The vivo V29 has just been introduced to the Malaysian market as the brand’s latest mid-range smartphone, with a focus on a trendy design and photography. Available in black and purple, I managed to get my hands on the phone but at the time, they only had the purple version for me to try out, which is a shame as I’m not personally a fan of the flashiness.
Starting with the specs, the shiny phone sports a 6.78-inch 2800×1260 curved AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 1,300 nits. It’s a very tall, bright, and sharp screen and surprisingly, despite the size, it’s not that heavy. With the slim profile and curved display, it’s relatively easy to hold in the hand even with the size of the phone.
Inside, the V29 runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G chipset and is paired with 12GB of RAM and up to 512GB of internal storage. For connectivity, it supports Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.2, and NFC. It also packs a moderate-sized 4,600mAh battery with support for 80W wired fast charging.
The main attraction of the phone is, no doubt, the design. Specifically, the back panel, which is a shiny, reflective design with a gradient. This is definitely not for everyone as it’s obviously very loud, but if you want to accessorise with your phone, it’s a fun pop of colour. Unfortunately, it’s not completely fingerprint resistant, but it holds up better than a plain ol’ shiny glass back.
For photography, it tries to stand out from the crowd by offering an aura ring light. The circular flash enables you to control the lighting temperature of the photo by adjusting the colour of the ring light. It can be set to automatic but if you know what you’re doing, you can also manually adjust the colour. As to how it performs, it’s not the brightest flash around but it can make for some fun close-ups and portrait photos.
The back of the phone features a rear camera setup made up of a 50MP main camera with OIS, an 8MP ultra-wide lens, and a 2MP depth sensor. It’s nice that the entire camera island is in a single rectangle with all the lenses sitting flush in the module, so there’s less wobbling when put on a flat surface. Up front, the punch-hole cutout houses a 50MP selfie snapper with autofocus and all the usual facial enhancement features, if natural’s not your thing.
The V29 starts from RM1,899 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, although you can upgrade to 512GB with a price tag of RM2,099.
