Vivo X50 review: The outstanding mid-ranger

The Vivo X50 was launched recently in India at a starting price of Rs 34,990. The smartphone comes with a number of cool features like a quad-camera setup, a 48MP primary sensor and a massive 6.5-inch display that has support for HDR10+. The handset sounded great on paper and we couldn’t wait to get our hands on it. We spent more than a week with the device and here’s our Vivo X50 review:

Vivo X50 design and display

In terms of the design, Vivo X50 surely impresses. The smartphone is very good to look at and comes with a sturdy built and a premium form factor. The back panel of the Vivo X50 is frosted and it houses the camera panel, the LED flash and sports Vivo‘s branding. We really liked the fact that the matte finish of the back panel us such that it doesn’t catch fingerprints too easily. The device is available in two colour options: Frost Blue and Glaze Black. We got the former one for the review and we think it looked splendid.

The handset has a metallic frame on its edges and while the right one has the volume rocker keys and the power button sandwiched on it, the secondary microphone is on the top and the SIM tray, primary microphone, Type-C port and speaker grille are on the bottom.

Flip the device over and you will be greeted by its 6.56-inch Full HD+ AMOLED display that has a refresh rate of 90Hz and comes with HDR10+ certification. The screen is outlined by very thin bezels on all four sides, and this adds to the premium looks of the device. The display also has a hole-punch cut-out selfie camera on the top left and a fingerprint scanner is embedded towards the bottom.

The display is undoubtedly one of the best aspects of the smartphone. The colours projected are bright and vibrant and they remained consistent at different viewing angles. The images were sharp and clear at all times and it was a delight to play games and watch content from YouTube on it. The sunlight readability of the smartphone’s display was decent too.

To put it in a nutshell, the design as well as the display of Vivo X50 are definitely among its pros and were both very impressive. The phone is beautiful to look at and the display is a treat to the eye.

Vivo X50 performance and camera

Moving on, let’s talk about the performance of Vivo X50. But before we do that, let’s take a minute to take a look at the rest of its specifications. Vivo X50 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 SoC clubbed with 8GB of RAM. The smartphone is available in two storage options – 128GB and 256GB. The device runs Android 10 skinned with Funtouch OS 10.5 and it houses a 4,200mAh battery. The charger in the box comes with support for the company’s 33W FlashCharge technology. For imaging duties, there is a 48MP primary camera, an 8MP ultra-wide sensor, a 13MP portrait lens and a 5MP macro lens.

The customised-Android skin of the smartphone comes with a number of customizations. First and foremost, there is bloatware on the device. You’ll find some apps like Angry Birds, PhonePe and Facebook, and a number of others that are Vivo’s own. We should mention that Vivo’s own app cannot be uninstalled from the smartphone.

There are a number of app shortcuts and the device comes with a Digital Wellbeing feature as well. You also have the option of customizing the lighting effects for call or other notifications in the Settings section.

Moving further, the performance of Vivo X50 is really good. The biometric locks of the device work very smoothly and any function that you may wish to perform happens instantly thanks to the processor and the display with such a good refresh rate. There were times when we multitasked a lot on the handset, but did not face a problem even once.

Gaming on the smartphone is another aspect that got us all happy and excited inside. We played a lot of Asphalt 9: Legends and Call of Duty and the device handled them both very well. There is a Game Space app on the device that can be used to keep all the games in one place. Using this can also help you block incoming calls when you are playing a game and it locks the brightness of the display. You can also use it to record your screen while gaming. Even after prolonged gaming sessions, Vivo X50 did not heat up, and we think that’s definitely a pro.

The 4,200mAh battery of the smartphone easily lasts more than a day even with heavy usage that involves gaming, long phone calls, a lot of video recording, watching content on YouTube and using social media apps. With moderate usage, the device will easily last two days. Using the bundled charger, the battery of the smartphone can be charged completely within an hour.

Now, let’s speak about the cameras of Vivo X50. As we mentioned earlier, the device comes with a set of four camera sensors. The 48MP primary Sony IMX598 sensor comes with optical image stabilisation. The quality of the images taken from this lens is very amazing. The pictures capture a great number of details and the colours are vibrant and bright. You even have the option of turning on the AI scene recognition, particularly if you like images with slightly saturated colours. During the day, all the images taken were great, but in the ones taken in lowly lit areas or at night, we did observe some level of noise. However, if you enable the Night Mode, the problem gets fixed instantly.

The 8MP ultra-wide camera also does a good job in daylight. The details captured and the colours are both good, however, that’s only the case during the day. At night, the details deteriorate and the images get grainy. Plus, the Night Mode doesn’t help too much in the case of the ultra-wide camera.

Coming to the 13MP portrait lens, you can get an extremely zoomed-in view of the subject you wish to click. What’s better, users have the option of making edits before taking the shot. Most of the pictures that we clicked using this camera lens turned out to be great. We even clicked some images using the 5MP Macro lens of the smartphone and that too did a great job as we could capture even the very tiny details of the object being captured.

Even the 32MP selfie camera of the device works very well and we managed to get some very good selfies using it. However, the problem of the pictures not being good in lowly-lit conditions persisted. Plus, the Night Mode didn’t manage to do its wonders with this camera lens too.

Verdict

There is no reason for us to discourage you from buying the Vivo X50 as the device proved itself to be good in most categories. It has a beautiful design, a vibrant display, a lasting battery and decent cameras (we call them decent only because of the performance at night). But we should mention that in this price range, you can also buy offerings from OnePlus that pack a better processor. However, that should only affect you if you are a lot into gaming because Vivo X50 handles all major tasks very well.

Pros

• Vibrant display
• Beautiful design
• Lasting battery

Cons

• Dated processor
• Inconsistent camera performance