Full Details: Vivo X5 Max launched in China, now the world’s thinnest smartphone


vivo x5 max hero

Earlier today in China, Vivo launched their newest smartphone, and also the world’s thinnest phone to date! Here are all the details about the Vivo X5 Max.

Slim phones might not really be everyone’s cup of tea, but they do have their role. There are those who love a slim form factor most of all when choosing a phone, there is the media attention a company receives from a thin device, and there are also important manufacture and design rules learned from building one. So even if you are unlikely to buy t the 4.75mm Vivo X5 Max, chances are that similar small features and design elements make it in to next generation phones of all sizes.

vivo x5 max

One element which we believe we are going to see more of is Vivo’s “one sided critical layout” which Vivo say allowed them to reduce the thickness of the X5 Max by 1.77mm. This design sees 90% of all the internal components fitted alongside the battery. The down side to this means the phone needs to be slightly wider than most recent 5.5-inch devices, but the upside is a thin phone with great rigidity.

vivo x5 max

With a thin design and regular size headphone jack you would think that Vivo would have had to cut a few corners on the rest of the hardware, well think again! Vivo have managed to squeeze in space of a combination Micro SIM + Micro SD card tray (which can be ran with dual SIM if you remove the SD).

vivo x5 max

Gizchina News of the week


Vivo are famous for their HIFI Audio performance and for the X5 Max they had to design the world’s thinned BOX speaker with a thickness of 2.45mm! There is also a built in Yamahayss-205X chip on board to making this the first time an Android phone gets real-time vocal reverb sound.

Read Also:  Upgraded DTNO.1 DT8 Ultra+ smartwatch model just launched

vivo x5 max

Inside the phone lives an octacore 64bit processor with support for LTE, but it isn’t the Mediatek MT6752 we had all believed it would and instead it is a Snapdragon 615 chips with 2GB RAM running Funtouch 2.0 based on Android 4.4.4. There is also 16GB of internal memory, and that SD card slot we mentioned before is compatible with 128GB cards.

Vivo X5 Max hands on photos

As mentioned above the screen is a 5.5-inch panel that runs at a full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080, what’s more it is a SUPER AMOLED display for bright, colourful viewing and dark blacks.

Finally the camera set up includes 5 mega-pixel camera up front and 13 mega-pixel Sony IMX214 around the rear, which according to Vivo gives almost the same performance as the fantastic Vivo Xshot!

As you can see the battery size is missing from this run down of parts which is quite worrying considering the thickness of the phone. We are trying to find the battery size and will add details once we do.

Understandably, but worryingly the Vivo X5 Max has a battery size of only 2000mAh! That’s quite a concern considering the bright AMOLED display and LTE! A full review will hopefully reveal the actual battery life.

If you were interested in buying the Vivo X5 Max it has launch in China for 2998 Yuan, and will also officially go on sale in other Asian countries and India too. Thanks to Realjj for the details!

Also keep your eyes peeled for the Vivo X5 Max review coming to GizChina next month!

Previous Exclusive: hands on photos with the Vivo X5 Max
Next MXQ S85 wants a place under your TV this Christmas

36 Comments

  1. Atomicrus
    December 10, 2014

    Nice one, but the price of VIVO products is the main reason i will never buy them. Not because i don’t want to, they just cost to much comparing to a lot of others.

  2. Dr Solom
    December 10, 2014

    Battery ??
    price??

  3. molfetamina
    December 10, 2014

    WOW!! Snapdragon? We didn’t see it coming at all, right? 🙂
    BTW, what about phone sizes? Any clue?

    • realjjj
      December 10, 2014

      That’s Snapdragon is rather poor. It’s quad core not octa and not very high clocks.
      The second quad core cluster doesn’t seem to be able to work at the same time so all it does is save a bit of battery and fools people into thinking they get 8 cores.

      • Faux-News
        December 10, 2014

        Why need an octo core ? Its not phone meant for beastly gaming. Concern would be on decent performance and battery life.

        • realjjj
          December 10, 2014

          I never said i need anything, i was replying to a comment saying “WOW!! Snapdragon? We didn’t see it coming at all, right? 🙂 ” and that makes no sense because there is nothing exciting about it,if anything it’s a bit of a letdown since we expected more.

  4. realjjj
    December 10, 2014

    The battery is 2000mAh (listed on their site) but the price is the biggest problem , 2998CNY( 486$)

    • December 10, 2014

      hmmm 2000mah, about what I expected but really is it big enough? Price isn’t too bad for a Vivo really, but the Xshot can be had for only 2498, and I know where my money would go.

      • realjjj
        December 10, 2014

        The Xplay 3S is 2998CNY, also a much better deal but i guess they are counting on some really wanting the thin.
        2000mAh might be acceptable the SD615 is not exactly much, the higher clocked quad core cluster is not very high clocked and the second quad cluster at 1GHz helps save some power. The AMOLED screen should be using slightly less power so all in all battery life can’t be great but shouldn’t be terrible. It;s not like it’s targeting power users anyway so if you factor in moderate usage or less, battery should be fine.

      • Flow
        December 10, 2014

        The thing is that those other Vivo models are Single SIM, now they finally have a nice Dual SIM model and with a Qualcomm chip. A Snapdragon 400 is fast enough for my wishes (have a ZTE V5 now) so a 615 is only better.
        If the Oppo R1C will be Dual SIM as well, maybe I would buy the Oppo. But for now my money is on the Vivo.

  5. Angry Mobile Nerd
    December 10, 2014

    Only has TD 3G and LTE.

    Oh and I think Vivo will fail horribly in India because of pricing.

  6. Faux-News
    December 10, 2014

    Clearly all out better than the Oppo as expected, and more impressive looks than i expected with that metallic sides. But Vivo has not yet been able to get the camera right and like on Xshot has the camera protruding which should be their focus on the next version. Secondly have take into account that its a 5.5 inch and fairly big, so even though slim i wonder if that slim factor can be enjoyed on one hand usage. Note also that Oppo R5 with 5.2 inch screen also crammed in 2000mAh battery and hence one could say Vivo could have done better with battery size.

  7. December 10, 2014

    Well, impressive, Vivo. We see a lot of design clues from Oppo R5, similar technology by putting the inside components to one side etc. Oppo left a bit of room for improvement to the Vivo as it needs to be the big brother of BBK.

  8. Atomicrus
    December 10, 2014

    Nice one, but the price of VIVO products is the main reason i will never buy them. Not because i don’t want to, they just cost to much comparing to a lot of others.

  9. Dr Solom
    December 10, 2014

    Battery ??
    price??

  10. molfetamina
    December 10, 2014

    WOW!! Snapdragon? We didn’t see it coming at all, right? 🙂
    BTW, what about phone sizes? Any clue?

    • realjjj
      December 10, 2014

      That’s Snapdragon is rather poor. It’s quad core not octa and not very high clocks.
      The second quad core cluster doesn’t seem to be able to work at the same time so all it does is save a bit of battery and fools people into thinking they get 8 cores.

    • Faux-News
      December 10, 2014

      Why need an octo core ? Its not phone meant for beastly gaming. Concern would be on decent performance and battery life.

    • realjjj
      December 10, 2014

      I never said i need anything, i was replying to a comment saying “WOW!! Snapdragon? We didn’t see it coming at all, right? 🙂 ” and that makes no sense because there is nothing exciting about it,if anything it’s a bit of a letdown since we expected more.

  11. realjjj
    December 10, 2014

    The battery is 2000mAh (listed on their site) but the price is the biggest problem , 2998CNY( 486$)

    • Andi Sykes
      December 10, 2014

      hmmm 2000mah, about what I expected but really is it big enough? Price isn’t too bad for a Vivo really, but the Xshot can be had for only 2498, and I know where my money would go.

    • realjjj
      December 10, 2014

      The Xplay 3S is 2998CNY, also a much better deal but i guess they are counting on some really wanting the thin.
      2000mAh might be acceptable the SD615 is not exactly much, the higher clocked quad core cluster is not very high clocked and the second quad cluster at 1GHz helps save some power. The AMOLED screen should be using slightly less power so all in all battery life can’t be great but shouldn’t be terrible. It;s not like it’s targeting power users anyway so if you factor in moderate usage or less, battery should be fine.

    • Flow
      December 10, 2014

      The thing is that those other Vivo models are Single SIM, now they finally have a nice Dual SIM model and with a Qualcomm chip. A Snapdragon 400 is fast enough for my wishes (have a ZTE V5 now) so a 615 is only better.
      If the Oppo R1C will be Dual SIM as well, maybe I would buy the Oppo. But for now my money is on the Vivo.

  12. Angry Mobile Nerd
    December 10, 2014

    Only has TD 3G and LTE.

    Oh and I think Vivo will fail horribly in India because of pricing.

  13. Faux-News
    December 10, 2014

    Clearly all out better than the Oppo as expected, and more impressive looks than i expected with that metallic sides. But Vivo has not yet been able to get the camera right and like on Xshot has the camera protruding which should be their focus on the next version. Secondly have take into account that its a 5.5 inch and fairly big, so even though slim i wonder if that slim factor can be enjoyed on one hand usage. Note also that Oppo R5 with 5.2 inch screen also crammed in 2000mAh battery and hence one could say Vivo could have done better with battery size.

  14. Linus
    December 10, 2014

    Well, impressive, Vivo. We see a lot of design clues from Oppo R5, similar technology by putting the inside components to one side etc. Oppo left a bit of room for improvement to the Vivo as it needs to be the big brother of BBK.

  15. Ethos Evoss
    December 10, 2014

    bjuutifl .. shame no 4g in |EU …

  16. Ethos Evoss
    December 10, 2014

    that protruding camera SUCKS

  17. Hape
    December 10, 2014

    The XShot with ‘only’ 2600mA amazes me every time again how much juice is left at the end of the day.
    Vivo seems to know how to save energy so I expect this X5 Max to be OK for normal use.

  18. Guest
    December 10, 2014

    bjuutifl .. shame no 4g in |EU …

  19. Guest
    December 10, 2014

    that protruding camera SUCKS

  20. Guest
    December 10, 2014

    The XShot with ‘only’ 2600mA amazes me every time again how much juice is left at the end of the day.
    Vivo seems to know how to save energy so I expect this X5 Max to be OK for normal use.

  21. Freddy Johansen
    December 12, 2014

    It will go on sale in other Asian countries AND India? I always though India was in Asia.

  22. Freddy Johansen
    December 12, 2014

    It will go on sale in other Asian countries AND India? I always though India was in Asia.

  23. Niceguy1969
    February 5, 2015

    Hi Andi,
    when can we expect to see the full review of Vivo X5 Max you promised to post in January? Thank you!

  24. Niceguy1969
    February 5, 2015

    Hi Andi,
    when can we expect to see the full review of Vivo X5 Max you promised to post in January? Thank you!