Vivo V23e Review: Delicate Design, Solid Performance

Vivo V series carries this label of being the most camera-centric segment in the midrange segment. The Vivo V21 camera turned out to be impressive in our review and now V23e is the latest member of the V series and a successor to V21e.

Vivo has seemingly altered the specs sheet slightly, but the new device still inherits quite many features from the old version.

Our Vivo V23e review reveals everything you need to know before making your mind to spend money on this smartphone.

Let’s go through some highlighting features first; you can also jump to the discussion right away or you can watch the unboxing video below also.

Vivo V23e specifications

• Display: 6.44-inch, AMOLED, 1080 x 2400px
• Chipset: Helio G96
• RAM/ROM: 8GB/256GB
• OS: Android 11, Funtouch 12
• Camera (front): 50MP
• Camera (rear): triple camera (64MP + 8MP + 2MP)
• Battery: 4050mAh, 44W charger

Simple design but attractive

Vivo V23e’s design is catchy and straightforward. The glass body makes it looks like a mirror, and a wanna-be aspect for those who love delicacy and premium looks over other things.

But it comes at a cost. The glass gets dirty quickly, and you need to keep it clean all the time. Thanks to Vivo for giving us a transparent back cover for giving us extra protection.

This junior member of the V series squad is only 7.36 mm thin, and with a flat panel on all four sides, the V23e is easy to grip for longer durations.

On the rear side, the Vivo 23e shows off a triple camera segment packed in a rectangular frame which juts out a little bit and causes wobbling on a flat surface only if you haven’t put on the back cover. 

Let’s talk about camera detail in its segment below.

Besides the volume and power keys, Vivo has placed all other controls at the bottom panel, including the single firing speaker. Although it’s a mid-range device, Vivo has skipped the 3.5mm audio port. However, a type-C to audio jack connector comes out of the box that helps to connect your wired earbuds.

The top panel of the phone only houses a secondary microphone.

Vivo V23e display

An AMOLED display of 6.44 inches coupled with a screen resolution of 1080×2400 gives enough screen asset to provide you with a perfect screen experience in this segment. 

However, I still believe Vivo could have further squeezed the top-notch and side bezels to give the front part a little more premier look.

I enjoyed the brightness level both in and outdoor. Screen content appears colorful that can also be customized from the display setting area. The downside is the 60Hz screen refresh rate instead of a more common 90Hz benchmark from some rivals. 

Since it’s an AMOLED screen, you get an always-on-display feature, under-display fingerprint scanner, and more brighter and darker areas as compared to a standard LCD. 

Vivo V23e performance

• Helio G96
• 8GB RAM
• 256GB ROM

In this latest version, Vivo replaced the SD 720G with Helio G96, which is somewhat similar or you can say marginally better than Helio G95 in performance.

The chipset offers 2 main cores clocked at 2.05 GHz whereas the rest of

6 cores are fixed at 2.0GHz. For graphics, the phone gets help from Mali-G57 MC2 GPU.

If you have used a device with an Helio G95 chip earlier, I tell you, the performance isn’t much different.

I got the following scores on the benchmark apps, Antutu and Geekbench. You can also see the realme 8 performance that features a G95 CPU in the following table.

	V23e	Realme 8
Antutu	337622	330822
Geekbench (single)	518	517
Geekbench (multi)	1872	1354

In real-life situations, the Vivo V23e does not disappoint with multitasking. I was able to run different apps smoothly without a hiccup. The 4GB extended RAM Vivo merges with the primary RAM can be really helpful for keeping the phone’s performance smooth and quick.

You can technically have 12GB of RAM at your disposal, which is more than enough for the heaviest tasking.

V23e can comfortably play PUBG at HD graphics, whereas Call of Duty can go to medium settings with a high frame rate available for both online games.

I faced no lags and frame drops during my gaming sessions. G96 seemingly does a tremendous job.

The 4050 mAh battery is a tad better in specs than the 4000 mAh of V21e, improving real-life performance slightly.

We comfortably ended our testing days with a little bit of juice left to browse some news sites before hitting the bed.

The 44 watts charger is quick to refill the battery in an hour which is much better than the 33 watts charger of V21e.

• Fingerprint scanner is faster than realme 8
• Movies and songs can produce great sound quality from the single firing speaker. The loudness is good for a mid-size room.

Vivo V23e Camera Performance

Vivo V23e gives us a triple camera setup on the rear side, with 64MP being the primary lens and further supported by an 8MP ultrawide angle lens and a 2MP macro lens.

But I am more curious to see the performance of the 50MP front selfie lens. 

Before showing you the camera results, let me give you a quick rundown of the main features inside the camera setup.

V23e camera feature

• It offers up to 1080p videos from the front and rear cameras. 4K is missing, unfortunately, but you can shoot at up to 60fps from the back camera.
• Electronic stabilization is available for front and rear videos. 
• Slowmo mode is present for the rear and front videos. Usually, we come across this feature on the rear cameras. Integrating it with the front lens is an excellent addition. Slowmo is limited to up to 720p resolution.
• Besides, you get Night mode on front and rear, double exposure, dual view, pro mode, etc.

Now let’s get back to the Vivo V23e camera result. The standard images at 1x are rich with details; HDR and exposure values are also reasonable.

The shots are not extra saturated in this default mode unless you select one of the preset filters for giving an extra touch.

The following video shows how the Vivo V23e camera can perform day and night with the help of its default camera app. Additionally, you will find our comprehensive battery test as well.