Vivo Y15 Review; Beautiful But Far From Great

Vivo has a dedicated lineup of smartphones that aim to offer optimum performance without breaking the user’s bank for budget-conscious users. 

Vivo Y15 belongs to one such series with its siblings of likes Vivo Y91, Vivo Y93, Vivo Y17 in the local market. The latest model is lately gaining traction due to its flashy design, the powerful Helio P22 chipset, and massive 5000mAh battery that has piqued our interest in the smartphone.

It is available in Pakistan for PKR 29,999 (price at the time of the phone’s launch) and comes with the following key specs.

Vivo Y15 specs

• Display: 6.35 inches, IPS LCD
• OS: Android 9.0, Funtouch 9
• Chipset: MediaTek MT6762 Helio P22
• RAM/ROM: 4GB/64GB
• Camera (rear): 13MP + 8MP + 2MP
• Camera (front): 16MP
• Battery: 5000mAh

We can see from the specs sheet that Vivo has tried to compile an ideal budget phone, but can it stand out amongst the highly saturated smartphone market? Let’s find out in our detailed review.

Design and Display

Vivo Y series has a homogenous design language, which can be seen in its recent smartphones, including the new Vivo Y15. It is an all-plastic phone which comes with a glossy finish at the back.

The smartphone’s design language has always remained a focal point for Vivo, it reflects in the new offering. Though the glossy plastic body raises concerns about the phone’s durability, consumers today prefer looks over “what if” scenarios.

Vivo Y15 is a perfectly sized device, neither too big nor small, but the phone’s thickness (8.9mm) makes it challenging to use it with one hand.

You can find the power button and volume rockers on the phone’s right side while the SIM slot rests on the left side. The bottom of the device houses a MicroUSB charging port, headphone jack, and a speaker grill.

We were pretty disappointed to see the absence of earphones in the box, an accessory that even comes with budget Honor 8S.

At the back, you can find a triple camera array and a traditional fingerprint sensor which can easily be reached by the index finger even if you prefer using your left hand instead of right. The front of the screen is also quite beautiful, and we will get into its details later on. 

However, Vivo has provided very minimum bezels at the sides and a small noticeable chin at the bottom.

Vivo Y15 is a fingerprint magnet and is prone to get scratches easily; thus, we recommend using the company-provided back cover, which is quite sturdy and can protect the phone in case of accidental fall.

Vivo Y15 comes with 6.35 inches of IPS LCD and 720 x 1544 pixels of screen resolution. Almost all the Vivo Y series smartphones, including Y17, come with a 720p screen resolution. It is quite a disappointment, especially when budget phones like Xiaomi Redmi Note 7, Vivo V9, Tecno Camon CX, Xiaomi Mi A1 offer 1080 x 1920 pixels resolution.

If you can look past the disheartening 720p resolution, you will notice that the phone’s screen is large enough to enjoy consuming multimedia on the device.

The dewdrop notch at the top is not too big to ruin the user’s viewing experience, and the users who are not a fan of notched displays can choose to hide the notch via the phone’s settings.

Under direct sunlight, you will face issues while looking at the phone’s contents even with maximum brightness, while the auto-adjust brightness option fails to adapt to the user’s needs indoors.

To further customize Vivo Y15 to your liking, you can always tweak the phone’s display settings, including the white balance, color temperature, etc.

User Interface

With the rising popularity of its smartphones, Vivo has finally revamped its Android skin to provide customized flavor to the users.

It looks good to see some originality from Vivo this time. FunTouch 9 is no more a complete copy of iOS.

Vivo Y15 comes with many fun, practical, and user-friendly features. For children, the phone offers a Kids Mode app that provides a dedicated space on the phone accessible through the parent’s fingerprint or device’s password.

Once inside the app, the parent can choose to put time limits or restrict the use of the data network before handing the phone to their children and can also fill up the display with apps suited for kids.

Like Huawei, Vivo has also introduced its own app Gallery in FunTouch 9, which comes with some trending mobile applications.

The company has also revamped i-Music and Vivo’s browser to bring a new look and more features. It also provides a Vivo.com app that shows all the available smartphones and local prices.

Moreover, the app also gives information regarding the spare parts of the smartphone and how much it will cost the user to replace it.

Vivo Y15 also features Jovi, the company’s AI assistant, which provides smart scene recognition to share information like today’s weather report, sports events, daily steps, and reminders to take a rest, etc. It also helps to take better selfies.

The full capabilities of the Jovi AI assistant (including the recognition of verbal commands) are still limited to 2018’s Vivo Nex in China. We haven’t seen much development in rolling out Jovi for other Vivo smartphones even after a year.

Similar to iOS, you can summon the control center on Vivo Y15 by swiping up from the bottom; the company has also given it a makeover to provide better and bigger visuals to the user.

There is a Game Cube option that can help curb distractions while gaming by blocking calls, notifications, etc.

One of the best features of FunTouch 9 is the shortcuts dock, which comes with many quick setting toggles that can even help record your gaming session or access other applications without quitting the app. The uses of the shortcuts dock are not limited to gaming apps.

Performance and Battery

The MediaTek Helio P22 powers Vivo Y15 is undoubtedly not a new chipset and dates back to 2018. Since it is for affordable mid-range phones, it can provide support for features traditionally found in higher-end models like artificial intelligence and camera enhancements.

4GB RAM and Helio P22 chipset should theoretically provide a smooth smartphone experience. We have seen the same combination in a much affordable Tecno Camon i4, which passed our performance tests with flying colors. Let’s see whether Vivo Y15 will show a similar performance or not.

Starting with the benchmark scores, Vivo Y15 received a higher score (836) than Camon i4’s (814) in Geekbench’s single-core test but fell behind in the multi-core test and Antutu’s benchmark tests.

During light to moderate usage, the phone showed no sign of lag or delay and performed all day-to-day tasks without a hitch. We could also easily switch between calling, texting, watching movies, using social media, and web surfing without facing any stuttering.

Unlike Tecno Camon i4, which also excelled in heavy usage, Vivo Y15 showed noticeable lag at the time of using and switching between resource-intensive apps.

The performance further degraded when we pushed the smartphone to its limit by simultaneously opening different heavy mobile apps; it took Vivo Y15 around 3-4 seconds to complete any given task like switching between apps, searching anything on the web.

While playing heavy games like Asphalt 9, PUBG, Real Racing 3, and Dead Trigger, we could see the apparent drop in frames and sometimes even prolonged lag, usually due to the game’s heavy graphics. On the plus side, the phone did not heat up during our testing stage.

One thing is noticeable, the RAM management is a bit aggressive on the device, and thus, it pays off to lock your favorite apps to access them later on easily.

The smartphone boasts a massive battery of 5000mAh that has become a selling point for the Y series phones. In our 3 hours of battery test, the device only consumed 44% of battery, which is slightly less than the battery consumption of Vivo Y91 (48%) and Vivo Y95 (49%).

Here is the full video of our Vivo Y15 battery test

During an hour of light usage, the phone’s battery dropped by 10%, while an hour of heavy use depleted the phone’s battery by 17%.

Interestingly, the Camon i4 with a much smaller 3400mAh battery consumed 11% of charge in light usage and 16% of battery in heavy use. This shows that the phone’s software optimization also plays a huge role in providing lasting battery life.

Vivo Y15 takes 3 hours and 2 minutes to charge from 0 to 100%, likely due to a massive 5000mAh battery capacity. In our drain test, which discharges the phone’s battery from 100% to 0% through continuous playback without WiFi or active SIM cards, Vivo Y15 lasted for 12 hours and 27 minutes.

Camera

Vivo Y15 comes with a triple camera setup at the back featuring the combination of 13 MP, f/2.2, PDAF primary camera, 8 MP, f/2.2, 16mm ultrawide lens, and 2 MP, f/2.4, depth sensor.

Starting with the camera app’s interface, Vivo has improved the overall experience for the user with its easy and user-friendly overlay, which shows all the camera options out in the open.

The simplicity of the camera interface is a plus point for Vivo’s Android skin. Unlike Huawei smartphones, you do not have to dig deep into the “more” menu to access features like HDR, Slow-mo, Panorama, etc. Furthermore, the sliding options in the Pro Mode also add to the convenience of the users.

The smartphone takes great auto shots in the daylight with excellent color rendition. We get almost natural colors in the image and can notice the details of the subject quite clearly.

There is not much difference between the pictures taken from auto mode and HDR mode, but the latter can help control light indoors.

The ultra-wide camera adds a bit of yellowish tint to the image and loses most of the details of the subject and background compared to the auto mode.

Undoubtedly, you will get more context in an ultra-wide shot, but the warmer tones and absence of details will not make it a desirable photo.

You can also notice more sharpness in the image taken with Y15’s ultra-wide camera.

The wide aperture mode fails to aptly detect the subject’s edges in macro shots and even tends to blur the subject itself in some cases. Below you can see that the edges of the petals are blurred along with the background.

Here, the wide-aperture mode has blurred the leaf in the middle.

Vivo Y15 also struggles to detect the subject’s edges while taking portrait shots, but the pictures turn out to be pretty acceptable during daylight. However, in low light, we lose the details of the subject entirely in question.

In low light, the Vivo Y15 fails to take decent pictures. Images are grainy, and the camera fails to preserve the required details of the subject.

At night, the ultra-wide-angle camera does not add in the yellow color in the photo but instead blows out the artificial light and kills the details on the sides of the image.

Coming to the selfies, Vivo Y15 features a 16MP front camera that can take decent shots and is meant for people who want a social-media-ready selfie.

The beauty mode gives an extra lighting boost to the selfie even during daylight and smoothens the subject’s skin tone. In the following image, you can see that the colors of the selfies are different in auto and beauty mode.

The bouquet mode also does not mess up the subject’s outlines too much and can thus take good artistic photos.

It is nearly impossible to take a good selfie at night if you are not in a well-lit space as you’ll get a lot of noise and unseeable subjects.

The above picture was taken after sunset in low-light conditions, and you can see that the front camera failed to capture the details of the subject’s face.

Verdict

Vivo Y15 is a beautiful smartphone that is born to stand out because of its design. Even with a 720p display, you can continue to enjoy consuming multimedia on the large screen.

The Funtouch 9 user interface is much better this time. Similarly, the battery can last for a day with moderate use.

However, the phone’s performance was quite average and paled in contrast to the cheaper Tecno Camon i4 but outperformed the later device in camera performance.