We have already seen how every smartphone maker out there was busy reinventing the wheel (or rather punching a hole into it, to be precise), the Vivo emerged out of the left field and surprised everyone with the NEX, which is unequivocally the most advanced phone in the market right now. And just like that, Vivo’s flagship smartphone made all the notched flagships out there look obsolete and rather silly to be honest.
However, now that the phone has been officially launched, it’s clear that the Vivo NEX is lot more than just a revolutionary design. Loaded with AI integration and packing some serious hardware specifications, the prodigious smartphone is a cut above the rest and permanently raises the bar for flagship smartphones. Let’s take a look at what makes the Vivo NEX tick and why you should dump your notched excuse for a smartphone and upgrade to the smartphone of the future.
1. True Bezel-less Display
We know that we have already dedicated an entire article for this, but the profound achievement of Vivo engineering prowess still hasn’t been appreciated nearly enough. While everyone was quite comically busy cutting into their smartphone displays, the NEX shocked the world with the first truly bezel-less smartphone. Using ingenious solutions, such as employing the display itself to vibrate and produce sound, Vivo did away with the earpiece and moved the entire sensor array to the top edge of the phone. That and the brilliant pop-up camera is how the NEX does away with the unsightly notch to deliver a genuine full-screen experience.
2. Futuristic Design
At a time when one modern flagship smartphone is virtually indistinguishable from the other, the Vivo NEX stands out from the crowd as the only phone in the world with true bezel-less design. With its Ultra FullView Display, the NEX makes other smartphones look like relics from ancient history. While the phone looks gorgeous, it’s easy to overlook its underlying design genius. Underneath its all-glass body lie cleverly hidden ambient light and proximity sensors that allow the phone to sport a screen to body ratio of a whopping 91.24 percent.
And unlike its notched competitors, the NEX has implemented a third generation in-display fingerprint sensor that’s 10 percent faster and 50 percent more accurate. All of this has been achieved in addition to the sublime TOF 3D scanning technology, which enables fast and accurate 3D face scanning by projecting 300K sensor points onto the user’s face for reliable and secure authentication. The space age design of the Vivo NEX easily makes it the most complete smartphone experience you can have today.
3. Better-than-flagship Performance
While the flagships have achieved parity in how they all carry the most powerful chipsets available, the Vivo NEX takes its performance game to the next level with the new optimised FunTouch OS to deliver a faster, smoother, and seamless smartphone experience. What sets the NEX apart from the competition is the generous 8GB RAM that allows the phone to run more apps at the same time and keep up with demanding mobile games and power-hungry apps. The powerful Snapdragon 845 SoC and ample 8GB RAM, along with a highly optimised FunTouch OS allow the Vivo NEX to leave the competition in the dust when it comes to raw performance.
4. AI Powered Cameras
While smartphone cameras, especially in flagships, have come a long way and deliver some truly stunning results, the primary reason for bad photographs is surprisingly not the smartphone itself but the one snapping the photos. Poor photo composition and the lack of knowledge on photo modes and other advanced parameters such as exposure value, shutter speed, and ISO hinders the average smartphone users’ ability to capture good photos, even with the best camera hardware at their disposal.
The answer to this problem is AI.
The Vivo NEX’s dual 12-megapixel + 5-megapixel rear cameras are packed to the gills with terrific sensors, 4-axis OIS, dual pixel PDAF, and large pixel size for great low-light performance. But what really makes the difference is the camera app that’s baked in with smart AI features to make every shot count.
From AI scene recognition to select the correct camera setting and achieve the perfect shot every single time to AI filters to further enhancements through smart AI post-processing effects, the Vivo NEX takes the guesswork and skill out of photography. The inbuilt AI camera integration even helps with portrait framing to achieve the best composition. Then there’s AI-enabled HDR and Face Beauty modes to take your selfie game to the next level.
5. Better Battery Life
The impending doom of having your phone shut down just when you’re trying to get your Uber ride back home is an all-too-real concern for most flagship smartphone users. Power-hungry processing hardware combined with other power-hungry features tend to compound this battery endurance problem for flagships. And the fact that most of these smartphones ship with measly 3000mAh batteries doesn’t help matters.
The Vivo NEX however bucks the trend and accommodates a massive 4000mAh battery to give true all-day battery backup, and then some more. So whether you’re into snapping a lot of selfies or playing resource hungry mobile games, the Vivo NEX will safely last you the entire day with plenty of battery juice to spare. The large capacity battery is nevertheless quicker to charge thanks to a fast charging capability of a blazing 22 watts, which should get your battery filled in no time.
We have amply demonstrated that the Vivo NEX is the most futuristic and complete smartphone experience you can have in 2018, but the real icing on the cake is the price. The NEX is priced just right at Rs 44,990, and that leaves its flagship competitors look grossly overpriced considering its industry-leading features and true bezel-less design.
