vivo V40 Pro Review: Performance and Camera Powerhouse

vivo’s V series is perhaps India’s most popular smartphone series, considering the brand’s significant presence in the offline market. And for years, the company’s lineup has consistently delivered a fantastic camera experience for the average user. However, if you have read my coverage of previous vivo V series phones, you might recall my rant about the company’s lack of focus on performance. Well, it seems like vivo has listened to our feedback, as the new vivo V40 Pro packs in the flagship-like MediaTek 9200+ chipset, along with a gorgeous design and a capable camera system. Let’s dive into my review of the vivo V40 Pro and find out if it’s worth your money.

vivo V40 Pro Review: Design & Hardware

If there’s one thing vivo knows how to nail, it is the design. The company has ditched the color-changing back design panel, which wasn’t more than a gimmick anyway. I received the Ganges Blue variant of the phone, and it is the best out of the two options. The back panel resembles the flow of the river, and it truly is a conversation starter. Not being overly biased, I also handed the phone to a few friends and colleagues, who all loved the design.

The back also houses the camera modules and the famous Aura light system. However, this time, vivo has toned down the size of the lighting system and removed the regular flash module. While the camera housing is visually appealing, I do have one complaint. Since it stretches to the middle of the back panel, my fingers often rested on the module itself, leaving the telephoto camera smudged and requiring cleaning every time I wanted to capture a zoomed photo.

The sides are made of plastic. And while this isn’t a significant problem, dropping the phone will leave dents in the frame, which I found out the hard way. Therefore, I recommend that those who want to purchase the phone keep it in a protective case. Furthermore, the phone also has an IP68 rating, which means it can withstand being submerged in 1.5 meters of water for 30 minutes. The display is protected by Schott α glass.

vivo V40 Pro Review: Display

The vivo V40 Pro features a curved 6.78-inch 1.5K AMOLED 120Hz display with a local peak brightness of a whopping 4500 nits. Regarding outdoor brightness, the device reached 1200 nits in our testing, which was plenty to make it visible in direct sunlight. The panel quality is amazing, with punchy colors and great HDR support, making it excellent for content consumption.

Moreover, vivo allows users to switch resolutions from 2400×1080 to 2800×1260. However, unless you are a pixel peeper, you won’t notice much difference and should probably run the device in the default 2400 resolution to save battery.

Furthermore, I didn’t notice any rough transitions between the different refresh rates, and the phone handles everything smoothly. This made scrolling through Google or Instagram reels a highly enjoyable experience.

vivo V40 Pro Review: Performance

Since performance hasn’t been the main focus of the V series, I didn’t have high expectations for the new version. However, the MediaTek Dimensity 9200+ is a beast of a chip. It features one Cortex-X3 core running at 3.35GHz, three Cortex A715 cores running at 3GHz, four efficiency Cortex-A510 cores running at 2GHz, and the Immortalis-G715 GPU. In addition, the device also comes with up to 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage.

As you might have guessed, the vivo V40 Pro’s day-to-day performance is almost perfect. There are no lags or delays. I couldn’t get the phone to stutter, even with multiple apps running in the background.

I also tested its benchmark performance since the phone didn’t slouch in everyday tasks. In Geekbench’s single-core and multi-core tests, the device scored 1799 and 5013, respectively. In AnTuTu, the device scored 1511470 points, putting it on par with last year’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chip. I also tried the infamous 30-thread, 30-minute stress test, where the vivo throttled to 75% of its peak performance and became hot to the touch.

Considering the concerns raised by the stress test, the gaming performance was impressive. I tested BGMI, and the device delivered a smooth 60FPS experience at HDR and Extreme settings. Moreover, the device didn’t heat up during gameplay.

Battery Life

Despite being a thin and light phone, the vivo V40 Pro packs a massive 5,500mAh battery, which easily lasts a full day of using the camera, watching YouTube videos, scrolling Instagram, and playing BGMI. If your day consists of these activities, you can expect a screen-on time (SOT) of around 8 hours on a single charge. When recharging, the included 80W charger can top up the device fully in less than an hour.

vivo V40 Pro Review: Cameras

It’s no secret that cameras are the main focus of the V series, and the same can be said about the V40 Pro, which captures some of the best photos. Before we proceed, the device features a triple camera setup comprising a 50MP Sony IMX 921 primary camera sensor with OIS, a 50MP Sony IMX816 2x telephoto lens, and a 50MP UltraWide lens.

Starting with the daylight photos, the vivo V40 Pro can do nothing wrong. The images have amazing details and good color reproduction and don’t suffer in direct sunlight.

If you have used vivo smartphones in the past, you might be familiar with the company’s partnership with Zeiss, which has evolved from being more of a marketing stunt to now genuinely adding to the portrait mode experience. The device has six different Zeiss portrait modes, and they are amazing. Each mode captures the light differently and plays with the depth of field and its shapes to capture detailed photos with excellent color reproduction and HDR. Moreover, this quality held up in indoor lighting scenarios as well.

Zoom & UltraWide shots

While the 50MP telephoto lens is primarily designed for capturing portraits, it can also take impressive zoom shots. However, despite vivo’s claims of 50x zoom, you can realistically capture detailed shots up to 6x-7x. Moreover, I noticed no color discrepancy between the primary and telephoto lenses. However, the quality drops significantly in indoor and low-light conditions.

The UltraWide lens greatly benefits from the 50MP sensor, capturing crisp shots in daytime conditions with minimal distortion. However, similar to the telephoto lens, this quality suffers in low-light scenarios.

Nighttime shots

Considering the excellent performance in daytime conditions, I had high expectations for nighttime shots and wasn’t disappointed. The vivo V40 Pro took detailed and balanced photos with excellent color reproduction. While I noticed grain in the dimmest scenarios, the Aura lighting system was handy during such situations.

Selfies & Videos

vivo has included a 50MP selfie shooter in the V40 Pro, and its capabilities are impressive. It allows users to capture photos at 0.8x, 1x, and 2x, making for some interesting shots. Moreover, the selfie portrait mode includes all the Zeiss modes, resulting in detailed, well-lit photos with natural skin tones.

Finally, vivo hasn’t left any stone unturned in the video department. The V40 Pro can capture 4K@60FPS video from all three rear cameras and even the front selfie shooter. The videos were well-stabilized, had good colors, and didn’t exhibit any jitters.

vivo V40 Pro Review: Software & Haptics

The vivo V40 Pro comes with Android 14 out of the box, with FunTouch OS 14 running on top. If you’re familiar with FunTouch OS, the software on the V40 Pro will feel like home, with snappy loading times, extensive customization options, and, surprisingly, not a lot of bloatware. Moreover, vivo has promised three years of software updates and four years of security patches.

Additionally, the company has bundled its own flavor of the object eraser in the gallery app. In practice, it was quite helpful in removing objects from the background and foreground.

Finally, while I don’t usually mention haptics in my reviews, they are a problem on the Vivo V40 Pro. The phone includes the traditional coin-style motor, and the experience is far from ideal for this price segment.

Should you buy the vivo V40 Pro?

Starting at Rs. 49,999, the vivo V40 Pro is the first V series phone I can recommend to a lot of people. Although it is a bit on the pricier side, the cameras are solid, as they have always been, the display is amazing, and for the first time, the performance is top-notch, making the V40 Pro a complete package. z