vivo V1 Max

If you've seen other vivo smartphones like the X5Max, X3S and V1, you'll instantly notice the design elements they share with the V1Max. You'll find the same thick bezels around the screen, the silver-tipped navigation keys, and the dual-tone magnesium alloy and white plastic finish at the rear. While the 5.5-inch screen makes it a large device by default, the ample bezels add unnecessary bulk. In comparison, the OPPO R7 Plus (review), which sports a gargantuan 6-inch display, feels only marginally larger in the hand.

The 5.5-inch IPS display of the V1Max is equipped with HD resolution, resulting in a pixel density of 267ppi. The display is sharp, with good contrast and high brightness levels. The viewing angles are good, although sunlight legibility isn't its strongest point. It was smooth and responsive during our usage, and fine for both typing and gaming alike. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 3. 

The V1Max is equipped with a 13MP primary camera with LED flash, as well as a 5MP front camera. The camera app is neat and intuitive, with a spacious viewfinder flanked by two bezels holding the various controls. When viewed in landscape mode, you’ll find shortcuts for the gallery, the shutter button and the video mode on one end. On the other end are the flash controls, camera switch toggle and settings.

The V1Max runs Android 5.0.2 Lollipop, layered with vivo’s proprietary Funtouch OS 2.1. While the interface adds in several features you won't find on stock Android, it's still pretty heavy and complicated as far as custom UI's go, and might not appeal to all users. 

The vivo V1Max is powered by an octa-core Snapdragon 615 processor, consisting of two quad-core clusters clocked at 1.4GHz and 1.0GHz respectively. It gets 2GB of RAM and an Adreno 405 GPU to work with. During our few weeks of usage, the smartphone didn't have any major meltdowns, but there were noticeable lags when opening apps. And while it continues to chug on even with 10-12 apps running in the background, there is a general sluggishness to the interface which we're attributing more to the heavy Funtouch interface. The gaming performance is pretty decent, with richer titles like Riptide GP2 handled well. We did notice the occasional frame drop and mild overheating, but nothing that left us concerned.