Vivo Y69: 16 MP camera will give you even more reasons to click selfies

Priced at Rs 14,990, the phone is a prime catch considering its gamut of features for the selfie lovers

Chinese manufacturer Vivo, which is widely known for its numerous camera centric models, recently came up with another device that will make your selfie experience much better than before. Following the selfie revolution of users worldwide, the Vivo Y69 sports a brilliant 16 MP front camera with several features and a 13 MP with LED flash rear camera.  But this is not the only good feature in this mid-range smartphone.

Priced at Rs 14,990, Vivo Y69 supports a super fast 3 GB RAM that makes the phone almost lag-free and gives a much smoother and clearer Android experience than other phones in the same price segment. The device is available both online and offline, which in turn is helping the company gain significant domination in the domestic market of mid-range smartphones. With the arrival of Y69, Vivo is challenging its closest Chinese rivals like Oppo and Gionee in the selfie-focused smartphone market.

After using the device for about a week, Business Standard evaluates it to see how it fares against rivals on key performance metrics and if it is truly capable of belting out some really good selfies. Here are our observations:

Camera:

The main highlight of the Vivo Y69 smartphone is its camera, especially the 16 MP selfie-camera. The phone provides a fascinating and several unique camera features that make it a must for every selfie enthusiast. What makes a Vivo selfie camera different from others is its innovative features such as Moonlight selfie that gives a perfect shot in low light or in pitch dark rooms and Live photo feature that allows the rear camera to bring photos to life by creating a moving image. However, the camera works the best in daylight, producing Ultra HD sharp photos.

Apart from that, the group selfie feature is something to look out for. This feature does not simply click a group photo but focusses individually on every person in the group to give you an enhanced, blur-less groupie. HDR, bokeh features simply add to the brilliance of the smartphone's camera performance.

The 13 MP back camera with LED flash is equally good with clear, sharp photos both outdoors and indoors. The colour reception is vibrant with no incisiveness of any sorts. Autofocus and light adjustments are just brilliant and make for a beautiful picture. The makers, therefore, deserve full marks for the camera.

Low light photo taken from Vivo Y69

Design:

At first glance, the Vivo Y69 looks premium and classy. Available in two colours: Champagne Gold and Matte Black, the smartphone resembles any other high-end looking device, especially the gold model thanks to its metallic paint job. Although made of plastic, the 5.5inch phone feels solid and the curved edges make it easy to handle it with one hand. The chrome lining surrounding the frame adds lustre and grip to the device.

Donning a 13 MP rear camera with LED flash, the phone comes with a sleek back design with no logo or fingerprint scanner jutting out whatsoever.

The fingerprint scanner of the device is placed in the front. At first instance, the fingerprint button seemed clickable but it's just a capacitative scanner which also works as a non-clickable touch button.

The jack, charging point and the speakers are placed at the bottom of the phone and the design resembles that of an iPhone's bottom structure. The power button and volume controls are placed on the left side saving space at the right end.

Back view of Vivo Y69

Display:

Vivo Y69 comes with a 5.50-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 720 pixels by 1,280 pixels. The colours on the phone are vibrant enough for both outdoors and indoors. The IPS LCD multi touch screen seems to work well under any lighting conditions and the adaptive brightness functions smoothly.

The display is such that it helps in providing adequate brightness to the screen with almost zero dullness, especially when playing games or viewing videos.

Software:

Vivo Y69 operates on the upgraded Funtouch OS 3.2 based on Android 7.0 Nougat. This means that this Android device comes with a certain amount of customisations that gives it an enhanced UI experience than those stock Android phones.

The user interface of the phone is different than the others in several ways. The themes, the icons that the device displays are different and refreshing than the usual stock ones, rather, it depicts a UI much like that of the iOS.

There is no app drawer which means the icons are placed on the home screen itself. There are hardly any pre-installed third party apps apart from certain essential ones like Whatsapp, UC Browser to name a few.

The smartphone is powered by 1.5 GHz Octa-core MediaTek MT6750 processor paired with a 3 GB RAM and 32 GB internal memory. This powerful processor is what makes the phone a desirable buy. The processor is much more powerful than any of its counterparts giving a completely lag-free, smooth Android experience. The phone hardly lags even when playing high-end games such as Asphalt 8, Asphalt Xtreme. The multitasking function works as smooth as silk. The substantial battery power is another reason that adds to the brilliant performance of the phone as it does not heat up quickly even when playing games or watching videos for more than an hour or so.

The device is equipped with three card slots; dual SIM slots and a separate Micro SD card slot expandable up to 256GB, to increase the storage further. 

Moreover, Vivo Y69 comes with some cool and unique features that are quite rare on a smartphone of this price range. The main highlights of the phone apart from its camera are also some out-of-the-box features such as Smart Split 3D that helps you split your screen into two enabling a much-enhanced multitasking experience and the App Clone - a much-needed feature for many who can finally clone a third party app to use it for other purposes from the same phone. In simpler terms, you can use this App Clone feature to operate two different WhatsApp accounts from the same phone.

Battery:

As mentioned earlier, the phone comes with a great battery backup of 3,000 mAh that can provide more power for at least two days of heavy usage. On standby mode (used only to make phone calls and a bit of social media), the non-removable Li-Ion battery can last up to a week or at least five days.

Contrary to the belief, the powerful battery neither contributes much to the overall weight of the phone nor heats up quickly even after continuous use. With the fast charging facility, the smartphone gets fully charged in less than 2 hours. However, one might feel the absence of turbo charging facility that is available on several similar smartphones of other companies.

Verdict:

The Vivo Y69 features a great pair of cameras with moonlight glow, live photos and much more. The performance of the smartphone is excellent due to its fast processor and powerful RAM. In addition, other features such as a fingerprint sensor and Corning Gorilla glass screen protection makes the Vivo Y69 one of the best options in its price range and definitely a must buy for selfie every enthusiast.