Meet the Vivo S15!
We recently got our hands on the Vivo S15 – it’s a premium smartphone from Vivo, and while it’s not available for users in the UK, that didn’t stop us from getting our hands on it, and for good reason – the phone comes with some very impressive specs and features, which we had to check out for ourselves.
The Vivo S15 is meant to take on the likes of high-end mid-rangers from other brands like Xiaomi’s POCO phones, and Samsung’s Galaxy A-series handsets, to name a few. It comes with some familiar-looking hardware, and as such we went for a quick hands-on with the device.
With that said, join us as we go on a quick overview of the phone and its hardware specs. Let’s get started!
Design and Display
The Vivo S15 comes in a design that is available in shades of gold, black, and blue. The front of the phone features a 6.62-inch AMOLED display, with a 120Hz refresh rate. It’s also protected by a layer of Corning Gorilla Glass, and has a built-in display fingerprint scanner. It’s a very vibrant display, and thanks to the AMOLED screen, colors and saturation look rather lively.
The phone’s body meanwhile features a very familiar-looking design, with glossy flat metal edges, as well as a flat rear panel that houses the rear camera set-up on the back. It does look premium overall and has a nice weight to it.
Internals and Software
Inside the Vivo S15 is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 5G chipset, which is the same chipset found on phones like the POCO F3 and POCO F4. This is paired with up to 12GB of RAM, and up to 256GB of internal storage. Unfortunately, there’s no support for expandable storage, which is something to take into consideration. There’s also a massive 4,500 mAh battery with support for 55W fast-charging.
The battery is large, and should be enough for most users looking to get a full day’s worth of usage, although the bright 120Hz display will definitely affect battery longevity, as well as data usage and gaming.
The phone runs on Android 12 with Origin OS Ocean on top, which is Vivo’s own custom Android skin. Despite being a “sister” company of sorts to other brands like OPPO, OnePlus, and Realme (all owned by BBK Electronics in China), Vivo has tweaked its interface to keep it unique from the rest. It does come with a ton of additional third-party apps and software features, however, so purists after a “clean” Android version might want to look at something else.
Cameras
In terms of camera hardware, the Vivo S15 comes with a triple-camera set-up at the back, which includes a 64MP main camera, an 8MP ultrawide sensor, and 2MP macro sensor. The front of the phone houses a 32MP camera for video calls and selfies. The rear cameras will be able to shoot 4K video at 30FPS, and will come with several additional camera modes like portrait mode, night mode, and more. We’ll be sure to do a camera test with the Vivo S15, so stay tuned for those.
Final Thoughts
The Vivo S15 is priced at around $397, putting it up against other smartphones like the Galaxy A53 and the upcoming Pixel 6a. So far, the premium-looking design, as well as the impressive internals, are a definite win, but we’ll do more tests on the phone in the coming days and weeks.
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