If you buy the Vivo V40 5G you don’t just get a phone that works perfectly with good performance and a battery that refuses to die no matter how much you use it, its association with Zeiss allows it to sneak in among the phones that take the best portraits.
with good collaboration with a legendary brand in the world of photography like Zeiss, it is possible to produce phones that stand out above all for their photography, in a design that is very light and comfortable.
I’ve been using this Vivo V40 5G as my main phone for a couple of weeks now and I must admit that after some initial doubts about the choice of hardware, especially the processor, after daily use I haven’t noticed any performance problems.
What’s more, I would say that the choice of this processor in combination with a 5,500 mAh battery gives the Vivo V40 5G an advantage over other similar phones because it has a battery life that is boccato di cardinale. It lasts and lasts and lasts and lasts… Possibly one of the phones where the “two-day battery” thing is more real than ever.
This is what I thought of the Vivo V40 5G, a phone that goes on sale for 599 euros in July and which, although it may not seem like it, competes against high-end phones.
A simple, attractive design and lightweight
I don’t think the Vivo design team racked their brains when choosing an appropriate design for this Vivo V40 5G. What’s more, I would go so far as to say that they have used a design language too similar to the Oppo Reno 10.
It is a perfect handset because it is a good weight, only 190 grams, with a slim design and a curved-sided screen which, despite starting to be a detail that we are going to see less in favor of flat screens, makes it comfortable to hold without slipping.
The keypad is on the right, with volume up first and the power button below. The USB-C connection and tray for two SIM cards are at the bottom.
The camera module is what draws the most attention from the rear, unless, as in my case, you decide on the purple color, which looks quite good with this sparkle effect depending on the light.
A round camera module that hides its two main cameras, with an LED flash ring and a light sensor below.
It has just enough connectivity, with Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4. It is probably perfect for 99% of the population, but since it is 2024, it is a shame that it is not compatible with Wi-Fi 6e, but this chip does not allow it.
In addition, it has positioning support with international standard satellites such as GPS, Galileo or GLONASS, it has NFC for making payments and 5G connection.
The only physical connection is the USB-C charging port that supports USB 2.0 transfers, i.e. a maximum of 60 MB/s.
An extra-bright screen for summer and more than acceptable sound
You can never go wrong with an AMOLED screen these days, which is why I can’t find fault with the Vivo V40 5G’s screen. The panel is 6.78 inches in size with a resolution of 1,260 x 2,800 pixels.
It reaches a maximum refresh rate of 120 Hz, although it is variable refresh, so it can save battery in certain animations or moments when there is no movement.
It has a peak brightness of 4,500 nits, but the reality is that you will only achieve that when you have direct sunlight on an extremely sunny day. The most normal brightness, at 100% level, is close to 1,600 nits.
If I have to find a fault, perhaps a really ridiculous one, it is the curvature of the screen on the sides. It is slight, but it is still there and although there are no longer those ghost touches when holding it and lightly touching the screen with your palm, this effect is starting to be outdated after so many years of use.
Sound is not something we usually care about the most in a mobile phone. Luckily, few people use their mobile phones to play music outdoors and, although you can do it and the quality is not bad at all, respect your loved ones.
It doesn’t sound bad at all with its two speakers, but it’s not a phone for playing music. It has low distortion up to a level of approximately 75%, but it doesn’t sound as good as you might expect. Where you get better sound quality is with voices. You can turn up the speaker volume and, although there is some distortion, you can have a conversation and be heard clearly.
This Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 gives what it can, but it doesn’t let you down
There are no surprises in the performance section and the fact is that having a Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 processor, it was to be expected that it would not be up to the level of a premium range, but I think it falls somewhat short of even a high-end range.
It’s not that the Vivo V40 5G’s performance is bad, it works very well in your day-to-day life, with open applications such as social networks, Chrome with too many tabs open or with applications that demand more performance such as games. But, never better said, this processor plays against it.
The gaming performance is good, but not excellent. It can run any modern game like Genshin Impact, Brawl Stars, Roblox or Call of Duty: Mobile, but the graphics quality is limited.
Although it has a game mode where you activate some settings so that the processor focuses all its attention on the game’s performance so that you don’t have lag or jolts, even with graphics at the “Ultra” level, they don’t look as good as expected.
But on a day-to-day basis, the truth is that the performance is more than outstanding, especially in application management or multitasking. These are the data that the benchmark programs give us so you can compare it with similar phones.
Another detail to bear in mind is heat management. Very good work in this respect. With more than 20 minutes playing at a high brightness level, although not the highest, the phone, although clearly warm, did not reach a problematic temperature.
Funtouch OS improves and there are more utilities
I wouldn’t describe Funtouch OS as the best version of Android at the moment. I don’t think it’s among my favorites, but it does a good job of giving you a clean Android interface with some customization details that, like it or not, are always good to have.
As is standard in Android 14, you can customize the color tone of Android, as well as the icons so that they are more standard and use that color palette. In addition, Funtouch OS adds some more customization details, such as a lock screen with customizable time in font and color.
It has finger gestures, for example three fingers down is to take a screenshot, three fingers up opens two applications in split screen. It also allows you to have floating windows.
It also has a useful sidebar that you can pull out from the side to have your most used applications, which in turn you can expand to see all your apps.
This camera takes incredible portraits with a color-changing flash
The Vivo V40 5G’s camera features are quite simple, two main cameras and one front camera. But behind what may seem like something ordinary, there is something that makes it stand out above all else, a collaboration with the German lens company Zeiss.
This is the camera configuration.
50-megapixel wide-angle camera f/1.8
50-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera f/2.0
50-megapixel front camera f/2.0
The results of the photos with the main camera are generally quite good. Of course, it depends on the time of day because with good lighting, during the day, the results are excellent. The darker the scene, I notice that the quality starts to suffer and the image processing starts to blur the image. Mind you, at least it does a good job of giving you as much light as possible.
The truth is that the photos in normal mode are very good, although it is true that when you zoom in to 100% of the photograph you start to see details of lack of definition. But these are minimal details that, in the end, should not affect your opinion.
Where you can forget about quality is as soon as you zoom in more than 2x (which is a crop of the main sensor). The results are catastrophic. They are not photos, they are watercolors and, believe me, it is better that you never use the digital zoom offered by this camera.
And although you’re going to take this type of photo 90% of the time, with the main sensor on everyday things, where the Vivo V40 5G stands out above everything — and everyone — is for its portrait mode. This 600-euro phone is on a par with portraits from phones that are double its price, such as the Xiaomi 14 Ultra.
It has three apertures, 24mm for horizontal portraits, 35mm for urban portraits and 50mm for natural portraits. To this we have to add the lens aberrations that can be modified thanks to Zeiss filters.
In this gallery, in the 50mm photo, you can see the lens aberrations in the background in the form of a rhombus (Distagon according to Zeiss) which is customizable.
The results in portraits are spectacular, with a bokeh effect on a par with the highest-end camera phones, with perfectly natural colors, not oversaturated, but not flat either.
Another of the surprises offered by Vivo V40 5G is its Aura Light, that is, the ring-shaped LED flash that you can also change to white. It’s a curious detail that, in my opinion, it would be good if more phones integrated it, but beyond curiosity, I don’t think it has any real value in photography or video.
The longest 5,500 mAh of my life
One of the Vivo V40 5G’s great strengths is its long battery life. The choice to use a 5,500 mAh battery and a processor that does not use as much energy as higher-end ones has been the right one.
No matter how I use it, even on the hottest days of this early summer in Madrid, using 5G networks and with all the traditional and work applications that I use, the Vivo V40 5G’s battery is spectacular.
After a very intense day, when I got home, it hadn’t used up even half the battery. I would say that is worth mentioning.
It is also ready to be charged with up to 80 W, but the charger is not included in the box. As there are cheap options, don’t hesitate: upgrade your charger to an 80 W one so you can charge your phone in no time.
The Vivo V40 5G is a highly recommended phone
Vivo has managed to return to the upper-middle range with a Vivo V40 5G that far exceeds my expectations. Not only does it have a good screen and battery life, the camera gives brilliant results and the portrait mode is amazing.
Funtouch OS is okay, but it has a lot of room for improvement to catch up with other Android skins, such as Samsung’s, and, above all, it is light years away from what its Chinese version OriginOS can do, but the limitations, or rather Google’s requirements for having Android, are what they are.
At a price of 599 euros it becomes a very appealing upper-middle range mobile, on a par with those that cost more in terms of photography, although in terms of performance it is very much in its range.
