vivo V40

The V40 ships with a dual camera setup at the back, featuring a 50MP primary sensor with f/1.9 aperture, 1/1.55-inch sensor size, PDAF, and OIS support. The primary shooter is assisted by an ultra-wide 50MP camera with a 119-degree field-of-view, 1/2.76-inch sensor size, and AF. As I mentioned earlier, the V40 comes with ZEISS-branded cameras this time around. To provide a more natural flash, the brand has included 'Studio Quality Aura Light' on the phone. To recall, the V30 series also had the Aura Light but in a rounded square shape. This time around, you get a circular light but the idea remains the same - to provide you with a natural flash that can improve low-light images without overexposing them, unlike regular flash.ZEISS multi-focal portrait allows you to capture some really good portrait shots at different zoom levels in various styles (Landscape Portrait - 24mm, Street Portrait - 35mm, Natural/Classic Portrait - 50mm) and edge detection was on point. I was consistently impressed with the portrait shots clicked by the phone and that is perhaps the strongest point in favour of the phone's cameras. The different ZEISS Style Bokeh effects available in the portrait mode - Cinematic, Cine-flare, Planar, Sonnar, Sonar, Biotar etc., are all fun to use and the multiple LUTs available for different festivals make this camera mode consistently interesting. Aesthetically speaking, the V40 captures some really good shots, irrespective of the lighting conditions. I specifically mentioned the word 'aesthetically' for a reason. In terms of details, if you zoom into some of the camera samples clicked by the phone, they often lack the details that some other phones in this price range manage to capture. This is especially noticeable towards the edge of the images. First, you can have a look at some of the camera samples I clicked with the phone and then we can dive deeper into its camera performance against competition.  DaylightIn the daylight shot, the Motorola Edge 50 Pro (review) boosted the colours too much for my liking while the V40 ended up blurring some of the objects at the edge of the frame.In this shot, the Realme GT 6T (review) was the clear winner by a distance as it produced the most detailed shot with colour accuracy. While the V40 was decent in terms of colour reproduction, the image processing and lack of details were quite clearly inferior to that of the Realme handset.UltrawideIn the ultrawide shot, the Edge 50 Pro produced an oversaturated shot that completely changed the way the actual frame looked. On the other hand, the V40 also boosted the colours a bit (but far less than the Edge 50 Pro) and still struggled with capturing details. Surprisingly, in this shot, the Realme GT 6T produced the least detailed shot and the overall picture was really grainy. In terms of colour accuracy, Vivo was the best-performing handset here and even in terms of details, the phone performed well, although details around the edge of the frame were still questionable.PortraitIn portrait shots, the V40 outshined the other two phones with ease. While all three phones offered good edge detection, the sheer variety of bokeh shots and the application of the bokeh effect itself gave a clear edge to the Vivo handset.Both the Edge 50 Pro and the Realme GT 6T aggressively blurred the background and failed to capture my skin tone accurately. Vivo V40 produced a shot that was miles clear of the other two phones in this particular department.SelfieIn the selfie department, the V40 produced the best image out of the three with colour accuracy in terms of skin tone and a decent amount of detail.In comparison, the Realme GT 6T produced a washed-out image, while the Edge 50 Pro was in between the two phones in terms of colour accuracy and details. In the portrait selfies, I found the GT 6T edge detection to be superior to the other two phones.Low-light (night mode)In the low-light shots, the V40 overexposed the shots and made them overly bright, which resulted in shots that looked rather unrealistic. In comparison, the Edge 50 Pro did a better job of handling the level of exposure.Realme GT 6T did not overexpose like the V40 but didn't produce as detailed shots as the Edge 50 Pro either. Overall, the Edge 50 Pro managed to produce the best shots in night/low-light conditions. 

While the Vivo V40 comes with some meaningful upgrades in many key areas, one aspect where it remains the same as its predecessor is the choice of processor. The handset comes with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 chipset at its helm, and this is hardly a surprise as many brands are still opting for this SoC in this price bracket. The phone comes with up to 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 512GB of UFS 2.2 storage but the unit I received had 8GB RAM and 128GB storage. The phone offers up to 12GB of extended RAM to help it tackle some of the more demanding tasks and run more than 40 apps in the background to make sure you don't have to constantly deal with reloading issues within the apps. To gauge the phone's performance against its top competitors, we pitted it against the Realme GT 6T and the Motorola Edge 50 Pro. In this comparison, we started by performing the AnTuTu benchmark test on all these phones. As the AnTuTu benchmark score is a quantitative measure of a device's overall performance, it evaluates various aspects of the device's hardware and software capabilities through a series of tests.There were no surprises in this test as the Realme GT 6T with its Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 chipset outperformed both Edge 50 Pro and the V40 easily. Despite featuring the same chipset, the Edge 50 Pro fared slightly better in comparison with the V40 on this benchmark. Next, we ran the Geekbench test on these same devices. The Geekbench score quantifies a device's CPU and GPU performance through various tests, providing an overall measure of its processing power and efficiency in handling single-core and multi-core tasks. Here too, the GT 6T managed to outperform both the other phones.However, the V40 performed better than the Edge 50 Pro in this particular benchmark test, indicating it can handle CPU-intensive tasks more efficiently.Talking about efficiency, next up, we ran the Burnout test on these phones to gauge how they performed under pressure. In this test, the Edge 50 Pro was the winner, followed closely by the V40. The GT 6T's performance was throttled to quite an extent in this particular test.MODELPRE-LOADED APPSSOFTWARE UPDATES (IN YEARS)SECURITY UPDATES (IN YEARS)Vivo V405134Realme GT 6T5234Motorola Edge 50 Pro4134

With a 5,500mAh battery and 80W fast charging support, the V40 managed to offer a pretty good backup for me in daily usage. I usually had some battery left by the end of the day, which is always a good sign. In our PCMark battery test, the phone lasted for 13 hours. This is somewhat similar to the backup offered by other phones in this price range.PHONECHARGE TIME (20-100 PERCENT)Vivo V4035 minutesRealme GT 6T32 minutesMotorola Edge 50 Pro16 minutes