Vivo V50 review: an iterative upgrade

The Vivo V-series has been catering to users seeking stylish, camera-focused smartphones. The latest addition, the Vivo V50, builds on the foundation set by the V40 (review) series, though this time, there’s no “Pro” model—at least not yet. While the V50 shares many similarities with its predecessor, it brings notable upgrades, including a larger battery, a more durable design, the latest software, and enhanced features tailored for wedding photography.

Does the Vivo V50 bring enough to the table to stand out in a competitive mid-range market? Let’s find out in this review.

Verdict

The Vivo V50 stands out with its striking design, vibrant display, and feature-packed camera system optimised for wedding photography. Its enhanced durability, long-lasting battery, and refined software experience make it a strong contender in the mid-range segment. However, it faces tough competition from the OnePlus 13R (review) and Motorola Edge 50 Pro (review), which have their respective strengths in areas like camera capabilities, raw performance, and charging speeds.

Design and display

The Vivo V50 retains much of the design language of its predecessor, the V40, featuring a sleek form factor with curved edges and an elongated circular camera module. The key differentiator this time is the redesigned camera module, which now houses a larger Aura ring light without a dedicated auto-focus sensor. Vivo claims this enhancement improves low-light portrait photography. More on that in the dedicated camera section.

*For the Titanium Gray colour variant.

Vivo has also enhanced the V50’s durability, equipping it with an IP69 water and dust resistance rating and a flatter display for added resilience. The screen features Advanced Shield Glass, a Custom Anti-Drop Protective Film, and shock-absorbing cushions at all four corners to minimise damage from accidental drops. Vivo states that the V50 has undergone over 70 rigorous tests, including drop and twist assessments, to ensure superior durability. I will still recommend using a protective case to avoid accidental damages.

Besides these structural changes, Vivo has introduced the V50 in two new colour schemes: Starry Blue and Rose Red. The Rose Red variant features a matte finish, offering a more subtle aesthetic, while Starry Blue is more striking—making the V50 the first handset in India to feature stereoscopic holographic display technology. This technology creates a dynamic, light-based effect, shifting colours and revealing a starry design when light hits the surface.

Vivo V50 is launching in India soon. Check out some design shots of the phone in Rose Red and Starry Night✨ pic.twitter.com/j5aV5jZmGe

— 91mobiles (@91mobiles) February 6, 2025

While visually captivating, the effect isn’t as seamless even with a transparent case. Without one, however, the phone’s glossy back becomes a magnet for fingerprints and smudges, somewhat diminishing its appeal. Be that as it may, the Starry Blue colour variant will be a good option for those who love to flaunt their smartphones.

The Vivo V50 features an in-display fingerprint scanner, which takes a fraction of a second to unlock the smartphone and is quite reliable. As for I/O, the phone offers a USB Type-C port at the bottom edge for charging and data transfer. Audio performance is bolstered by stereo speakers, delivering an immersive listening experience with a maximum output of 80.1 decibels—matching industry competitors.

The Vivo V50’s viewing experience has been taken care of by a 6.77-inch AMOLED display that offers FHD+ resolution, up to 120Hz refresh rate, and 4,500 nits peak brightness. Moreover, there are razor-thin bezels on all four corners. The display is sharp, and vibrant, and offers excellent viewing angles. It also delivers a high contrast ratio, rich colours, and decent legibility outdoors under direct sunlight. The handset comes with HDR10 support and Widevine L1 certification for streaming in FHD resolution from Netflix and other streaming platforms.

Cameras

The Vivo V50’s camera setup is unchanged from its predecessor. The handset sports Zeiss-powered dual rear cameras comprising 50MP OIS primary and 50MP 119-degree FoV ultrawide sensors. The front camera is also a 50MP shooter for selfies and video calling. The cameras have been optimised to deliver images with tonal accuracy and reduced noise. While the latter wasn’t always the case in certain scenarios, the V50’s colour science remained closer to reality during our testing.

For enhanced photography compared to the previous iteration, the V50 includes image stabilisation for blur-free shots and introduces seven portrait styles, with new iterations including Distagon, Sonnar, and B-Speed. These additions refine the smartphone’s wedding photography capabilities, offering unique bokeh effects. Distagon, at 23mm (1x), produces a hexagonal bokeh, B-Speed at 35mm (1.5x) creates a triangular bokeh, and Biotar at 50mm (2x) delivers a distinctive swirly bokeh effect. The Vivo V50 portraits and portrait styles can be appreciated for their edge detection and pleasing bokeh effect, but the facial details appear underwhelming.

Additionally, the Vivo V50 introduces exclusive Film Camera modes with a dedicated wedding frame, which is customisable for easy posting on social media platforms. It also features AI Studio Light Portrait 2.0, which offers a 100 percent increase in light output area compared to its predecessor. This light boost ensures pleasing low-light portraits without any harsh glare.

The overall Vivo V50 camera performance remains respectable with colour accuracy and dynamic range. But, how do the Vivo V50 cameras compare to competitors such as OnePlus 13R and Motorola Edge 50 Pro in various lighting conditions? Read on to find out.

Daylight

The Vivo V50 captures daylight images with an impressive dynamic range, delivering accurate colours and well-preserved details. However, its sharpness falls slightly short compared to the OnePlus 13R. The OnePlus device subtly overexposes images to preserve those finer details, which can appear lost on the Vivo V50 when zoomed in at 100 percent. That said, the 13R’s tendency to favour warm tones means it doesn’t highlight shadows as effectively as the Vivo, a trait that may appeal more to social media enthusiasts.

Compared to the Motorola Edge 50, the Vivo V50 offers more accurate colour representation but falls short in detail again. In contrast, Motorola enhances colours for a more vibrant and dramatic effect.

Ultra-wide

The results are similar in ultrawide shots. Despite having a smaller 8MP ultrawide sensor, the OnePlus 13R captures finer details that are lost on the Vivo V50, which utilises a 50MP sensor. The OnePlus also produces brighter images with better focus around the edges. In contrast, the Vivo V50 delivers more contrast-heavy images with deeper shadows, making them visually striking compared to its counterpart.

The Vivo V50 outshines the Motorola Edge 50 Pro with more consistent colour science when switching from the primary camera to the ultra-wide lens. Its tones appear more true to life, whereas the Edge 50 Pro excessively boosts colours. However, the Motorola device compensates with superior detail reproduction.

Portrait

The OnePlus 13R’s dedicated telephoto lens delivers superior facial details compared to the Vivo V50 in portraits. When captured at a 50mm focal length, the Vivo smartphone tends to smooth out facial details and overexpose images, resulting in inaccurate skin tones and clothing colours. That said, the Vivo device excels in producing a more natural-looking bokeh effect while its edge detection appears on par with the competition.

These portraits were captured at a 35mm focal length on both smartphones. The Vivo V50 produces images with soft hues and crushed shadows, while the Motorola Edge 50 Pro delivers deeper tones and more accurate skin colours. However, the Vivo excels in edge detection and fine details, with a more visually pleasing bokeh effect.

Selfie

In selfies, the Vivo V50 outshines the OnePlus 13R with its superior 50MP front-facing camera. It delivers better exposure for facial details and background elements, surpassing its rival. Additionally, the Vivo smartphone preserves shadows effectively and maintains true-to-life skin tones for a more natural look.

The Vivo V50 also outperforms the Motorola Edge 50 Pro in selfies. While both smartphones capture similar facial details, the Motorola’s colours appear slightly washed out. Additionally, the Vivo offers better exposure, preserving more background details.

Low-light

The cold tones of the Vivo V50 help it deliver better images than the OnePlus 13R in low light. The smartphone mimics the actual scene with slightly boosted colours along with well-preserved shadows and minimum light flare. The details also appear superior on the Vivo V50.

In low light, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro manages light flare more effectively than the Vivo V50. It also smooths out images to reduce graininess, though this comes at the cost of some detail. In contrast, the Vivo V50 retains more detail but at the expense of increased noise.

Night mode

With night mode enabled, the OnePlus 13R enhances images slightly but distortion is still noticeable across the frame. In contrast, the Vivo V50 excels at preserving details, though its night mode introduces some grain. Additionally, the device boosts colours, making images more visually appealing but less accurate in representing the scene.

With Night Mode enabled, the Vivo V50 reduces graininess while boosting colours. In contrast, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro shows minimal change, maintaining a similar appearance to its standard low-light shots.

Performance and software

At the heart of the Vivo V50 is the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 SoC, a dependable mid-range chipset that has powered several smartphones, including last year’s Vivo V40. The device offers smooth, lag-free performance for everyday tasks and multitasking, thanks to well-optimised software. However, in synthetic benchmarks, it falls short compared to rivals like the OnePlus 13R, which achieves higher scores on both AnTuTu and Geekbench.

That said, the Vivo V50 holds its own under sustained workloads, matching the OnePlus 13R in the same CPU Throttle test. Additionally, it offers better thermal efficiency and a more stable gaming experience, making it a solid choice for users prioritising sustained performance over peak benchmark numbers. At similar graphics and frame rate settings, the Vivo V50 heated up by 16.8 degrees Celsius on aggregate as opposed to 27.5 degrees on the OnePlus 13R while playing BGMI, Call of Duty, and Real Racing 3 for 90 minutes. The gameplay is also relatively smoother on the smartphone, although the difference may not be apparent.

When it comes to software, the Vivo V50 runs Android 15-based FunTouch OS 15 out of the box. While the pre-installed apps are in number (51 to be exact), the third-party apps are limited to just five: Amazon, LinkedIn, PhonePe, Netflix, and Facebook. These are some of the most common smartphone apps and can be removed if necessary.

The overall software experience remains pretty intuitive. There aren’t significant changes to the UI from the previous iteration, but the phone provides a suite of AI features. While the features may not be unique to the device, they prove highly useful—whether you’re effortlessly removing unwanted objects from an image with AI Eraser 2.0 or quickly searching the web for on-screen content using Circle to Search.

The Vivo V50 also enhances the calling experience with features like Live Call Translation and AI Transcript Assist, offering real-time translations in local languages and text transcripts of lengthy calls for easy reference respectively. However, there is still room for improvement.

Battery and charging

Like most new-gen Android devices, the Vivo V50 boasts a 6,000mAh battery, which is substantial enough to provide at least a day’s backup and then some on regular usage. The PCMark battery test, which automates a series of tasks till the battery life drops below 20 percent from 100 percent, is a testimony to that. The handset lasted for a solid 16 hours and 16 minutes during the test, which is higher than both OnePlus 13R and Motorola Edge 50 Pro’s score. During our video streaming test, the Vivo smartphone consumed a respectable 3 percent battery life after 30 minutes with 50 percent brightness and volume level.

However, for heavy usage, the V50 is not the most efficient smartphone. The handset trailed behind the OnePlus 13R whose battery was depleted by 16 percent in total after playing BGMI, Call of Duty, and Real Racing 3 for half an hour each. The Vivo V50, on the other hand, saw a 20 percent reduction. Be that as it may, the Vivo smartphone is still capable of lasting an entire day of moderate to heavy usage.

As for charging, the Vivo V50 offers 90W support that takes roughly 40 minutes to juice up from 20 percent to 100 percent. A compatible charger is also provided in the box. The charging speeds are faster than the OnePlus 13R, but slower than the Motorola Edge 50 Pro which can recharge its 4,500mAh battery in just 16 minutes with a 125W charger.

Final verdict

The Vivo V50, priced at Rs 34,999, presents a solid choice for those seeking a decent-specced smartphone in the mid-range category. While the OnePlus 13R may appeal to power users with its superior performance, it comes at a premium of around Rs 8,000 more than its base variant. Alternatively, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro is available for under Rs 30,000, but it falls short in terms of battery life, design, and camera capabilities compared to the V50.

The Vivo V50 stands out with its sleek, premium design, complemented by IP69 water and dust resistance, offering impressive durability and an impressive viewing experience. While its performance is steady, with smooth multitasking and decent gaming, it lags behind powerhouses like the OnePlus 13R in raw performance and benchmark scores. Be that as it may, the Vivo V50 compensates with better thermal efficiency and a more stable gaming experience. The smartphone also provides robust battery life, which is supported by fast 90W charging, though heavy usage can see a slight dip in endurance.

The cameras, though feature-rich, offer a mixed experience. The Zeiss-powered system delivers near-accurate colour science, good dynamic range, and a range of useful features, but it falls short in capturing finer details, especially with the rear cameras. On the flip side, selfie enthusiasts will be pleased, as the Vivo V50’s front camera outshines its competitors with impressive clarity and colour accuracy.

All these aspects make the Vivo V50 a reliable choice for users who value camera features, durability, and display quality over raw performance. 

Editor’s rating: 7.5/10

Reasons to buy

• Sleek and durable design with IP69 rating.
• Impressive AMOLED display with 4,500 nits peak brightness and 120Hz refresh rate.
• Large 6,000mAh battery with decent longevity
• The front-facing camera provides respectable facial details and near-accurate colours.

Reasons not to buy

• The ultra-wide camera can produce underwhelming details.
• Competitors such as the OnePlus 13R offer superior raw performance.