Just before heading on vacation I received a brand new Vivo X5 Pro from Vivo Global, a phone I was very excited to receive, but ultimately been disappointed with from the start.
Early last year, due to the poor customer service and a dodgy Oppo Find 7 display, I found myself in need of a new phone. At that time I opted for the Vivo Xplay 3S, a phone I throughly enjoyed and the same device my wife used up until recently getting her hands on the Asus Zenfone 2 (she still prefers the Vivo). After the Xplay 3S I got a Vivo Xshot which was quite simply the best flagship phone of 2014 by far (of course my opinion but one I stick by).
With prior knowledge of Vivo phones I had high expectations for the Vivo X5 Pro and believed that the new glass and metal smartphone would easily live up to them. I soon discovered that this was not to be.
For design and build the Vivo X5 Pro is pretty nice. It boasts an alloy chassis inspired by the iPhone 6 and front and rear 2.5D glass panels. The body is thin too measuring just 6.39mm. All in all it is a good-looking and well made phone, but no where close to the level of design and build that Xiaomi managed with the Mi Note, and I wouldn’t say that the Vivo X5 Pro is much better than the LeTV Le 1 in build either.
So from a design and build point of view I would say that it isn’t bad but nothing to write home about either.
As I am discussing the build and size of the phone it might be interesting for some of you to know that the Vivo X5 Pro has a 5.2-inch display, yet it is physically the almost identically the same height and width as the LeTV Le 1 with larger 5.5-inch panel. The thin body also means just a 2450mAh battery can fit inside the phone. Vivo impressed me with the battery life of the Xshot and the battery life of the X5 Pro has been good too, but that might simply be due to lack of use (see below).
From my experience with Vivo phones I know them to be fast, stable and have a very well optimised FunTouch ROM based on Android. The Vivo X5 Pro is a huge disappointment compared to my previous experiences.
The fundamental issue with the phone is the 1st generation Snapdragon 615 chipset running at 1.5hz. This 64bit octacore processor should easily be able to handle gaming, social media and any other application you might choose to run. In reality though the processor is junk. The SD615 overheats and is slow to respond to the simplest of tasks. Even opening the camera from the lock screen takes a few seconds, a totally unacceptable length of time given the cost of the phone and the fact it should be a premium mid-range device.
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The X5 Pro isn’t the only Snapdragon 615 phone we have had issues with. The Xiaomi Mi4i is also a terribly laggy and constantly overheating device, but I feel the Vivo suffers even more.
After discovering the phone is just simply too slow, I quickly moved on to the camera. Vivo usually do very well in the camera department. Both the Xshot and Xplay 3S had great camera’s for their time, surely the Vivo X5 Pro could redeem itself?
Unfortunately no. The 13 mega-pixel F2.0 camera on the Vivo X5 Pro has all the signs of a great camera but the performance is hit and miss. Take the phone out and snap a photo in perfect conditions and you might get a good image if the focus responds fast enough. Use the phone in low light or night conditions and you will quickly find the results are terrible and you won’t likely try again!
Vivo X5 Pro Day Light Photos Samples
Speaking of night-time performance, the Vivo X5 Pro lens reflect light much more than I have experienced on other phones. Taking a photo at night with street lamps around will result in light blotches from those light sources showing up in your images. The effect looks almost like UFO’s which would be cool if it wasn’t so annoying.
The scary thing is I believe the proximity of the lens to the camera sensor is to blame here and it isn’t likely to get fixed in OTA updates.
Vivo X5 Pro Night Photo Samples
As you can see there is a ton of noise in these photos. Also, those white dots are not stars, that is light reflecting from the lens.
I’ve carried my Xiaomi Mi Note and LeTV Le 1 along with me when using the Vivo X5 Pro, and both of these devices are simply light years ahead of the Vivo in speed, optimisation and camera performance. This leads to me opting to use the LeTV and Xiaomi phones more often. This might be why I am seeing better battery life from the Vivo too.
Are their any good point? Well yes there are. The Super AMOLED display is much clearer to see in sunny conditions than a standard display. Fun touch OS is feature packed, Audio is outstanding as usual, and GPS is super fast and accurate but that’s not enough!
So far the Vivo X5 Pro is not a phone I can happily recommend you buy. Sure it looks great, has nice features and build and the hardware looks great on paper, but in use it is laggy, unstable and performs badly in most situations.
The issue is really that Snapdragon 615, if it had a comparable Meidatek processor or even last years Snapdragon 801, and the camera issues fixed then the Vivo X5 Pro would have been killer.
[ Vivo Global ]
I’m happy to hear such conflicting experiences between two phones by the same manufacturer, especially one now being sold on the gizchina store. Keep up the honest reviews.
if not even Vivo can deliver a good phone then i can see Meizu selling their phones like candies.
With all the negativity, i still dont see why manufacturers keep using these hotplates. They are more expensive than their Taiwanese counterparts even slower. I guess people are just blind to the truth.
Most likely many of them have deals with Qualcomm in which the actual price paid isn’t that far off from what MTK devices sell for and could even be cheaper.
Seriously? So what happens when consumers dont buy these phones because the processor isnt good enough? Who looses?
the majority of customers don’t even know about a processor.
mostly they look at the design and camera.
Thats is true to an extent. But people who buy unknown brands usually do research before buying.
yeah but sometimes even with a research you don’t really know what’s the deal until you buy it.
look at how many disappointed people leaving comments about this or that phone. Even Balcobomber bought an Elephone!!! hehe.
Yes he did and he bought a Doogee.
seriously, how many people have been through the “too good to be true”.
it doesn’t matter how many reviews somebody reads, if you think you are getting the best deal, you’ll buy it and then you’ll regret it.
myself included, it’s in man’s nature.
that’s why scammers are always in business!
I have convnced myself before that a phone would be amazing despite the negative reviews. On the same hand though I have read some negative reviews and ended up loving the device. I usually try to avoid negative or positive reviews and look for ones that highlight strengths and weaknesses.
Or if it is a brand I love I ignore the reviews listen to Frank Sinatra’s My Way and order the damn phone lol.
But what percentage of their sales are from people who never heard of the brand before? The majority of phone buyers though really don’t know the difference between a SD and MTK SoC. They buy phones because of the brand name, the price, the design or the camera. They see that it has a Snapdragon or that it scored 40,000 on Antutu and they think its amazing. We even get some of those comments on here from time to time.
Do they even have a choice when it comes to processors? Which android phone in the west does not carry a Qualcomm processor other than the S6 family. Nvidia Tegra and Ti OMAP were the only ones to compete in the processor market, OMAP is dead and nvidia cant seem to make a processor for mobile phones. Sooner or later phone manufacturers will have to adopt mediatek. All of MTK’s present gen chips beat qualcomm’s across the board, both in terms of performance and heat dissipation.
Plus you don’t know how a Mediatek phone would sell in the West.
Personally i would buy it blindfolded, but people are still used to Qualcomm devices and they don’t want to hear about anything else, not even Samsung.
Look at how many S4 S5 have been sold with a Qualcomm SoC or how HTC makes their E9+ only for Asian market.
Yup just read the tech bloggers from the US. Many of them are still clueless about Mediatek and Chinese phones in general.
Wow, now this is what I call an honest review.
That’s what I find bad about some Chinese companies – they suggest amazing value products only for few years after foundation. Once company get millions of sales, they try to mask worse products under famous nam to get more profit.
Vivo never played the budget market.
From what I see, the Vivo x5 pro is Vivo experimenting and tuning built quality for their real upcoming flagships.
Certain brands in China have always been priced more than others, Vivo is one of them. They always made premium phones for a premium segment. Whether they were premium because of their super thin design, amazing camera or amazing audio they were always a step above the competition in some way.
Guys, I did not want to say Vivo was a budget company. I wanted to say that they don’t suggest anything worth the price in their budget models, except the famous name. They offer amazing flagships, but once these get more sales, they start producing phones like this to take adventage of their name.
But they have always been producing phones like this, this isn’t something new because they have a big name. And although this particular one isn’t that great due to a poorly optimized SoC, I disagree that they don’t offer anything worth the price. Vivo has excellent build quality, a stable UI, good cameras and some of the best audio in any phone as well as good customer service. They are not a brand for everyone but they do offer something that companies like Elephone never come close to: quality.