Vivo S1 Pro Review and Price in Nepal! What's better than Redmi K20 & Oppo F15?

Vivo recently launched Vivo S1 Pro a year ago in November 2019. It is the successor to S1, a style-centric phone in the Vivo’s gallery. Like it’s predecessor, the Vivo S1 Pro too holds a fantastic design but now with an extra fashionable punch. The rear holds a diamond-shaped camera module and it gets a modern Type-C USB port, the design on the corners of the back is awesome, and it packs some serious specs too.

Vivo S1 Pro comes with an affordable price tag and is in competition with other mid-rangers like Redmi K20, Oppo F15, and Realme X2. This smartphone is a go-to device for those who like a stylish phone with higher specs and all that at a mid-range price.

Design and Display

As Vivo says, the S1 Pro is inspired by fine jewelry and royal palaces. Though we didn’t find any throne room, Durbar Hall, or any type of fine jewelry on this phone, what we did find was a specular back design that highlights this fabulous piece of work by Vivo in the competitive market. Yes, the front has the same look as it was in S1, but the back is the real deal here. The diamond pattern camera module combined with the round edgy design, sleek and glossy looks simply define this phone as Style 1 Pro (as Vivo intended).

It holds a glass sandwich design, glass front and back with aluminum frame. The front features a 6.38 inches Super AMOLED display. On the top center of the display, there is a tear-drop notch holding a 32 MP selfie camera. There is an in-display fingerprint sensor too that works super fine. The power button and the volume buttons are placed on the right side of the phone and to the left, there is a tray for SIM and micro SD card. The top houses a headphone jack and a charging port is at the bottom middle. To the left of the charging port, there is a microphone and speaker grille to the right.

This device measures 159.3 x 75.2 x 8.7 mm (6.27 x 2.96 x 0.34 in) and only weighs 186.7 grams which is heavier than its previous model but it is lighter than many smartphones of this range.

The curvy and edgy design on the back makes Vivo S1 Pro pretty much comfortable to hold. Though the phone features a glossy finish, it has got a great grip. Vivo S1 Pro features an awesome 6.38 inches Super AMOLED display that supports a hefty resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels with 404 PPI density and brightness of 430 nits max. With the screen to display ratio of 19.5:9, the user can enjoy almost full screen.

The AMOLED screen works like a charm when it comes to watching movies, playing games, viewing high-resolution images, etc. The screen is bright enough even for the broad daylight. The icon and text are sharp, the colors are vibrant and saturated, these all combined with a narrow bezel and small notch makes it a perfect screen at a really affordable price.

Camera

The Vivo S1 Pro comes with a unique diamond-shaped camera design. There is a 48MP wide-angle camera with an f/1.8 aperture lens, an 8MP Ultrawide camera with an f/2.2 aperture lens, a 2MP depth camera, and a 2MP Macro camera with both holding f/2.4 aperture lenses. The overall camera performance is good but not great. The landscape is not that great- as it fails to provide the natural color of the scene. The close-ups are awesome, with good color reproduction, natural tone, decent sharpness, and good contrast.

The bokeh mode works nice – the edge detection and the blur are nice all thanks to the depth camera. Though there is no separate night mode available, the night photography is decent if not as best as other competitors at its price range. The video is limited to only 1080pixels but there is a good stabilization, decent colors and details. Like the rear camera, the front camera also shoots 1080p videos but it lacks stabilization.

The selfie camera pretty much saves the reputation of this phone’s camera. The tear-drop notch holds a 32 MP wide-angle camera and it works at its best. It snaps very well processed photos that have good sharpness, nice contrast with a lot of colors, and ample amount of details. The images taken by the Bokeh mode are refreshing, it simply adds up to great effect to the selfie you take which definitely garnishes your social media.

Chipset

Considering the price of Vivo S1 Pro and other awesome features that you get with this wholesome device, it holds a powerful processor. It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 (11nm) chipset. It holds an octa-core CPU processor that includes four Kryo 260 cores clocked at 2.0 GHz and four Kryo 260 silver cores ticking at 1.8 GHz. It runs Funtouch 9.2 (an Android 9.0 based OS) as its operating system combined with Adreno 610 as its graphics processor. Though this chipset can be seen on other mid-rangers too, the combination of this processor with a large 8GB RAM is what makes this phone set a massive performance slayer in comparison to many of its competitors.

The Funtouch OS has upgraded and is user friendly. There is dark mode and you can customize the home screen and lock screen settings. You get themes from a dedicated theme app and there are a whole lot of options like gesture control, One hand UI, screen capture mode and advance screenshot among others.

The overall performance seems fair. You can do many things like multitasking, opening different apps, or any other daily stuff without any struggle- you don’t have to wait more or the phone won’t just start lagging. But you’ll notice the difference while playing heavy games like PUBG, COD mobile, or Asphalt 9. You need to lower down the frame rate of these games to play them smoothly. You can still play at a higher frame rate, but the experience won’t be as smooth as it should be.

Battery

The Vivo S1 pro is not just about style but it’s about heavy power backup too. It has a massive 45000 mAh Li-Po battery that supports a fast-charging of 18W. The battery lasts more than a day and a half which is more than enough for an average user.

If you charge your device full early in the morning before heading out then with active use of the phone (playing games, calling, internet surfing, watching videos, etc), you’ll still be able to have plenty of battery remaining at the end of the day. And if you use your device passively (not playing heavy games or watching high-resolution videos) then you’ll get it going for almost two days.

Vivo S1 Pro Full Specifications:

DISPLAY
Type: Super AMOLED
Size: 6.38 inches, 99.9 cm2 (83.4% screen-to-body ratio)
Resolution: 1080 x 2340 pixels, 19.5:9 ratio (404 ppi density)
Brightness: 430 nits max brightness

BODY
Dimensions: 159.3 x 75.2 x 8.7 mm (6.27 x 2.96 x 0.34 in)
Weight: 186.7 gram
Build: Glass front, Glass Back, aluminum Frame
SIM: Single SIM or Hybrid Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)

PLATFORM
Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 (11nm)
OS: Android 9.0 (Pie), Funtouch 9.2
CPU: Octa-core (4X2.0 GHz Kryo 260 Gold & 4X1.8 GHz Kryo 260 Silver)
GPU: Adreno 610

STORAGE
microSDXC up to 256GB (dedicated slot)
Internal: 128GB internal storage with 8 GB RAM

CAMERA
MAIN CAMERA (Quad-camera)
48MP wide-angle camera, f/1.8 aperture, 0.8µm, PDAF
8MP Ultrawide camera, f/2.2 aperture, 13mm
2MP Depth camera, f/2.4 aperture
2MP Macro camera, f/2.4 aperture
Features: LED flash, panorama, HDR, portrait, night scene

Video: 1080p video recording at 30/60fps, 720p video recording at 30fps
Features: slo-mo, time-lapse

Front Camera
32MP wide-angle camera, f/2.0 aperture, 26mm
Features: HDR
Video: 1080p/720p video recording at 30fps

NETWORK
Technology: GSM/ HSPA/ LTE
2G bands: GSM 850/ 900/ 1800/ 1900
3G bands: HSDPA 850/ 900/ 2100
4G bands: 1, 3, 5, 28, 38, 40, 41
Speed: HSPA 42.2/ 5.76 Mbps, LTE-A

SOUND
3.5 mm audio jack
loudspeaker with a Stereo speaker

COMMUNICATION
WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual-band, hotspot, wi-fi direct
GPS: Yes, with A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO
Bluetooth: 5.0, A2DP, LE
USB: USB Type-C 2.0, USB On-The-Go

SENSORS
Acceleration, Gyro sensor, Proximity sensor, compass, fingerprint sensor (under display, optical)

BATTERY
Li-Po 4500 mAh, non-removable
Fast charging 18W

COLORS
Knight Black
Fancy Sky

LAUNCH
November 19, 2019