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Vivo Y55s was launched in February 2017, is basically an upgraded version of Vivo Y55L (launched in October 2016) which comes with better specifications. Vivo Y55s is priced at Rs.12,490 and is available in crown gold and space grey across India via offline stores. The price of Rs.12,490 puts Y55s into direct competition with a crowded mid-range smartphone segment with some popular devices such as Redmi Note 4, Moto G4, Honor 6X and few more. But considering the fact that Vivo is targeting the offline smartphone market with Y55s, we check out how good the phone is? Is it worth the money?
We have used Vivo Y55s for almost one week as our primary device and this review is based on our experience during that one-week usage of Vivo Y55s.
Vivo Y55s specifications
- Display : 5.2 inch 720p HD IPS 2.5D curved-edge display
- CPU: 1.4 GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon 425 processor
- GPU: Adreno 308 GPU
- RAM: 3 GB
- Storage: 16 GB, expandable up to 256 GB with microSD
- OS: Funtouch OS 3.0 based on Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)
- Camera: 13 MP rear camera with LED Flash + 5 MP front shooter
- Misc: Dual SIM, NO Fingerprint Sensor
- Connectivity : 4G LTE, VOLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS
- Battery: 2730 mAh with no support for fast charging
Design and Build Quality
In terms of design & build quality, Vivo Y55s looks just like any other Vivo smartphone with same Candybar design. The design does look premium with a plastic back panel which does appear like metal. The back panel comes with a shiny soft gold finish. Thanks to the 5.2-inch display, it feels compact to hold and easy for one hand usage.
At the back, Vivo logo can be seen in the middle and Camera along with LED flash is located at the top left corner. There is no fingerprint sensor on the phone.The volume rockers and power buttons are on one side with the Dual SIM slot at the other side of the phone. The top side of the phone holds the dedicated MicroSD slot and the 3.5 mm audio jack just as we saw in Vivo V3 (Read Review). At the bottom, we have Micro USB port in the middle along with speakers grill at one side and mic at the other side.
The physical navigation capacitive buttons are located below the display but are not back-lit. The 5 MP front camera is located at the top of the display with proximity sensor and the speakers. It comes with 2730 mAh embedded battery which can’t be removed.
Display, Performance, Gaming and Benchmarks
The phone sports a 5.2 inch 720p HD IPS display with 1280 x 720 pixel resolution without any Gorilla glass protection. The display appears great under normal lighting conditions with decent colour reproduction and brightness but under severe direct sunlight, the display not so good.
Vivo Y55s is powered by 1.4 GHz Quad-Core Snapdragon 425 processor with Adreno 308 GPU with 3 GB of RAM. The combination of Snapdragon 425 with 3 GB RAM produces some decent performance under normal day-to-day conditions. But yes, we have seen much better devices in the same price range which offer much better performance. We played some heavy graphics intensive games such as Asphalt 8 under default conditions, simultaneously with many apps/games open in the background and we did experience lags along with random frame drops. The colour reproduction is just average if you compare similar devices in the same price range.
It comes with 16 GB of internal storage and a dedicated MicroSD card slot for expandable storage. It also supports USB OTG but is disabled by default. You can enable USB OTG from settings but is disabled automatically in few minutes if you are not using it.
The call quality during voice calls was clear without any issues. The dialer app also gives you an option to record calls without installing any additional app or rooting the device. Usually, in most devices, you need to root your device first and then install an additional paid app to record calls.
The AnTuTu benchmark score for Vivo Y55s comes out to be about 35,000+ which is low for a device priced ~Rs. 12,490 and it reflects in the performance of the smartphone in various conditions, especially during gaming. Smartphones such as LeEco Le 2 grabs an Antutu Score of the order of 80,000 which is more than double of what Vivo Y55s could get.
Camera
The phone comes with a 13 MP rear camera with LED flash & PDAF and a 5 MP front shooter for selfies. We tested both cameras under different lighting conditions.
The main rear camera produced good images under normal lighting conditions, but it wasn’t good in low light conditions with the amount of Noise creeping in with low light. But if start zooming the images, you will find blurry details along with noise. As with any other Vivo phone, the camera app comes with some great modes such as beauty mode and professional mode, which can produce some good shots if you know what to do with professional settings like exposure, white balance etc. The camera app also includes some filters inbuilt similar to Instagram. Other modes that camera features are Night Mode, Panorama mode, Motion tracking mode, Fast mode, HDR mode, PPT mode and Slow Motion mode. It offers more features such as touch capture, Voice shutter, gender detection and much more.
The 5 MP front shooter produced some good selfies under normal lighting conditions with the face beauty mode doing a good job for selfies if used properly.
Camera Samples
Check out some of the camera samples of Vivo Y55s main rear camera and front shooter under different lighting conditions.
Battery
The battery performance of Vivo V5 turned out to be good probably because of Snapdragon 425 and the HD display. The phone is powered by a 2730 mAh battery and it lasted a full day with moderate use. During our review, we used dual SIMs with a JIO SIM for data and another SIM for voice calls. Our average use includes some Voice calls, browsing Twitter, Facebook, messaging apps such as Whatsapp, Telegram & other social sites and a bit of music streaming apps. Unfortunately, there is no fast charge support available with the phone.
Operating System and UI
Vivo Y55s runs on Funtouch OS 3.0 based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system. Our Opinion about Funtouch OS remains same as with our previous reviews. Even though it’s Android, yet you will feel as if it’s very much similar to iOS.
It does not come with an app drawer and uses a launcher similar to iOS. Similarly, swiping from the bottom of the screen gives you access to toggles for different features just like iOS. For users who prefer simplicity, this is a good UI but for users like us, these modifications in Android make it difficult. You can get access to widgets on-screen using the left button which usually is the recent key in other smartphones. But once you get used to the UI, you won’t feel odd using it. Yet, we found many settings / UI changes too odd for us in terms of user experience.
The OS also offers some nice gestures which can be enabled from inside the settings. Most of the advanced settings are hidden from an average user which is often good, but maybe even bad for few users.
It also includes features such as Smart Split for apps such as Facebook, Whatsapp and Messages.
Conclusion
Vivo Y55s offers a compact phone with good battery life & 4G LTE along with VOLTE but lacks in terms of performance if you compare it to devices priced more than Rs. 10,000. Some of the competing devices are Redmi Note 4, Honor 6X, LeEco Le2 and even Redmi 3S prime which offers more in terms of features and value for money. But if you consider that Vivo Y55s is available only through the offline market where all the phones that we just talked about are unavailable and hence an offline consumer may have less choice available.
