Review Summary
Expert Rating
The Vivo S2 launched in India today as Vivo’s latest upper mid-range smartphone and marks the return of the S-series after nearly six years. It certainly makes a strong first impression with its premium design, featuring a sleek horizontal camera module and a 3D curved AMOLED display that closely resembles the Vivo X300 FE. But beyond the looks, does the hardware justify its Rs 39,999 starting price?
With smartphone prices steadily climbing across the industry, expectations for devices in this segment have also increased. While the Vivo S2 ticks several boxes with its large battery, AMOLED display, and Android 16 software, some compromises, like a 2MP secondary camera and the absence of an ultra-wide lens, are difficult to ignore at this price.
After spending time with the device and putting it through our usual tests, here’s our detailed review of the Vivo S2 and whether it deserves a spot on your shortlist.
Table of Contents
Verdict
The Vivo S2 offers an excellent curved AMOLED display and stereo speakers that make it a great multimedia device. However, its cameras aren’t the most versatile, and the chipset may feel lacking for power users. If display quality and in-hand feel matter more than raw performance and photography, the Vivo S2 is a solid option.
Design, display: premium and well-built
At a time when most phones in this segment stick to flat panels, the Vivo S2 offers a 6.83-inch 3D curved AMOLED display with a 1.5K resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and up to 3,000 nits peak brightness. On paper alone, it’s a strong display package you’ll find at this price. In everyday use, the AMOLED panel produces vibrant colours and crisp visuals, making everything from scrolling through social media to binge-watching shows look great.
The display also gets sufficiently bright outdoors, remaining comfortably legible even under harsh sunlight. The curved edges further enhance the viewing experience by making content feel more immersive. Paired with the stereo speakers, a feature I always appreciate on smartphones, the Vivo S2 offers an enjoyable multimedia experience with loud, clear audio.
The Vivo S2 also makes a strong first impression with its design. Despite housing a large 6.83-inch display, the phone feels surprisingly lightweight and comfortable to hold. One-handed use isn’t the easiest because of its tall form factor, but that’s expected for a phone of this size and doesn’t take away from the overall ergonomics.
At the back, Vivo has gone with a horizontal camera bar that houses the cameras and Aura Light. The design closely resembles the Vivo X300 FE, but I particularly like how the camera module sits almost flush with the rear panel. This means the phone rests flat on a table without the annoying wobble that’s common on many smartphones.
Our Silk White review unit is easily the standout colour. The rear panel features flowing patterns that shimmer and subtly change as light hits it from different angles, giving the phone a refined, premium look. The Vivo S2 is also available in Sapphire Blue and Regal Bronze. Adding to its practicality, the handset comes with IP68 and IP69 ratings, offering strong protection against dust and water.
Performance: dependable but not the fastest
The Vivo S2 is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7360-Turbo chipset, the same processor found in the Vivo V70 FE. While it’s a capable mid-range SoC that handles everyday tasks with ease, it isn’t the most powerful option in its segment. Competing smartphones such as the Redmi Turbo 5 and Motorola Edge 70 Pro offer faster chipsets at similar, or even lower, price points. In our in-house testing, the Vivo S2 scored 956,029 on the AnTuTu benchmark, which is close to Vivo’s claimed score of 970,000. The numbers suggest reliable day-to-day performance, whether you’re browsing, streaming, or juggling multiple apps.
Gaming performance is also respectable. The phone delivered an average of 59.7fps in Call of Duty: Mobile and 37.4fps in BGMI, while keeping temperatures under control with an average increase of around 5.25 degrees Celsius after 30 minutes of gameplay. Vivo’s Ultra Game Mode also helps by minimising interruptions and optimising performance during gaming sessions.
We also tested Honor of Kings, a graphics-intensive MOBA title, and the Vivo S2 maintained smooth gameplay on high graphics settings without any major hiccups.
That said, while the Vivo S2 is well-suited for casual to moderate gaming and everyday use, it may not be the best option for sustained heavy workloads. Pushing the phone with extended gaming sessions or demanding multitasking could result in occasional heating and minor frame drops, making it less ideal for power users compared to some of its performance-focused rivals.
Battery: reliable enough for everyone
The Vivo S2 is powered by a 7,050mAh battery with 44W fast charging support, providing more than enough battery life for a full day of calls, navigation, multitasking, gaming, and media consumption. In our PCMark battery benchmark, the phone lasted a respectable 14 hours and 57 minutes, reflecting its solid endurance. The smartphone comes with 44W fast charging support, which takes a little over an hour to fully charge from 0 percent. This is quite impressive for the phone’s battery size and charging speed.
Battery optimisation is equally impressive, with the handset losing just 5 percent after 30 minutes of COD Mobile and BGMI gameplay, while an hour of YouTube streaming also resulted in minimal battery drain. Although rivals like the OnePlus Nord CE6 and POCO X8 Pro Max pack even larger batteries, the Vivo S2 still delivers reliable all-day battery life and should comfortably meet the needs of most users, unless you’re a particularly heavy user.
Cameras: capable primary, but feels lacking
The Vivo S2 features a fairly straightforward camera setup, comprising a 50MP primary sensor and a 2MP secondary camera on the rear, alongside a 32MP front-facing camera for selfies. It supports 4K video recording on both the front and rear cameras and includes features such as Aura Light Portrait and Dual View Video. One notable omission is an ultra-wide camera, which is a common offering in this price segment. As a result, the Vivo S2 sacrifices some versatility compared to its rivals.
In terms of image quality, the primary camera performs well enough in daylight for social media-ready shots. However, the phone struggles in low-light conditions, where images tend to lose detail and exhibit visible noise. Colour reproduction is another area where the camera could be more consistent, as photos occasionally appear less accurate than expected.
To see how the Vivo S2 stacks up against the competition, we compared its camera performance with the Motorola Edge 70 Pro (review).
Daylight
The Vivo S2 falls behind the Motorola Edge 70 Pro in detail retention, with images appearing softer and less textured. Colours also look more washed out, with lower contrast and less accurate tones. In comparison, the Edge 70 Pro delivers better colour accuracy and handles dynamic range more effectively, preserving details in both shadows and highlights.
Portrait
Portrait performance is another weak area for the Vivo S2. Compared to the Motorola Edge 70 Pro, it produces washed-out colours and less accurate skin tones, with noticeable loss of detail in elements like clothing. While the Edge 70 Pro tends to oversharpen portraits, it still delivers better clarity and finer details overall. Edge detection isn’t particularly impressive on either phone, but the Motorola offers slightly cleaner subject separation and a more convincing bokeh effect.
Selfies
The Vivo S2 performs better than the Motorola Edge 70 Pro in terms of skin tones and colour accuracy in selfies, delivering more natural-looking results despite adding a touch of extra contrast. However, the Edge 70 Pro retains a slight advantage in detail and dynamic range, producing sharper images, which also look more appealing for social media.
Low-light (night mode)
In low-light shots with Night Mode enabled, the Motorola Edge 70 Pro delivers better exposure control and handles light flares more effectively. It also retains finer details, with textures like the brick carvings remaining more visible. The Vivo S2, meanwhile, applies a cooler colour tone that gives the sky a bluish tint. While the effect isn’t unpleasant, the Edge 70 Pro produces colours that are closer to the actual scene.
Overall, the Motorola Edge 70 Pro emerges as the stronger camera phone. It consistently delivers better detail, dynamic range, low-light performance, and more balanced colours across most scenarios. The Vivo S2 does have its strengths, particularly with selfie colour accuracy, but its inconsistent image processing and the absence of an ultra-wide camera make it less versatile than its rival.
Software: smooth with long-term support
The Vivo S2 runs OriginOS 6 based on Android 16 out of the box and is promised to receive three OS upgrades (up to Android 19) along with five years of security updates. The software experience is feature-rich, offering tools such as Shake and Share for quickly transferring photos and 4K videos between compatible devices, AI Creation, AI Transcript Assist, and Circle to Search 2.0. AI Creation on the iQOO Z11 Lite is genuinely useful. You can paste a long paragraph, add a simple prompt, and it quickly transforms the text into an email, a concise summary, or other formats.
OriginOS 6 feels polished and offers plenty of options for customisation and productivity. AI Creation, which we recently saw on the iQOO Z11 Lite, is particularly useful, allowing users to summarise long text, refine writing, fix grammar, and rewrite content with ease. It’s a handy tool for students and professionals alike.
That said, the Vivo S2 comes with 73 pre-installed apps, one of the highest counts in its segment. While most of them can be removed, the sheer number of apps makes the interface feel cluttered during the initial setup.
Verdict: should you buy the Vivo S2
Overall, the Vivo S2 stands out for its multimedia experience, thanks to its vibrant 3D curved AMOLED display, immersive stereo speakers, and premium design. However, it isn’t without compromises. The cameras lag behind rivals like the Motorola Edge 70 Pro, while the MediaTek Dimensity 7360-Turbo chipset may leave power users wanting more, with alternatives such as the Redmi Turbo 5 (review) offering stronger performance. That said, if your priorities are display quality, premium design, and reliable battery life, the Vivo S2 remains a compelling option in the upper mid-range segment.
Editor’s rating: 8/10
Reasons to buy:
- The Vivo S2’s curved AMOLED panel is bright and vibrant, giving it a premium look and feel overall.
- Its 7,050mAh battery is more than enough for regular and moderate usage, comfortably lasting for an entire day and more.
- Although it has a tall form factor, the Vivo S2 is still very lightweight and slim, making it easy to hold and use even for long periods.
Reasons to skip:
- The Vivo S2 lacks an ultra-wide camera, which seems like a huge compromise for its price.
- OriginOS is smooth and customisable, but it comes with one of the highest numbers of pre-installed apps.
