Vivo V29 review: a mid-ranger worth considering

The Vivo V29 offers a mix of appealing features

• By Ashish Kumar -
Published On: October 19, 2023

The Vivo V29 shares its specs sheet with its elder sibling the Vivo V29 Pro, with the primary differences between these two smartphones being the chipset, depth camera, and price. The Vivo V29 is priced in India at Rs 7,000 lower than its Pro model counterpart. Here's a brief review of the device to help figure out where this smartphone stands among its competitors and who should consider purchasing it. For a more in-depth analysis, we recommend checking out the Vivo V29 Pro review.

Verdict

The Vivo V29 offers a mix of appealing features. It boasts an intriguing design, a stunning AMOLED 3D curved screen, extended battery life, and quick charging options, all complemented by promising cameras. However, it falls short in terms of performance and audio quality, which might disappoint gaming enthusiasts and multimedia users.

Design and display

• The Vivo V29 boasts an attractive design, if not as premium as compared to its elder sibling, the V29 Pro, which features a metal frame instead of plastic. The plastic frame, however, contributes to a slightly lighter weight for the smartphone, coming in at 186 grams. While the phone may not be considered compact by modern standards, its curved design and slim profile at 7.46mm make it relatively comfortable to hold and use.
• The volume rocker and power button are thoughtfully placed on the right side, and I genuinely appreciate the matte finish on the phone's back glass panel, which effectively prevents fingerprints and smudges. Aside from the large camera module and its somewhat slippery feel, the Vivo V29 has successfully struck the right cords with its design.

• On the display front, the Vivo V29 sports a 6.78-inch 3D AMOLED screen that bears Full HD+ (2,800 x 1,260) resolution, a centre-aligned hole-punch cutout for the selfie camera, HDR10+ support, 120Hz refresh rate, and 1,300 nits peak brightness. The viewing experience is pleasing overall, but it lacks the truly immersive experience that you get with smartphones with stereo speakers. The V29 only comes with a single bottom-firing speaker, which gets loud but not crisp at maximum volume.

Performance and software

• You will notice some notable differences between the two V29 series smartphones in this regard. The standard Vivo V29 is equipped with a Snapdragon 778G SoC instead of the more advanced and powerful MediaTek Dimensity 8200 chipset in the Pro model. However, it's important to mention that the smartphone performs well for everyday tasks, including web browsing, streaming, navigation, and even some light gaming. Multitasking is also a breeze; the handset seamlessly switches between tasks, even with several apps running in the background. 

• Moreover, the handset encounters minimal throttling, as evident in the CPU Throttle test, as well as effectively manages its thermal performance for the most part. The Vivo V29 is available in two variants: 8GB RAM with 128GB storage or 12GB RAM with 256GB storage. While the storage isn't expandable by users, it's worth noting that one can utilise a portion of the phone's storage to extend the RAM up to 8GB.
  

• On the software side of things, the Vivo V29 comes with Android 13-based FunTouchOS 13 pre-installed. Vivo has promised two years of major OS updates and three years of security updates for the smartphone. In the current scenario, the V29 doesn't look any different from other Vivo smartphones launched in the past year or so. While the FunTouch OS skin offers numerous customisation options, it also contributes to a slightly bloated user interface due to the presence of several pre-installed third-party apps.

Cameras

• The Vivo V29 camera setup includes a 50MP primary camera coupled with an 8MP ultra-wide sensor and a 2MP depth camera. This is a similar camera setup as the V29 Pro but the latter boasts a 12MP depth sensor instead of 2MP. The reduced quality makes the portraits from the V29 slightly underwhelming. Nevertheless, it appears to be doing a better job than its closest competitor OnePlus Nord 3 5G in our camera comparison test.
• Apart from the portrait mode, the Vivo V29's camera performance closely matches that of the Pro model. The 50MP primary camera captures images ready for social media with vivid colours, sharp details, and excellent dynamic range in daylight. The 8MP ultra-wide lens provides usable shots, although some distortion appears at the edges of the frame. In low-light conditions, the cameras did struggle while focusing on the subjects and took a fraction of a second more to process images. Be that as it may, I really liked the phone's Smart Aura Light feature, which improved image quality more effectively than the night mode. While some noise and a slight reduction in detail may be present, the results remain appealing.

• Much like the Pro model, the vanilla Vivo V29 gives you the ability to adjust the intensity of the Aura Light and play around with several styles in portrait mode. As for the selfies, the 50MP front camera captures images with decent facial details. The skin tones might not be accurate though.

Battery and charging speeds

• The battery on the Vivo V29 is 4,600mAh, which should be more than enough to see you through the end of the day without looking for a charger. The handset scored an impressive 15 hours and 46 minutes of runtime on the PCMark battery test, while the screen-on-time we got was somewhere around seven hours, which is again noteworthy.
• When it comes to charging, the V29 can be juiced up from nothing to 100 percent in approximately 42 minutes with an 80W charger provided in the box.

Final verdict

Editor's rating: 7.5 / 10

Reasons to buy

• The Vivo V29 boasts an attractive design.
• The display delivers a nice viewing experience.
• The battery capacity is more than enough to last an entire day.
• The handset captures images ready for social media.

Reasons not to buy

• The handset delivers an average audio experience.
• The software comes with several third-party apps pre-installed.
• The phone is powered by a slightly underpowered chipset.