At a time when profit margins have become razor thin, strong marketing, quick portfolio refresh, powerful specifications at relatively affordable prices, and multi-channel presence are a few key reasons why Chinese smartphone brand Vivo is performing better than the local and global OEMs in India. The company’s strategies and the product portfolios are more aligned to suit the local needs and preferences, which is one of Vivo’s key strengths in India.
According to Counterpoint Research Vivo’s shipments remained almost flat year-over-year, however, its performance remained strong in sub- Rs 10k price segment thanks to the Y91 series. Following the strategy of other players such as Xiaomi, Vivo also came up with its online exclusive series – Z1 Pro to increase its online presence. Until now the majority of its portfolio was aligned towards the offline segment. And to further boost its online presence, Vivo has launched the Z1x smartphone in India that comes with a triple rear camera setup that goes head to head with the likes of Redmi Note 7 Pro, Realme X, etc. Let’s take a closer look at the device.
The Z1x comes in two variants – 6GB+64GB and 6GB+128GB, priced at Rs 16,990 and Rs 18,990, respectively. Available in fusion blue and phantom purple, the smartphone will go on sale starting September 13 on Flipkart and vivo India E-store.
Gone are the days when smartphones were majorly available in grey, black and white colours. Today, a lot of design and colour variations can be found not only in the high-end range but also in the mid-budget smartphones. The Vivo Z1x is a prime example of this trend. At the front, despite a notch, the screen feels like a big canvas. At the back, there is glossy multi-colour finish, which is carried over frames as well. The phone doesn’t feel cheap and certainly looks like a well-designed device.
At the back, there is a triple camera setup aligned vertically in the top left corner of the device. For security, the smartphone offers in-display fingerprint sensor and face-unlock along with standard PIN lock.
For added assistance, Vivo has included a smart button, which can be used to wake up Google assistant on a single press, a double press opens the image recogniser and a press and hold opens the Google Search. In addition to Google’s frequently-used voice functions, you can also customise the smart button to take a photo in the night mode, use the rear camera to help you take a live photo, go to screen recording, etc.
The Z1x offers a full-HD+ Super AMOLED display with a 19:5:9 aspect ratio and a 90 per cent screen-to-body. The display is great enough to watch videos, play games as it produces good colour reproduction. With the presence of the notch, a few apps such as YouTube will be displayed full, while in other apps such as Spotify, you will notice a black bar that sits at the top that displays cellular information, battery percentage, time, etc. The brightness and clarity of the display is great and so is the sun-light readability – texts appeared sharp and colours appeared vibrant.
The Z1x comes with the Snapdragon 712 SoC, a processor powerful enough to run even the most demanding apps and game with relative ease. Now, for many users, one of the necessary conditions that a new phone must satisfy is that it must offer lag-free and seamless PUBG gaming experience. In other words, PUBG Mobile Game has become the ultimate benchmark of a phone’s performance – the better it runs the game, the better it’s considered to be in terms raw of power. And, I am more than confident to say that the Z1x runs PUBG wonderfully at highest graphics setting.
The smartphone runs FunTouch OS 9.1 on top of Android Pie OS. In the dark colour mode, instead of a simple change of colour, the depth of the UI elements is also adapted to suit the dark theme for a more pleasant viewing experience. Under the Smart Launcher, the ready-to-use toolkit will help you cean up your Phone, access the calculator, recorder and other functions with just a single tap. The multiple steps in any functional operation can now be merged into one shortcut, and all these steps will now be automatically completed when you tap on the shortcut.
The 4,500mAh battery easily lasted for a day and a half on a mixed usage that for me involved browsing through social media feeds, playing PUBG for an hour and watching videos – all while connected to the Wi-Fi. The 22.5W FashCharge technology helps in quickly charging the device when it runs out of juice.
The triple camera setup consists of a 48-megapixel Sony IMX582 sensor, an 8MP wide-angle lens and a 2MP portrait lens. At the front, there is a 32MP front camera. Overall, the rear camera captures great colours in bright sunlight and the portrait mode clearly identifies subject and the background for a great bokeh effect image.
The time-lapse photography feature has been upgraded allowing you to also manually set different speeds to fulfill the shooting requirements of different scenes. There is also a 60-seconds short video mode that allows users to add real-time special video effects and custom music
At Rs 18,990, the Vivo Z1x puts a tough fight against its counterparts in the sub-Rs 20k smartphone segment. The smartphone offers a big battery, powerful performance and a balanced set of cameras to suit your photography needs.
