Vivo V29 Pro Review
Introduction
Vivo has another premium mid-range smartphone made in India with an Indian design – the Vivo V29 Pro. Like previous V-series models, the V29 Pro focuses on photography. The V29 Pro duplicates the previous model's "Aura Light" concept with a unique color-changing backlight, a dedicated portrait telephoto lens, and an ultra-high-resolution display.
The new implementation of Aura Light has a special set of LEDs (15.6 mm diameter), which can automatically adjust its temperature according to the ambient light, and you can also change it manually if you want. They claim to be 36% brighter than the previous generation.
The V27 Pro's dedicated 2MP macro camera may be gone, but in its place is a 12MP portrait camera with 2x zoom. There are no other V series phones, so this is a big change. The Sony IMX663 sensor has "full-pixel dual-core" autofocus, which helps in the dark.
Next on the list of major improvements is the screen, its diagonal remains unchanged - 6.78 inches. But this is a fairly high-resolution panel: 1260 x 2800 pixel resolution gives you 453 ppi, so you can expect extra sharpness.
Vivo has decided to keep the V29 Pro thin at 7.5mm. That means keeping the battery capacity at 4,600mAh, but if the V27 Pro is any indication, that's plenty. Charging is now 80W instead of the V27 Pro's 66W, but that doesn't make much of a difference, so we'll look at how charging speeds compare.
Vivo V29 Pro Features in a nutshell:
- Body: 164.2 x 74.4 x 7.5mm, 188g; Glass on the front, glass on the back.
- Screen: 6.78 inch AMOLED, 120 Hz, resolution 1260 x 2800 pixels, aspect ratio 20:9, 453 ppi.
- Chipset: MediaTek Dimension 8200 (4 nm): octa-core (1 Cortex-A78 @ 3.1 GHz and 3 Cortex-A78 @ 3.0 GHz and 4 Cortex-A55 @ 2.0 GHz); Mali-G610 MC6.
- Memory: 256 GB 8 GB RAM, 256 GB 12 GB RAM.
- OS/Software: Android 13, FunTouch 13.
- Rear camera: Wide-angle (primary) : 50 MP, f/1.9, 1/1.56", 1.0 µm, PDAF, OIS; Telephoto : 12 MP, f/2.0, PDAF, 2x optical zoom; Ultra-wide-angle : 8 MP, f /2.2.
- Front camera: 50 MP, f/2.0, 22 mm (wide), autofocus.
- Video recording: Rear camera : 4K@30fps, 1080p@30fps; Front camera : 1080p at 30 fps.
- Battery: 4600 mAh; 80W wired power, 1-50% in 18 minutes (advertised).
- Communication: 5G; Two SIM cards; Wi-Fi 5; IT 5.3.
- Others: fingerprint scanner (under the screen, optical).
Vivo decided not to update its chipset and the V29 Pro uses the same MediaTek Dimensity 8200 chip as the V27 Pro. It will beat the Snapdragon 778G inside the vanilla Vivo V29. Speaking of the classic V29, one of its main additions is the IP68 rating. Interestingly, even though the V29 Pro is built with strict durability in mind, for some reason it doesn't have an official rating.
Downloading
The Vivo V29 Pro comes in a full-sized gray box with the Aura feature highlighted by a large glowing circle around the phone's name. It's a very durable two-piece case with a nice phone holder inside.
Vivo doesn't skimp on the retail packaging of its devices. First, in the box, you will receive an 80W Vivo FlashCharge charger and a USB Type-A to Type-C cable. The cable looks completely standard with no extra contacts, so no careful tracing is necessary. The V29 Pro's retail packaging doesn't skimp on protection either. The factory-installed screen protector comes with a clear coating, helping to reduce concerns about the phone's physical health.
