It’s another year with another vivo flagship smartphone. This time round it’s the vivo V27 5G. This phone goes for around KES 54,000 and its packed full of new features and improvements like the ring aura light at the back and very nice portrait photography.
The phone comes with a clear flexible phone case, 80 Watt charger, USB cable, SIM Ejector tool and with the screen guard already applied to the display.
You can watch the video version of this review below.
Design
I have the magic blue version of the vivo V27 but it comes in other colours that include Noble Black, Flowing Glow and Emerald green. My phone can change colours form light to elegant dark blue when exposed to UV light. Very cool. Only the magic blue and Emerald green phones can change colour.
Judging by how big the phone is it’s unexpectedly very light in weight at around 180g. It’s also very thin measuring in at only 7.4mm thick. The back cover is one piece and curved to offer better grip.
At the front is a 3D curved display for an immersive viewing experience owing to the almost lack of black bezels.
The power and volume buttons are located on the right and at the bottom it has the speaker and USB C ports as well as the SIM Tray which can hold 2 Nano SIM cards. It has 2 microphones one at the bottom and one at the top of the phone.
Overall the vivo V27 5G has a trendy and fluid design and features a refined and compact camera module. The minimalist design that includes the aura light gives the device just the right amount of elegance. Normally over decorating the back ruins it.
Display
At the front is the 3D Curved AMOLED display with an in screen fingerprint scanner. It’s very fast. Another very fast security feature is the Face unlock.
This big display measures 6.78 inches or 172.2mm and can be easily held with one hand. It can display smoothly with zero lag and thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate, animations are smoother and fast paced gaming is made much easier.
The vivo V27 5G uses advanced vivo’s AI algorithms to blend color saturation, contrast and sharpness to bring the SDR video display closer to HDR. Also being a Full HD+ AMOLED display makes it the perfect phone to consume video content from YouTube, Netflix, Prime Video and others. Plus sound from the full range speaker is loud and fulfilling.
The AMOLED display has a full screen brightness of 1000nits so you can comfortably use it in direct sunlight.
Performance
How about the performance? The V27 is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 4nm processor with a Mali-G610 MC4 GPU. The official RAM is 8GB which can be extended up to 16GB by taking a small chunk of the total 256GB ROM.
The V27 received a score of 600,000 in the AnTuTu Benchmark. This was significantly higher than the V25 score. In addition, the New 4 nm Processor works in harmony with Extended RAM technology to deliver a smooth and enjoyable experience.
The phone can hold multiple applications in the background without killing them meaning that you will get your game, video or project exactly where you left off. This occurs without lag or the apps restarting.
When it comes to the OS. Thevivo V27 comes with the Funtouch OS 13 Global which is based on Android 13 and it currently has the April 2023 Android security patch. The user interface is very clean, of uniform colour and without a ton of bloatware. I also like these two features. First, the 3 finger swipe up that enables the split screen in an instant. And secondly the always ON display that has the time, date and battery percentage.
Camera
Watch the video above for a better camera review experience.
The vivo V27 5G has a triple rear camera set up at the back. The main lens is a 50MP Sony IMX766V Sensor followed by an 8MP wide angle and a 2MP macro lens. The introduction of this ring light on the camera bump is something I’ve never seen before on any smartphone, ever. This aura light contains 3 lightbulbs and it very bright. At the front is a 50MP dot in display lens.
The phone produces very nice and sharp portrait photos with the option of further increasing the quality in post using the Bokeh Setting. The Aura Light intelligently detects low ambient light and adds brightness for radiant & delicate complexions.
With High resolution selected, the resulting images are big in size and incredibly detailed. This means you can zoom in and see individual eye lashes.
Photos from the front and rear cameras are clear, sharp and detailed. I prefer the portrait selfie to the normal selfie. The auto focus on the human eye and face makes sure the subject is in focus at all times.
Photos from the night mode come out very nice when compared to the normal photo. In very low light conditions you will probably need a tripod because it takes longer for the photo to finish.
The maximum video recording quality is 4K @ 30 fps. That’s for both the front and rear cameras. The other qualities are 1080p at both 30 and 60fps. The dual view feature enables one to shoot videos using both the front and rear cameras at the same time. This is perfect for vlogging while travelling.
What’s amazing on this phone is the excellent video stabilization. Here is a sample with Ultra stabilization ON and OFF. There is a very big difference. The same applies to the Front Camera with SteadiFace.
Battery & Charging
Although an 80-watt charger is included in the box, the v27 can only support up to 66-watt flash charging. How long does it take to fill the 4600mAh battery? Well, from a flat battery I got 24% in 10 minutes, 66% in half an hour and full battery capacity in an hour. That is very fast, in fact it is faster than the previous vivo V25 figures.
Watch my full charging experiment below.
When it comes to battery life, I could get around 3 to 4 days’ worth of battery life. This can be attributed to the low power consumption of the Dimensity 7200 octa-core processor. So not only is it powerful, it consumes less power which is amazing.
In conclusion the vivo V27 is an elegantly deigned light weight phone with top notch performance and impressive camera qualities.
In fact I did this whole voice over on the vivo V27. That’s how much I like it. The only thing I don’t like is the lack of a pair of headset or the USB Type C to headphone jack adapter in the packaging.
Lastly there is another version of the vivo V27 which is the vivo v27e. Here are more details about it and where to buy.