Vivo V9

It was a lazy weekend in Mysore when my cousin brother dropped by to catch up.  As usual, the topics were bikes, cars, sports and mobiles.  And as soon as the topic of mobile came up, he started off with his usual sarcasm!

I had recently lost my HTC Cell Phone (someone stole it, a gang of thieves stole it while I was travelling! Bad Bad world out there. Real bad bad people.. Please be careful and always back-up your data. It is best to avoid storing confidential data on phones) and this had given my Cuz a reason to pull my legs.!!  I was trying to save my pride by flashing the Lyf Water 10 mobile that I had purchased few months back as a back-up mobile (Thanks to my HTC phone – Story in separate article about HTC and Lyf Water 10).

I was using Lyf mobile to do almost all the stuff from last two months and I must say it was supporting me at its best. However, it was not good enough to survive for a longer period juggling between hands of my daughter and myself.  I usually don’t allow her to play with my mobile, but for this phone she somehow ended up convincing me to let her allow to play on it.

Sure enough, it ended up having problems with the battery.  It was in its 11^th month of usage and I was not sure if the warranty would cover it by the time I got it serviced or will it survive for a longer time after it is serviced. I had similar experience with my HTC. I gave the phone to check and replace the battery as it was randomly getting switched off.  This was in 11^th month of warranty.  They just disassembled and re-assembled the phone and handed over (this fact was acknowledged by the people at service center).  Needless to say, I faced similar issue until the warranty was over!   

That experience was somewhere etched in my mind as it happened just 1-2 months before. My Cuz utilized those stories to convince me to at-least start looking at new phones.

Voila, then came the flood of knowledge on Vivo mobiles by my Cuz.  He was using Vivo V7.  As with any product that he uses, he was all praises for V7 and I was not that convinced.  Though I must confess I liked V7 when he showed me some its features, I just didn’t believe him as he is known to exaggerate the products he uses.

Then he started talking about V9 which made me curious enough to check it in online marketplace.  I liked the look of the phone (specifically the screen ratio), but I lost interest when I saw that the RAM is 4 GB rather than 6 GB which was available in other brands. I didn’t bother to check other features or specifications.

Once I realized that Mr. Aamir Khan has been clicking the photographs of two of the cutest animals on the planet (thanks to the TV ad that popped up at that moment), my curiosity increased to the point that I asked my Cuz to take me to his friend’s mobile shop. You know, just to window shop!!

When we reached the shop, I saw that another gentleman was purchasing the same phone à Vivo V9. As soon as he tapped the power button, the screen lit up and it was love at first sight. V9 looked so amazingly different when you see the phone right in front of you rather than the computer/mobile screen.

I decided, then and there itself to get one of this beautiful machine for myself. I didn’t care about any other features or hardware specifications or user reviews or any damn thing that I used to check before purchasing a new phone. I just held the phone in my hand saw the camera and asked the retailer about the price and the deal he would offer me.  My Cuz said he has convinced the retailer to give me a good deal (after all he was his friend!!) The next thing I know is that I am a proud owner of Vivo V9! My Cuz was successful on his mission and he left me home to play with my new toy and wandered off into the wilderness. I was literally glad that I listened to him this time. I got the phone less than the price’s quoted online and I got a Vivo headphone totally free. Not to forget a tempered glass for the screen too. I thought I got a great deal for myself and came home pretty happy.

You know, I had not seen iPhoneX closely till I purchased Vivo V9 and hence didn’t realize how similar V9 looks to iPhone X. I realized this when many people (including my colleagues and people at coffee shops / restaurants) asked me if it’s iPhone X?  Oh yeah, the first week I flaunted it outside at-least a dozen people in Bangalore asked me this!!

Well after the purchase was done, it was time to check the features of the phone which I had missed earlier.  So here we go:

V9 comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 626 with Cortex A53 architecture and 8 Octa Core.  It has a frequency of 2.2 GHz and the GPU is Adreno 506.  It has a Dual Nano Sim slot along with SD card slot with other features like VoLTE, GPS and bunch of other sensors like Fingerprint, light, Gyroscope, Accelerometer and Proximity. Bluetooth is 4.2 version. Talking about memory, it has 64 GB Internal Memory which is expandable up to 256 GB (MicroSD card).  It runs on the latest android software (Android Oreo 8.1) “FunTouch OS” by Vivo.  Battery is built-in Li-Ion battery with a capacity of 3260 mAh (the retailer made sure I was aware of it’s long-lasting battery, which I ignored from my experience of other phones). Along with the screen size which allowed compact-ability and offered more than 90% screen, the cameras are the major selling point for this phone.  It has a 24 MP front camera and 16 + 5 MP dual rear cameras with Bokeh feature (yes yes, Aamir clicking photo of his Cat and Dog and blurring the background!).  All these weighed somewhere in a cute 150 gms box of awesomeness. 

Disclaimer:  The features list above is a combined knowledge from my research on V9 through some websites and as well as from the manual and the box of Vivo V9. I am not a techie but a user with little bit of technical knowledge. So please read technical blogs and articles for more detailed review on features.

Accessories:  You get a headphone, charger which doubles up as a data cable, manual and a pin to open sim slot.

Coming to the actual usage of the phone:  I was notorious among my friends and family regarding mobiles (specifically android phones). The phone batteries never lasted, they used to hang or turn up having hundreds of similar issues due to which I always use to whine in front of my friends and family. However, the same phones used to work perfectly or last longer once my wife started using them. You know it’s strange, she has about 3 of my old phones now and all are working fine. I believe even my phones fear my wife!

Well, I am really hoping that V9 would not let me down and I would flaunt it happily ever after (for at-least a year or so – going by my standards).

OK now back to the user review: First thing you would notice when you hold the phone is its soft and silky back panel and how light it is. I had purchased the black version of the phone and the back panel is so shiny that I had to constantly wipe the phone to take my finger-prints off from. Literally it is a finger print magnet!  You touch it and you see your finger prints on it….. Then the worry that the phone might easily slip out of hand (Yeah, at times I am a bit clumsy. Apart from this, my little cutie, my beautiful daughter picks up my phone to watch videos or play with it when I am sleeping – the lazy bum I am).  Luckily this problem gets resolved with the free back cover (transparent one) provided by Vivo as a standard accessory.  The curvy edges of the phone give a good grip after this and to top this, the phone still feels light thus giving a good comfortable feeling when you hold the phone.

Inserting sim was little challenging as I had to search for the sim slots and solve the puzzle on how to open the slot. I was lazy to check the manual and hence I ended up turning the phone all over in every direction to see where exactly the slots are.  Once I realized that there is a pin (a standard accessory) in the phone box and I noticed a small hole on the left side of the phone (opposite side of volume/power button), I understood that I was not a genius I think I am.. Well then, I tried inserting the pin but couldn’t open it as I was scared to push it too hard but after few attempts (and a YouTube video), I was able to successfully open the slot and get the sim inside my phone.

Time to fire it up: I was mesmerized when the phone lit up.  It was love at second sight 😊. The display looked great with those ever-changing lock-screen posters. I quickly scanned through the apps to weed out the bloatware, but I was happy that there was nothing that you wouldn’t end up using, you can say Vivo V9 has very less bloatware. A point scored by Vivo. I immediately checked the settings and then the Camera, which worked great and after quick selfies and installing the required apps, it was time to test the battery performance.

The battery back-up was indeed good. The first day, it lasted me more than 24 hours with internet on, however I had not used the phone much that day.  The next day, the battery started draining much faster (yet it was the best battery back-up I have received till date).  It lasted nearly 10-12 hours with my kind of usage.  As more apps were loaded, the battery started to drain much faster - about 5-6 hours with constant texting (online messaging apps) or binge-watching amazon prime or playing data intensive games or using maps.

The plus side however is that you can charge up the phone pretty fast (anywhere between 45-90 minutes) and the battery is full.  And when the screen is not lit, the battery lasts longer. I have noticed it going up entire 24 hours without draining much (with moderate usage). Definitely the battery would last much longer to regular users (Note: I am really good at killing batteries).  Another point scored by Vivo V9 with respect to Battery.

Lock Screen: I did not set-up the face unlock feature as I preferred finger print scanner as of now.  During initial days, it worked perfectly. However, I did notice that couple of times it doesn’t work properly. You hear the unlock sound, but the screen doesn’t lit up (no matter how hard you press your finger against the scanner).  The only way around is to click the power button once (which will lock the phone) and then unlock it again.

Camera: the pictures you take end up looking as good as Mr. Aamir Khan looks on those big hoardings or the TV advertisements where he takes pictures of his pets. Vivo has provided a lot of features like the bokeh feature, HDR, AR stickers, AI Selfie, Group Selfie, Panaroma, Professional and many more settings which makes it fun to use and the pictures turn out really well (Believe me I am not a photographer, but the pictures are great).  Maybe someone with good camera knowledge can do wonders with this phone.  The down side which I noticed is the Zoom feature (as with any other android I have used).  For some reason, the pictures get a bit blurry (negligible if you are not zooming the clicked picture again). I guess I am really horrible at clicking pictures!

Other features:  Now I have not used many features of the phone yet. It is less than a month since I am using it and with few meddling around I explored only few features whereas many features have to be explored like Motorbike Mode, smart motions, smart split etc., Some of the friendly features I liked include screen capture by sliding three fingers up, flash-on by holding volume button down when phone is locked, customizable navigation keys, Flash notifications for incoming calls and messages when the screen is dark (this becomes important as the default ringtone is not too loud in noisy environment) and many more.

Talking a little bit more about the full screen display:  While it is great to look at, sometimes the front camera becomes a sore eye as it blocks the screen. Specifically, when a movie is playing (not every time though). If you use Instagram, you could relate this when you click on the stories to view. The timer bar which runs on the top get hidden by the camera position. I think, you can change this view in settings (however I have not tried this).

Now the biggest problem that I have noticed in Vivo V9.  SYNC and Notification issues!!

I started noticing this problem when I installed Microsoft Outlook from Google Play-store.  No matter what I tried, Outlook doesn’t automatically sync and display a new mail notification.  Every time, I have to manually open the app, refresh it to see if I have received any new emails.  This becomes very very very annoying. I have tried giving all kind of permissions, but nothing seems to resolve the issue.  I even uninstalled the app and re-installed from Vivo store and again went through the process of giving permissions and changing as many settings as possible, but nothing seems to work.

I noticed this kind of issues in other messaging and social apps.  For some strange reason, this is not an issue with Gmail, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram or Hangouts.  They seem to work perfectly fine while other apps don’t sync.

To add to the above problem: I have observed that the apps sync and display the notifications for few minutes after you have used the app recently. When I say few minutes, may be 5 minutes max. This has led me to believe that some app (maybe battery saver of some kind) is killing the process of these apps in the background.

After many unsuccessful attempts, I wrote to Vivo support who promptly responded (one more point for Vivo’s customer support).  They gave few suggestions but even those doesn’t seem to work!! 

Now I am not sure if it is the problem of Vivo V9 or Funtouch OS (Android Oreo 8.1) or these individual apps or some settings that I am overlooking.  I am confused at the moment!

If any other V9 users are facing these issues, or if someone has figured out what the issue is then please do reach out to me and help me out.  Meanwhile, I will continue to investigate and update this article if I get a solution.

Well let’s hope someone figure this out for me!

My Verdict based on my nearly a month’s usage and very little exploration of phone:

You can buy Vivo V9 if your budget is a range of 20+K. It’s faster, doesn’t hang/lag during games, Picture quality is good to watch movies on the screen, Cameras are great, comes with very less bloatware and battery last longer.

To top it, V9 gives an amazing feeling and you would agree with me when you flaunt it in front of people – specifically the front display screen (to be honest, it gives you an iPhone X owner feeling – Oh you would believe me on this, when people ask you if you are carrying an iPhone X – Just make sure they don’t see the Vivo logo which is hardly visible at the back). 

So far, I am loving its performance albeit few minor annoying issues listed above – Well everyone has some annoying features until you understand them and figure out a way to sort them out. I would give V9 a little pass here on those minor issues.

Not all phones are perfect but this one is good enough to satisfy my needs.

Thank you for reading this post.  Please do leave your comments and suggestions below.

Disclaimer: The above article is based on my actual usage of a product that I purchased and doesn’t intend to portray any product in positive or negative limelight. Please do not use this article as a decision to buy or not buy any product.  Do your own research.

Update: The Sync and notification issue seems resolved!! All I had to do was lock the app in the navigation bar menu and it seems to have sorted the problem.

How to do: “Unlock the screen à drag the menu from bottom up (the one that allows you to turn on/off Data) à “Lock” outlook or any app that you want in the recently opened apps”.

Yipeeeee!!! Yay Yay!!!