummer. 

The front-facing digital camera works nicely in low gentle. It retains a good look all through the body and doesn’t flip evening to day by overexposing it. Focus is one thing that it struggles with generally.

The Vivo V30 Professional can shoot movies at as much as 4K 60fps on all three rear cameras and the entrance digital camera as nicely. That is the place OIS shines for the movies shot utilizing the first digital camera. I shot a number of movies by the first digital camera and the outcomes had been fairly spectacular. The digital camera handles harsh daylight nicely and showcases good dynamic vary. Capturing on the go has gotten higher because the Vivo V29 Professional, the smartphone doesn’t battle with shifting pictures as a lot and the stabilisation is sort of good. Outcomes from the telephoto and the ultrawide digital camera are additionally spectacular. Surprisingly, the three rear cameras handle to take care of an identical color tone for movies. In low gentle, the cameras do battle and you will notice various noise in your pictures, particularly for the telephoto and the ultrawide digital camera.

The 50-megapixel front-facing digital camera shoots first rate sufficient movies that come out in harsh lighting circumstances however generally misses focus. The low-light video on this one is hit and miss. There have been situations the place I ended up with a washed-up shot that wasn’t very helpful. Generally, it produced movies that had fairly good particulars in them and had been well-lit as nicely.

Vivo V30 Professional Assessment: Verdict

The Vivo V30 Professional will not be an enormous bounce from its predecessor, the Vivo V29 Professional. By way of consumer expertise and digital camera efficiency, Vivo presents solely incremental upgrades, like barely sooner charging with longer battery life. Then, there are a number of new digital camera options, just like the inclusion of Zeiss Model Bokehs (or filters) on a V sequence smartphone, which may entice a shopper who loves capturing portrait pictures.

Sadly, the cellphone misses out on some key options present in different smartphones at this worth level, like a greater official IP ranking for mud and water resistance and the brand new AI options that the majority producers are focussing on in 2024. It is also utilizing a slightly dated processor, which is not precisely champion on the subject of efficiency given its premium price ticket, which begins from Rs. 41,999.

Surprisingly, this isn’t precisely an issue. Vivo mainly trades efficiency for higher digital camera {hardware} and options (a few of which have trickled down from its top-end Vivo X sequence units). Merely put, it is a smartphone that is centered on images and won’t cater to players or energy customers.

In case you are searching for one thing extra highly effective at this worth level, the OnePlus 12R (Assessment), which presents significantly better uncooked efficiency with its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC. In case you are someone who wants AI options and an official IP ranking, the Pixel 7a (Assessment) additionally retails on the similar worth but in addition presents higher software program (with quick updates) and really dependable digital camera efficiency.