Vivo V25 5G review: a mid-ranger with a good design and capable cameras

Here's our take on Vivo's new V-series smartphone - Vivo V25

• By Ashish Kumar
Published On: 29 September 2022 | 18:48 IST Last Updated On: 17 October 2022 | 16:40 IST

The Vivo V25 5G is the company’s new V-series smartphone positioned under Rs 30,000. The handset comes with the same colour-changing design as its elder sibling, the Vivo V25 Pro (review), and boasts advanced cameras. The phone also rocks a 90Hz AMOLED screen, a 5G-capable MediaTek chipset, and fast 44W charging. Is that enough to warrant a purchase? Or is there more than meets the eye with the Vivo V25 5G? Let’s find out in this review.

Verdict

The Vivo V25 5G is among the better-looking smartphones out there. The colour-changing design helps it stand out from the crowd. Moreover, the phone offers a good screen, decent cameras, and respectable battery life. But, for the price, the Vivo V25 5G could have done better.

The lowdown

• The Vivo V25 5G comes with the same colour-changing design as its elder sibling – the Vivo V25 Pro. The back panel shows a different colour gradient when light falls on it from different angles. That apart, the design language is about as regular as any other smartphone, with its fingerprint-resistant matte-finish glass and enormous yet stylish-looking rectangular camera module at the back. However, unlike the ‘Pro’ model, the Vivo V25 5G doesn’t have a curved edge design. The handset instead sports slender flat edges, which make the phone easy to hold. The edges are so flat that you can make the V25 5G stand on a surface without any support, although I wouldn’t advise you to do that as a little nudge can make the phone fall — sometimes off the table. That being said, I found the edges of the frame a bit sharp, though that can be mitigated using a case including the one that ships with the phone.

• The Vivo V25 5G frame is all plastic, and this keeps the phone’s weight as light as 181 grams. As for the I/O, the phone has a USB Type-C port, a hybrid dual SIM card slot, and a single speaker unit at the bottom edge. The volume rocker and power button can be found on the left spine, while the right side remains barren. The fingerprint scanner is under the screen and works just fine.

• The Vivo V25 5G sports a 6.44-inch AMOLED display with FHD+ resolution, 90Hz refresh rate, and a U-shape notch atop. The screen is not quite bezel-less, but you do get a good viewing experience. Additionally, the colours are punchy and bright, while the contrast ratio is acceptable. The display also offers good viewing angles and ample brightness to make for a decent experience even under direct sunlight. The screen comes with 1300 nits of peak brightness and HDR10+ support. It is also Widevine L1 certified, which means the phone can stream HD videos. The 90Hz refresh rate works well across the interface and supported apps. Be that as it may, I feel Vivo may have missed a trick here by not including a 120Hz refresh rate screen.

• Coming to the meat of the matter, the Vivo V25 5G is powered by MediaTek Dimensity 900 SoC. It is a slightly dated chipset but gets the job done. The app load times were quick, while the multi-tasking was smooth. The handset also handled games really well, especially casual ones such as Pool 8, Real Cricket 22, and Temple Run, and kept its thermals in check under sustained loads. As for the benchmarking results, the phone offered a respectable score of 4,72,795 on Antutu and a multi-core score of 2,056 on Geekbench 5. On the CPU Throttle test; however, the phone’s performance throttles a bit. The device ran at 80 percent of its peak performance which is decent enough but not great. The SoC is paired with 8GB/ 12GB RAM, which can be further expanded up to 8GB virtually using the phone’s storage. The handset is equipped with up to 256GB of user-expandable storage.
  

• In the camera department, the Vivo V25 5G sports a 64MP primary sensor with OIS and f/1.8 aperture. This is accompanied by an 8MP ultra-wide sensor with 120-degree FOV and a 2MP macro sensor. The camera setup won’t leave you disappointed at least in daylight. Images clicked from the 64MP primary sensor offered ample detail and dynamic range when the sun was out. The images do look slightly overprocessed and beautified, but the overall result was satisfactory. The images shot from the 8MP ultra-wide sensor look nice too but could do with some dynamic range and contrast. As for the 2MP macro sensor, it is average at best. The sensor can click some decent close-up photos in a well-lit environment.
  

• In low light, the images looked a bit grainy even with night mode, but I found them usable. The main sensor does well to capture details and colours when the sun goes down. The handset ships with a 50MP f/2.0 camera on the front, which offers likeable selfies even in low light with good facial detailing and accurate skin tone. That said, I feel like the Vivo V25 5G’s portrait mode needs a bit of rework. More often than not, it failed to get that blurred background in the images. The issue was more apparent with the images clicked from the front camera.
• The Vivo V25 5G packs a 4,500mAh battery, which comfortably lasted a day for me. My day-to-day usage included social media scrolling, some light gaming, snapping a few images, and going through my emails and slack notifications. On the PC Mark battery test, the phone netted 13 hours and 20 minutes. The V25 5G ships with a 44W Flash charger, which can juice up an almost dead battery to 100 percent in a little over an hour.

• Software-wise, the Vivo V25 5G runs Android 12-based FunTouchOS 12 out of the box. While the software is intuitive and offers several customisation options, it comes with an array of apps pre-installed and unnecessary notifications which spoils the overall experience. Moving on, I had no trouble using the phone on Airtel’s 4G network in Faridabad. The handset is also compatible with both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi bands and supports SA and NSA bands for the upcoming 5G network. The phone’s bottom-firing mono speaker is average.

Final verdict

The Vivo V25 5G is priced in India at Rs 27,999 for the 8GB RAM variant, while the 12GB RAM option costs Rs 31,999. Looking at it in isolation, I have little to complain about the handset. However, when compared to its competitors such as Nothing Phone 1 (review), iQOO Neo 6 (review), and OPPO Reno 8 5G (review), it feels like the Vivo V25 5G may have missed a trick or two here. The handset could have fared better with stereo speakers, a 120Hz refresh rate screen, and a faster chipset. All said and done though, the phone offers pretty much everything that you can expect from a mid-ranger. From its eye-catching colour-changing design to reliable performance, vibrant screen, decent cameras and battery life, the Vivo V25 5G ticks most boxes.

Editor’s rating: 3.5 / 5

Pros

• Striking colour-changing design
• Decent performance
• Capable cameras

Cons

• No stereo speakers
• UI needs to be refined