Vivo’s V29 Professional, which was launched final yr in India, was a reasonably good smartphone on paper and in real-world use as effectively. Its successor, the brand new Vivo V30 Professional, additionally has a couple of new tips up its sleeves with some fascinating Zeiss-branded cameras. The trio of 50-megapixel cameras declare to supply some fascinating portrait images options referred to as ‘Zeiss Type Bokehs’ that purpose to imitate high-end Zeiss digicam lenses. The model has additionally harassed the inclusion of Zeiss-branded cameras, which, for the very first time, can be found on a V collection smartphone. However all these fancy digicam options include an above-average mid-premium price ticket. After completely testing out this telephone, let’s discover out if it is worthy of its price ticket and the way effectively it stacks up in opposition to the competitors.
Vivo V30 Professional Overview: Value in India
The Vivo V30 Professional is offered in two variants: one with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which is priced at Rs. 41,999 and one other with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, priced at Rs. 46,999. It is available in two color choices, Andaman Blue and Basic Black, in India, not like the worldwide variant, which is offered in 4 color choices. The smartphone competes with the OnePlus 12R, Samsung’s Galaxy S23 FE and the Nothing Telephone 2.
The Vivo V30 Professional comes with an 80W adaptor
Vivo V30 Professional Overview: Design
We acquired the Andaman Blue color possibility, and this variant has a shiny glass rear panel, which, in keeping with the model, resembles the emerald waters of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The shiny floor is fast to draw fingerprints, however this vivid colourway doesn’t spotlight them as a lot as a darker shade would. The smartphone would not look very completely different from its predecessor. There’s a squared-off aura gentle on the again beneath the digicam module, not like the round aura gentle on the V29 Professional.
The raised digicam module would not protrude by a lot, so the smartphone doesn’t wobble when positioned on flat surfaces like a desk. It makes use of a three-camera setup on the rear that’s aligned in a rounded sq. with the newly added Zeiss branding.
The smartphone doesn’t wobble on the desk as a lot because of the broad digicam module
The silver-coloured Vivo branding is on the backside of the rear panel. The ability and quantity buttons are on the appropriate of the curved chrome body. The speaker grille, microphone, USB Sort-C port, and SIM slot are on the backside.
I additionally tried the Basic Black color possibility. It feels a bit extra premium and sports activities a shimmery black glass again panel that doesn’t appeal to fingerprints. Nevertheless, I appreciated the Andaman Blue colourway.
The smartphone has a premium in-hand really feel, and the curved glass sandwich design provides good grip. It weighs 188 grams, which may be very gentle for a smartphone with a 5,000mAh battery and a glass rear panel. At simply 7.45 mm, it is a very slim smartphone.
The bezels on the left and proper sides of the Vivo V30 Professional are nearly non-existent because it makes use of a curved-edge show that blends with the curved sides of the body.
The smartphone provides an IP54 certification for mud and water resistance. Whereas it’s good to see Vivo provide this score, it’s fairly fundamental so far as IP scores go. Different smartphones, each at and beneath this worth level, provide a lot better safety from the weather. Xiaomi’s Redmi Word 13 Professional+, which we not too long ago reviewed, supplies an IP68 score at Rs. 31,999.
Vivo V30 Professional Overview: Specs and software program
The smartphone comes geared up with the 4nm MediaTek Dimensity 8200 5G SoC, which is a barely dated processor (launched in 2022) that competes with Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 SoC accessible in some mid-range smartphones priced between Rs. 25,000 to Rs 30,000. The Vivo V30 Professional provides a most of 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and as much as 512GB of UFS 3.1 storage. It makes use of a dual-nano sim card tray to accommodate two 5G sim playing cards however doesn’t have house for a microSD card.
Different options embody Bluetooth 5.3 and a USB 2.0 Sort-C port for charging the gadget and information transfers. The Vivo V30 Professional is powered by a 5,000mAh battery that may be charged utilizing the offered 80W charging adapter.
Vivo V30 Professional will get two main OS updates and three years of safety patches, in keeping with the model
On the software program entrance, it runs on Funtouch OS 14 World, which relies on Android 14. The interface is kind of easy throughout the board, however it nonetheless has a few pre-installed apps; not all of those might be uninstalled. Vivo guarantees two OS upgrades and three years of safety patches for the Vivo V30 Professional.
The Vivo V30 Professional makes use of an in-display fingerprint sensor, which works effective more often than not. Nevertheless, I didn’t discover it dependable, because it couldn’t recognise my registered fingerprint a number of occasions through the evaluation interval. It additionally randomly triggers contained in the pocket from time to time.
Vivo V30 Professional Overview: Efficiency
In our benchmark testing, the Vivo V30 Professional delivers mid-range efficiency in sure areas and delivers respectable outcomes. Nevertheless, it falls horribly brief when in comparison with different gadgets at this worth level, such because the OnePlus 12R. It scored 9,58,187 factors in AnTuTu, which is barely larger than its predecessor, however for Geekbench 6, it scored 979 factors in single-core and three,931 factors in multi-core checks, which is barely lower than the Vivo V29 Professional.
Gaming on the Vivo V30 Professional is respectable. I performed Asphalt 9: Legends, which ran easily, and the smartphone didn’t lag whereas doing so. It helps the 60 FPS mode and performs the sport lag-free with Excessive-High quality visible high quality chosen. Name of Responsibility: Cellular labored easily and I did not discover any body drops with the Excessive graphics settings turned on. Nevertheless, with Very Excessive graphics high quality and most body fee, the sport does lag slightly, and it is not a easy expertise. The smartphone didn’t get very heat through the gameplay both.
The Vivo V30 Professional didn’t overheat whereas gaming
The 6.78-inch full-HD+ curved-edge AMOLED panel provides a 120Hz refresh fee and a claimed peak brightness of as much as 2,800 nits. By default, the show produces good colors that are not overly saturated. It will get fairly vivid open air however the colors get washed out when viewing the show in direct daylight. The smartphone has a single down-firing speaker that’s loud sufficient, however the lack of a second speaker is disappointing at this worth level.
The show is HDR10+ licensed
The 5,000mAh battery carried out effectively in our battery video loop check. It ran for 19 hours and 10 minutes, which is nice and slightly higher than its predecessor. In our charging check, the smartphone charged to 71 p.c in half-hour and accomplished the cost in 60 minutes utilizing the offered 80W charging adaptor.
Vivo V30 Professional Overview: Cameras
The Vivo V30 Professional is a camera-centric smartphone that comes geared up with fairly a couple of helpful options. It has three rear-facing cameras, together with a 50-megapixel (Sony IMX920) main digicam with an f/1.9 aperture and optical picture stabilisation (OIS), a 50-megapixel (Sony IMX816) f/1.9 telephoto digicam with 2x optical zoom and one other 50-megapixel ultrawide digicam. The telephone has a 50-megapixel digicam with an f/2.0 aperture and autofocus for selfies.
The 50-megapixel main digicam captures very detailed pictures in daylight with good dynamic vary. It produces pictures that are not overly saturated and do not look over-processed, both. I discovered the seize pace to be a bit sluggish, it takes a few milliseconds to click on a photograph at occasions, particularly with HDR pictures.
Photographs shot utilizing the first digicam in vivid daylight have loads of element (faucet picture to increase)
The 50-megapixel telephoto is nice for daylight photographs. It maintains the identical color tones as the first digicam and produces pictures with good particulars within the highlights and shadows. Nevertheless, it processes the photographs a bit extra, in order that they usually come out softer than the first digicam regardless of having the identical decision. There may be additionally an choice to click on pictures at 4x zoom, however the pictures at this level are very gentle and solely usable typically.
Vivo V30 Professional telephoto digicam pattern. (faucet picture to increase)
The ultrawide digicam makes use of the identical 50-megapixel decision, however it produces pictures in a completely completely different trend. The color scheme would not match that of the opposite two cameras, the photographs come out softer, and also you solely get good photographs when there’s loads of gentle.
The ultrawide digicam has a special color scheme when in comparison with the opposite two cameras (faucet picture to increase)
The 50-megapixel front-facing digicam handles harsh lighting conditions effectively, however there will probably be some situations the place the photographs are likely to have ramped-up shadows, particularly with the backlit photographs.
Entrance going through digicam clicks pictures which are wealthy in distinction and have barely larger saturation ranges (faucet to increase)
Earlier than discussing this smartphone’s low-light capabilities, let’s focus on Vivo’s Zeiss partnership.
Zeiss and Vivo have partnered for the X collection of smartphones for fairly a very long time, however that is the primary time that the 2 manufacturers have collaborated for a V collection smartphone on the Vivo V30 Professional and never the vanilla V30. This time it isn’t completely the identical factor, for the X collection, Vivo has the Zeiss brand and the enduring T brand printed across the digicam module which signifies that the digicam has not solely been co-engineered with Zeiss but additionally makes use of the T coating.
The smartphone sports activities a three-camera setup on the rear
This isn’t the case for the Vivo V30 Professional; it solely has the Zeiss brand with out the T* signal, and as confirmed by the model, the lenses don’t have the coating.
So what this implies is that the Vivo V30 Professional does have the Zeiss lens emulators inside the digicam app whilst you click on portraits however the outcomes is not going to be pretty much as good as those shot on a X collection smartphone.
Portraits shot with Zeiss filter, with out aura gentle (left), with aura gentle (proper) (faucet to increase)
I did mess around with these filters (referred to as Zeiss Type Bokehs) and it’s a good addition for a mid-range smartphone. I attempted these out with the brand new aura gentle and managed fairly good portraits. The aura gentle can accommodate the color temperature in accordance with the lighting surroundings robotically or one can manually modify it too.
Low-light images on the Vivo V30 Professional is a blended bag. The first digicam clicks visually gorgeous pictures regardless of no gentle being within the body. I shot some pictures in pitch darkness, and the digicam nonetheless managed to deliver up the colors with good particulars in them. Regardless of the smartphone taking longer to shoot at nighttime, I did not get blurry pictures, due to OIS being current on this one.
Photographs shot with night time mode take barely longer to click on. Shot with main digicam (faucet to increase)
The telephoto digicam photographs aren’t excellent in pitch darkness, however they produce good pictures with scenes which have some gentle in them. The saturation ranges are respectable, however the pictures do look over-processed and are softer than common. The identical is the story for the ultrawide digicam as effectively. The pictures taken with it are softer and don’t keep the identical color scheme, which is usually a bummer.
The front-facing digicam works effectively in low gentle. It retains a good look all through the body and doesn’t flip night time to day by overexposing it. Focus is one thing that it struggles with typically.
The Vivo V30 Professional can shoot movies at as much as 4K 60fps on all three rear cameras and the entrance digicam as effectively. That is the place OIS shines for the movies shot utilizing the first digicam. I shot a number of movies by way of the first digicam and the outcomes had been fairly spectacular. The digicam handles harsh daylight effectively and showcases good dynamic vary. Taking pictures on the go has gotten higher for the reason that Vivo V29 Professional, the smartphone doesn’t wrestle with shifting photographs as a lot and the stabilisation is kind of good. Outcomes from the telephoto and the ultrawide digicam are additionally spectacular. Surprisingly, the three rear cameras handle to take care of an identical color tone for movies. In low gentle, the cameras do wrestle and you will notice various noise in your photographs, particularly for the telephoto and the ultrawide digicam.
The 50-megapixel front-facing digicam shoots respectable sufficient movies that come out in harsh lighting circumstances however typically misses focus. The low-light video on this one is hit and miss. There have been situations the place I ended up with a washed-up shot that wasn’t very helpful. Typically, it produced movies that had fairly good particulars in them and had been well-lit as effectively.
Vivo V30 Professional Overview: Verdict
The Vivo V30 Professional is just not an enormous soar from its predecessor, the Vivo V29 Professional. By way of person expertise and digicam efficiency, Vivo provides solely incremental upgrades, like barely sooner charging with longer battery life. Then, there are a couple of new digicam options, just like the inclusion of Zeiss Type Bokehs (or filters) on a V collection smartphone, that may entice a client who loves taking pictures portrait photographs.
Sadly, the telephone misses out on some key options present in different smartphones at this worth level, like a greater official IP score for mud and water resistance and the brand new AI options that the majority producers are focussing on in 2024. It is also utilizing a slightly dated processor, which is not precisely champion relating to efficiency given its premium price ticket, which begins from Rs. 41,999.
Surprisingly, this isn’t precisely an issue. Vivo mainly trades efficiency for higher digicam {hardware} and options (a few of which have trickled down from its top-end Vivo X collection gadgets). Merely put, it is a smartphone that is targeted on images and won’t cater to players or energy customers.
In case you are searching for one thing extra highly effective at this worth level, the OnePlus 12R (Overview), which provides a lot better uncooked efficiency with its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC. In case you are any person who wants AI options and an official IP score, the Pixel 7a (Overview) additionally retails on the identical worth but additionally provides higher software program (with quick updates) and really dependable digicam efficiency.
