With the amount of interest in Chinese smartphones these days, many are wondering if there are more of the likes of Xiaomi, Oppo, and others like them hidden within the Great Wall. The good news is…of course. Huawei and Lenovo have taken great strides in improving their smartphone lineup, while OnePlus has what it calls the “2014 flagship killer”.
There’s another name you should take notice, as they have already set up base in Malaysia: Vivo.
Vivo is a brand that many may not have heard of, or may be vaguely familiar to those familiar with the smartphone industry. To those who follow the Chinese smartphone scene, Vivo once held the crown as the makers of the thinnest smartphone in the world (the Vivo X3) and also developed the world’s first smartphone with a 2K resolution display (the Vivo Xplay 3S). It has also built a reputation for including some of the best audio chips into its devices.
The Vivo Xshot
Its 2014 flagship, the Xshot was just announced last month. Like Oppo’s Find 7 and 7a flagship, there are two variants of the Xshot: the high-end “flagship” variant and a slightly lower-specced Elite. The Xshot is an Android smartphone with a 5.2-inch Full HD IPS display, 2600mAh battery and of course, LTE connectivity. The flagship variant packs in a Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 2.5GHz quad-core chipset with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, while the Elite variant sports a lower-end Snapdragon 800 2.3GHz processor with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. Both variants will also feature a microSD card slot that supports up to 128GB cards.
The differentiating feature of the Xshot smartphones is in its camera. Both the Xshot flagship and Elite variants sport Sony’s latest second-generation stacked CMOS 13MP sensor, paired with a bright f/1.8 6p lens. In addition to a dual-tone LED flash module, the rear camera sensor also sports optical image stabilisation (OIS). In front, there’s a massive 8MP f/2.4 sensor with wide-angle lens…complete with an LED flash.
The Vivo Xplay 3S
Perhaps the best part of this all is the fact that we may not have to wait long until we see it for ourselves. As we mentioned, Vivo has already set up base (quietly) in Malaysia, and has recently opened an official thread in our forums, showing off the Xplay 3S smartphone. Later, it was also announced that the flagship Xshot models will be coming to Malaysia next month – July 20, to be exact – for a retail price of RM1799 for the flagship model and RM1599 for the Elite variant.
Vivo Y11
Vivo Y22
Vivo Y15
Besides the Xshot, the other Vivo smartphones making their way to the country are the Vivo X3S (which has been spotted in the country since last month), Xplay 3S, and the lower-end Y22, Y15 and Y11 models. Alongside the forum thread, Vivo Malaysia also has an official Facebook page – though it doesn’t seem to be updated as often as the forum thread.
