Vivo recently launched its budget phone Vivo U10 in the Indian market. The phone got my attention due to impressive specs at a low price. So, I decided to test the phone. Based on my experience with the phone, here is my review of Vivo U10.
Buy Here: Amazon
Vivo U10 Review
Vivo U10 looks similar to other phones of this segment. The front side has a 6.35-inch display panel with a waterdrop notch for the selfie camera. The phones come with a layer of thin protection on the display to protect it from scratches. The right side has a volume rocker and power button. On the left, it has a triple card slot that includes two nano-SIM card slots and a microSD card slot. The bottom side has a 3.5mm audio jack, a micro-USB socket, and a speaker grill.
It has a plastic back but feels glass from a distance. The company has given gradient color options with line patterns. At the top left side of the back, it has a triple camera setup where three cameras are aligned vertically. The fingerprint sensor is at the top center side of the back panel.
Due to the large battery, the phone feels a bit heavy but it is still comfortable to use and hold. The company gives a transparent silicon case within the box. The case is of good quality and has raised lips on corners to protect the phone effectively.
The phone has 6.35 inches Halo FullView HD+ display that performs well. It has good viewing angles and gets bright in outdoors to offer good readability. You also get an option to adjust the color temperature if you want.
Interestingly, the phone is Widevine L1 DRM compliant for HD video streaming. It is something hard to find on budget phones.
The phone runs on Funtouch OS that comes with heavy customization and lots of bloatware. The good news is that you can uninstall bloatwares if you don’t want them. Swiping from top to bottom opens notifications while swiping from down to up opens the control center. FunToucOS also has lots of interesting features including Dark Mode, App Clone and Smart Split. You also get lots of themes and wallpapers to customize the phone as per your interest. There are also different kinds of gestures, but I personally like clean UI.
The phone packs 2.0GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 processor that is powerful considering the price of this phone. This chipset is known for offering good performance but this phone felt a bit slower as compared to other phones I tested using the same chipset. There was not any kind of lag on the day to day usage but I wasn’t impressed with FunTouchOS animations. The phone comes in 3GB and 4GB RAM options. I tested the 3GB RAM variant for the review. If you are into gaming, I recommend you to go with the 4GB RAM variant for a better experience.
I also tried gaming on this phone. PUBG Mobile runs on Low graphics quality by default. Even if the gaming was smooth, the visual experience was not as good. When I switched to Balanced quality mode, I found the game to be smooth with better graphics. Asphalt 9: Legends is also fine but with occasional frame drops. Games like traffic riders were smooth with no issues at all.
Also see: Vivo U10 Wallpapers
It scored 153,147 on Antutu. On Geekbench 5’s single-core and multi-core, results were 315 and 1,359 respectively.
The 3GB RAM variant comes with 32GB and 64GB storage options. In 4GB RAM variant, you get 64GB Storage. Storage is expandable up to 256GB via a dedicated microSD card slot.
The phone has a triple camera setup that is also an advantage at this price. The setup includes 13 megapixels primary camera with f/2.2 aperture, 8 megapixels wide-angle camera with f/2.2 aperture and 2 megapixels depth camera for portrait shots. It also has an 8 megapixels selfie camera with f/1.8 aperture.
The camera setup is average. It does a fine job in broad daylight but photos lack sharpness. Not many details are captured. In low-light, it captures average photos with good amount of noise. here are a few samples.
The wide-angle camera captures wider scene but that also captures average photos. Here are a few samples to compare normal and wide-angle shots.
Portrait mode does a good job. Photos come with blurred background with good edge detection. But it takes time in capturing portrait shots than normal photos.
The Selfie camera doesn’t impress much. Sometimes it captures good selfie shots but sometimes image quality goes below average. Don’t expect much from low-light selfies. Here are a few samples.
By default, the video recording starts at 720p and you need to manually switch to 1080p mode if you want. It seems there’s no stabilization, so videos were shaky. Video quality is also average. In low light, video quality becomes poor. Videos from selfie camera are also average.
Call quality is fine and you will not face issues even when you talking to someone in a crowded place. The bottom-firing speaker is fine. The sound quality on wired and wireless headphone is also fine.
Battery backup is the strong point of this phone. You can easily get a full day usage with heavy usage and it can go up to 2 days backup with moderate usage. I was getting more than 7 hours of screen on time and over 36 hours of backup with all-day social media, a few hours of gaming and calls. It supports 18W fast charging and 18W charger comes in the box.
Final Words
Vivo U10 comes with good specs for its price but FuntouchOS was not able to use the full potential of this hardware. Vivo must look into better optimization. The phone has a good display and offers solid battery backup with 18W fast charging. The performance is also fine. The triple camera setup just looks impressive on paper but doesn’t deliver as expected.
Vivo U10 is good but not the best because it has some good competitors. The battery is the only thing that could help Vivo U10 to be relevant in the competition. If you add Rs. 1000 in your budget, you can go with Redmi Note 8 that is better in almost every segment. Even the 4GB RAM variant of Vivo U10 is costlier than Redmi Note 8’s 4GB RAM model.
Also see: Vivo U10 (4GB) Vs. Xiaomi Redmi Note 8
Buy Vivo U10: Amazon
