Despite taking some flack due to its 1440 x 720p display and its high price compared to the competition, the Vivo V7+, had some redeeming factors such as its sleek design, great audio output, and a long battery life. Today, however, we’ll be taking a look at the V7+’s smaller brother, the V7. With largely the same specs as the V7+ with a lower price point, will it be able to fill in the portion of the market that the V7+ left? Let’s find out.
Vivo V7
| Chipset | Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 |
| Screen | 5.7-inch IPS, 1440 x 720, 18:9, 2.5D Gorilla Glass |
| RAM | 4GB |
| OS | Android 7.1.2 with FunTouch OS 3.2 |
| Rear Camera | 16MP, f/2.0, PDAF, LED Flash |
| Front Camera | 24MP, f/2.0 |
| Storage | 32GB expandable up to 256GB via microSD slot |
| Connectivity | Triple slot, Dual-SIM, 4G LTE, Bluetooth 4.2, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, microUSB, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS |
| Battery | 3,000mAh |
| Others | Fingerprint Scanner, FaceID |
| Price | PhP 14,990 |
Unboxing
Design and Features
Aside from the smaller screen, you’ll be hard pressed to see any significant changes from the V7+ to the V7. Both smartphones sport the same minimalistic look that you expect from a certain fruit brand.
The display is a 5.7-inch IPS display with the same 18:9 aspect ratio and 1440 x 720 resolution as its bigger brother. The smaller screen means that pixels are packed tighter leading to a more detailed experience. Although the PPI isn’t much better at 282ppi of the V7 compared to the 269ppi of the V7+. Much like its bigger brother, the V7 comes with a near-bezelless state and the display does offer good viewing angles despite its resolution.
The V7 sports the same front-facing camera as the V7+, which is a 24MP f/2.0 shooter that’s accompanied by a notification light and LED flash.
Navigation keys has been integrated to the screen to maximize screen real estate. Although you still get a rather sizeable lip at the bottom of the V7. Further down are the microphone, 3.5mm audio jack, microUSB port, and a grille for the bottom-firing speaker.
Much like every Vivo smartphones in the market, the power button and volume rocker can be found at the right-hand side of the V7. They offer good resistance and the bumps are well-defined to avoid confusion.
The Vivo V7 comes with a triple slot tray on the left-hand side that can house two nano-SIM cards and microSD card at the same time since you might need to expand the 32GB internal storage of the device.
The V7’s backside is a beauty to behold. It’s completely solid and the design is only broken by the antenna bands at the top, fingerprint scanner, and the camera. Although they don’t detract from the sleek looks of the handset.
The V7 also comes with the same 16MP f/2.0 rear shooter of the V7+ together with an LED flash. Much like its bigger brother, there is a small camera bump but its size shouldn’t be a big issue.
With the same design philosophy of the V7+, the V7 carries over much of what made the V7+ so much beautiful to the eye in a lower price point.
User Interface
The Vivo V7 boasts the same Android 7.1.2 Nougat with FunTouch OS 3.2 as the V7+. As such, it does have the same features as its bigger brother. Namely:
- Smart Wake: Take a picture or launch apps quickly by gesturing.
- Smart On/Sleep: The V7+ can be woken up or put to sleep by double tapping or raising the phone.
- Split Screen: With a taller screen, using two apps side-by-side is much easier than a traditional 16:9 display
- Air Operation: Wave your hand over the display to check for notifications
FaceID has also been carried over, which allows the Vivo V7 to be unlocked by just looking at it. It works most of the time although it does have trouble under low-light situations. You’re better off using the fingerprint scanner if it’s dark.
Entertainment
Like with most 18:9 smartphones in the market, the Vivo V7’s screen is a good thing to have when watching movies. It’s tall (or wide when watching movies) aspect ratio allows movies to take over the whole screen. If you’re watching other media aside from movies, there’s also an option to fit or crop the display depending on your preference. Since it’s almost the same display as the V7+, the V7’s screen also delivers good brightness that allows the V7 to be completely usable under daylight. The colors, however, are a bit muted without a bit of tinkering.
The V7 doesn’t have the AK4376A audio chip from the V7+ but it doesn’t mean that the audio has taken a large dive of quality. Audio from the bottom-firing speakers are well-defined but doesn’t have the same punch as the V7+. It does an okay job under daily use but you shouldn’t expect audiophile-quality music.
Camera
The Vivo V7 uses the same camera app as the V7+. This means that you have access to features such as Auto, Beautification, HDR, Time Lapse, UltraHD, Slow, and Panorama. The handset offers standard options in its manual mode. Options such as white balance, shutter speed, ISO, and manual focus are there so you can carefully compose your shot.
Not much can be said about the Vivo V7’s cameras since they are almost the same as the V7+’s. Colors are natural and photos are fairly detailed. The V7 does have a bit of a problem under low-light.
Meanwhile, the front-facing camera delivers natural-looking selfies and groufies with beautification on medium. Photos can be a bit cartoonish on its higher settings so you might want to back off on the beautification.
Performance and Benchmarks
A Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 SoC can be found on the V7 backed by 4GB of RAM, which is pretty much the same as its bigger brother. This SoC is much more apt on this price range since our primary concern about the SoC.
The V7 performs pretty much the same as its bigger brother. There is a bit of lag under heavy work load but it’s nothing jarring. As far as benchmarks go, the V7 was able to get a score of 55213 in AnTuTu and 4727 in PCMark’s Work 2.0 benchmark.
Battery Life
The Vivo V7 does have a smaller battery compared to the V7+, although it’s not by much. Inside the smartphone is a 3,000mAh battery compared to the 3,225mAh in the V7+. Despite losing 225mAh, the V7 was still able to more than a day with medium usage.
The V7 only loses about an hour of usage based on the benchmarks. It was only able to reach 9 hours and 44 minutes with medium brightness and volume with Work 2.0 battery life benchmark.
Conclusion
Despite losing some features like the AK4376A Hi-Fi audio chip and a 0.2-inch of screen real estate, the Vivo V7 offers almost the same experience as its bigger brother at a lower price.
Priced at PhP 14,990, the Vivo V7 offers a much more complete experience at its price compared to the V7+. Despite slashing PhP 2,000 off the price and removing some features, the V7 remains a good overall experience. Much like the V7+, however, it has some deadly adversaries in this price range. Smartphones such as the Huawei Nova 2i, Moto G5s, and OPPO F5 are in this price range all with 2160 x 1080p displays compared to the 1440 x 720 of the V7.
Much like the V7+, the Vivo V7 still makes a name for itself for a good overall experience, despite the pixel count, the V7 is still a sleek-looking device with lots of features to offer to its customers. If you can stomach its price and ignore its competition, then the Vivo V7 will surely serve you well.