In the smartphone world, trends sell until they quickly become the norm. Phablets, curved screens, styluses, multiple cameras, and fingerprint sensors have all had their moment in the sun. They came and became the standard where now we wonder how we ever survived as human beings without those features.

Right now, the under-screen fingerprint is poised to become the regular thing for everyone. Everyone expected Samsung to have come up with it on their flagship by now. Vivo ended up beating them to the game. It has been a rather long journey to finally see the light of day. Keep in mind Motorola first launched one using an optical scanner back in 2011 for their Atrix phone.

So, Vivo is touting the first under-screen fingerprint sensor. But is that all they have?

Their design conforms to the current trend of being bright and colourful. A sleek device with smooth curved edges, the 6.41-inch screen has narrow bezels and a very tiny teardrop-shaped notch. That notch is yet another 2018 trend that is slowly becoming the norm. Vivo has done it better than Apple here using minimal space to house the camera. The 402ppi display is gorgeous and offers good colours without appearing saturated. Win-win on the design, almost. That plasticky back with the purple-blue gradient looks beautiful without bordering on tacky like the chrome edges Oppo we reviewed last. But, the plasticky back does take on scratches rather easily.

Its powered by a Snapdragon 660 and an Adreno 512 GPU. Both are good enough to offer a smooth UI experience and practical, dependable performance for anything you use it for. Really, midrange and higher phones have got to the point these days where they all basically serve all your needs rather fluently.

Which brings us to that big selling point: the under-screen fingerprint sensor. It's a very cool gimmick. Who doesn't want to feel like James Bond, touching a screen, seeing fancy graphics and watching the world unlock? It's a great gimmick and in time it will be perfected, I hope. It is slower than a regular, capacitive fingerprint scanner. My average is at least a second before the screen unlocks. Which is why it has a cool, futuristic, glowing animation to take your mind of the waiting. And sometimes, perhaps about twenty percent of the time, you need to try again.

Which brings us to the photography aspect. 12MP dual camera setup actually takes very good pictures in daylight. Neutral colours and good contrast are present but the dynamic range is not as good as I expected. Most shots are clear and sharp. It takes a bit of a dive in low light where the noise is treated to a heavy dose of smoothing which takes away a lot of the detail. Selfies are excellent though representing excellent detail or facial irregularities and hair strands.  Of course, this is where people end up applying a lot of filters to create a smooth flawless skin. If that is not your preference, you will get very accurate, clear selfie shots.  

Specs

Display: 6.41 Inch 2340*1080 Halo FullView Display

OS: Android 8.1 (Oreo)

CPU: Qualcomm 660 AIE, Octa core, 1.95 GHz

GPU: Adreno 512

RAM: 6 GB

ROM: 128 GB

Camera: Rear 12+ 5 MP Front 25 MP

Fingerprint Sensor: In Display Fingerprint

Battery: 3,400 mAh

Price: Tk. 34,990/-

Verdict

Vivo is not that popular here yet. But they do make excellent phones and the V11 Pro is a standout mainly for the underscreen scanner. But that is not the only card it has to play.  It offers a terrific screen, very good battery backup and a decent camera to boot. In this current period, we consider the Samsung S9, Note 9, Huawei P20 and Pixel 3 stand as the flagship camera devices. In comparison the Vivo deserves a solid 7 for image quality. The slow scanner is cool but the delay is not exactly a deal breaker. This is a good contender for the mid-range market and should help make the Vivo a better known brand in Bangladesh.