The Vivo V60, with portrait aura light
Ben Sin
I used to poke fun at Vivo’s V series of phones. Between its twice-a-year release pace (it feels like the marketing of one V phone has barely ended and the next one is around the corner), tendency to skip model numbers (the first V phone I tested back in 2017 was the V5, now we’re at V60), and previous focus on selfies and gimmicks (one year the V phones had a color changing backside), it was a phone series that was going to get a bit of snark from a cynical, middle-aged, selfie-averse reviewer such as myself. Especially since mid-range Chinese smartphones are a dime a dozen.
But something interesting happened in the past three to four years: Vivo became a legit mobile photography powerhouse. In fact, Vivo’s flagship phones are widely considered the best phone cameras in tech reviewing circles. And while superb hardware is a big part of Vivo’s flagship phone camera prowess, software processing also plays a significant role, and those image processing algorithms and smarts have carried over to the V series.
This means Vivo’s V phones, which began life as, in my opinion, a gimmick (the V5 marketed itself as “the perfect selfie phone”), are now tremendous value propositions for consumers who want a great phone camera without paying top dollar.
As I mentioned earlier, the first nine or ten V phones I tested placed heavy emphasis on selfie photography and weird gimmicks like color changing backs and pop-up cameras. But starting with 2023’s V27, the line shifted focus to prioritize telephoto portrait photography. That phone saw the introduction of a fill light which provided more even lighting than a conventional smartphone flash. The design of the V phones also matured, and by last year’s V30, I thought the phone looked very premium and sophisticated.
The V60 continues the momentum. It has a very sleek glass body that, paired with a quad-curved OLED panel, gives the phone a curvy unibody feel without hard edges or seams.
The Vivo V60’s front and back
Ben Sin
The phone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4, a new upper mid-tier chip from Qualcomm that, along with 12GB of RAM, keeps the phone fast and fluid.
Despite the sleek build — phone weighs just 192g and measures 7.5mm thick — the V60 packs a gigantic 6,500 mAh battery (by comparison: the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and iPhone 16 Pro Max pack a 5,000 mAh and 4,685 mAh cell, respectively). So battery life is no issue.
But the star of the show is the Zeiss-branded forward facing camera system, consisting of a 50-megapixel main camera using a Sony IMX766 sensor with a 1/1.56-inch sensor size, and a 50-megapixel telephoto Periscope camera with a 1/2-inch sensor. A half-inch sensor for a zoom lens is very large for a mid-range phone.
You pair the hardware with Vivo’s best-in-class image processing and tuning, and the V60 can grab portraits like the shots below.
A portrait shot captured at 50mm (left) and 85mm focal length (right) by the Vivo V60
Ben Sin
Portrait shots with the Vivo V60
Ben Sin
Portraits snapped by the Vivo V60
Ben Sin
I don’t know the official price of the Vivo V60 at the time of this writing, but this line usually sells at somewhere between $400-$500 (converted from Southeast Asia price). At this price range, I don’t think any other phone can grab images this good. It’s not just the on-point edge detection and artificial bokeh, but the color rendition and tuning. Although the telephoto lens of the V60 defaults to a 70mm optical focal length, Vivo’s software can do a convincing crop to produce what is effectively a 100mm portrait shot. These are flagship quality telephoto portraits snapped by a $450-ish phone.
Elsewhere, the phone’s 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera is mediocre, but that’s a perfectly acceptable tradeoff in my opinion.
So overall, the Vivo V60 is yet another Vivo phone with a tremendous camera experience.
Pair this with a large battery that can last all day and a premium in-hand feel, and this phone is an excellent offering. As I said, the Vivo V series used to be gimmicky, and I poked fun at it in past reviews, but now, it’s just too good for any snark.
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