The Vivo V30 Pro expands on the balance V30 mid-ranger by taking a more polished approach to the camera area. It features new colorways and a triple Zeiss camera on the back, making it one of the most attractive phones for mobile photography.
Vivo has always been committed to producing beautiful phones with flagship-grade cameras, and the Vivo V30 Pro is a direct continuation of this tradition. It’s a one-of-a-kind smartphone with a variety of colors, textures, and finishes, as well as a great OLED, four 50MP Zeiss-backed cameras, and a huge battery, all housed in a tiny and lightweight IP54-rated casing.
The Vivo V30 Pro is a dual-glass smartphone featuring a 6.78-inch AMOLED display at 1260p resolution and 120Hz refresh rate, 10-bit color depth, and HDR10+ support. Below this screen, there is a strong Dimensity 8200 chipset and UFS 3.1 storage chips.
The camera is the true show-stopper here. There are three images on the back: a 50MP OIS main, a 50MP OIS telephoto for 2x optical and 4x lossless zoom, and a 50MP AF ultrawide with macro capabilities. Vivo offers true-to-life colors with the Natural Zeiss color option, but you can also use Vivid colors if you want more vibrant shots.
Vivo V30 Pro KEY FEATURES
Vivo’s best mid-range smartphone offering yet. With a Zeiss lens, the Vivo V30 Pro becomes a highly capable camera phone while being well-rounded in other areas. However, there is plenty of competition at this price point, and restricted availability is holding it back.
Pros
- Detailed rear cameras with clean processing
- Streamlined design and bright display
- Powerful mid-range performance and long battery life
Cons
- Availability is highly market-dependent
- FunTouch OS is still heavy-handed with bloatware
UNBOXING THE VIVO V30 PRO
Vivo’s V-series phones have always been slim, and the Vivo V30 Pro is no exception. It’s less than 7.5mm thick, not including the bulging camera hump at the back, and weighs a mere 188g. That’s due in part to the polycarbonate construction; after all, this is a mid-range model, so a metal and glass build would be excessive.
I appreciate how my Bloom White review unit catches the light, with its pearl-like petal pattern that shifts between baby blue and silver depending on the angle. It’s not overly flashy and does a decent job of covering fingerprints. There’s also a Waving Aqua type with tiny particles implanted in the panel to simulate water, as well as a Lush Green model with fluorite glass that changes color when exposed to UV light. If you’re not into having fun, you can go for a plain black handset.
The screen glass and rear panel slope gently inward toward the center frame, allowing the phone to sit comfortably in your palm. I had no issue reaching the in-display fingerprint sensor, which is conveniently located far enough from the bottom edge to open one-handed without unbalancing the phone. It recognized my digits as rapidly as I would expect from a midrange phone. IP54 splash and dust protection is also a great cost-effective feature.
Vivo has done an excellent job of fitting the Aura Light flash into the rear camera module without dominating the proceedings. The Zeiss-badged lens array remains the focal point, and it does not protrude far enough to snag on my pockets when I remove or store the phone.
SCREEN AND SOUND
I’m not sure if there is such a thing as a terrible AMOLED phone screen nowadays, especially for this price. The Vivo V30 Pro features a 6.78-inch panel with 2800×1260 resolution and a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz, resulting in clear, bright, and colorful images.
When left to its own devices, the phone performed a fine job of switching between 60Hz and 120Hz modes, but I still preferred to set it to 120Hz for the few Android apps that didn’t appear to trigger the transition automatically. It makes day-to-day operations feel much smoother.
Vivo has increased peak brightness to an impressive 2800 nits, but only in a few particular conditions. For the most part, you’ll get a maximum of 1200 nits, which is more than adequate for outdoor use. I had no issue viewing the screen even in bright sunlight.
I’ve seen phones that allow for more color accuracy customization, but I’ve also seen plenty that don’t. You can go granular with the color temperature, but I found the display was nicely balanced right out of the box; not too vivid, but punchy enough to look good in photographs and videos.
The stereo speaker arrangement, which includes a single primary driver and an earpiece tweeter, is adequate. This is a really thin phone, therefore I was not shocked that the little sound system had little to no bass presence. There is enough loudness to listen to podcasts from across the room.
CAMERA
Vivo has really pushed the boat out with the V30 Pro camera setup. There’s a 50MP selfie camera up front, and a triple of 50MP sensors at the back, all protected in Zeiss glass. They may individually use the Aura Light ring flash to spotlight close subjects; it’s 19x larger and 50x softer than a standard phone flash, with on-the-fly color correction based on ambient lighting for the most attractive shots.
I find it really helpful to make individuals appear more natural and warmly illuminated, particularly in low-light situations. It’s also great for close-up food shots. The portrait mode also allows you to select from a variety of Zeiss bokeh effects designed to resemble the company’s DSLR lenses; they’re subtle, and the phone can’t always detect individual hairs, but they can produce some really appealing images.
You don’t get the massive 1-inch main sensor seen in the Vivo X100 Pro, but the 1/1.49 sensor here is capable of remarkable levels of detail. It holds up well as you start zooming close on your images, displaying only more sharpness at the pixel level. Exposure was nearly always spot on, with HDR kicking in to capture gloomy skies and buildings cast in shadow. Indoor white balance can be a little too warm for my liking, but the Zeiss Natural color profile brings things back to a more balanced appearance.
An in-app toggle allows you to effectively trim and upscale the 2x zoom telephoto lens to 4x. Softness begins to creep in, but colors and exposure remain consistent with the main lens, and there is still a lot of detail on display. When you start looking at pixels, image noise becomes much more evident, but not to the point where I stop sharing my photos on social media. It’s better to keep it at 2x at night, because even with optical picture stabilization, zooming in farther revealed more sharpness.
The ultrawide lens provides an impressive 119-degree field of vision, which is somewhat wider than the Vivo’s closest competitors. Again, colors and exposure are spot-on compared to the main camera, and there is a lot of detail for the price.
Even with all of the beauty mode features turned off, the Vivo appears to have a modest level of skin smoothing, something I have not experienced on other phones. It’s really minor, yet noticeable when you start looking at pixels. If that puts you off, many capable mid-range cameras produce similarly attractive results.
SOFTWARE EXPERIENCE
The Vivo V30 Pro arrived running Android 14, with the most recent version of FunTouch OS on top. This is a rather hefty skin, with a plethora of home and lock screen customization options, numerous widgets, and a slew of pre-installed apps.
I have no use for the V-app store because the V30 Pro already has the Google Play store pre-installed, and I dislike how it clutters the app drawer with shortcuts to games I don’t want to play. There are the typical third-party apps that can be uninstalled with a few touches, as well as Vivo’s own-brand options that mimic Google’s default settings.
It’s unclear whether the version I received has the same software setup as other areas; possibly certain countries perform better than others.
I’m not sure how long Vivo intends to provide software support; the company has only promised to three years of Android updates for its flagship X-series phones, which means the V-series may receive less. That isn’t ideal, especially for a mid-range phone; a Pixel 7a might theoretically survive much longer thanks to extended OS updates and software patches from Google.
PERFORMANCE AND BATTERY LIFE
Rather than recycling the Qualcomm hardware seen in the more common V30, Vivo has given the Pro a MediaTek makeover. It features a Dimensity 8200 chipset paired with either 8 or 12GB of RAM, depending on the specification. This combination packs a powerful punch, giving it an advantage over the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 Vivo V30 in some apps and providing more than enough to make Android feel smooth.
There’s no waiting for programs to launch once you hit the icon; websites load swiftly and don’t jitter while scrolling; and split-screen multitasking doesn’t become a chore. I think the performance was spot on for a mid-range smartphone.
It also performed admirably throughout game sessions. In terms of frames per second and smooth frame delivery, MediaTek silicon used to be behind Qualcomm’s CPUs, but the titles I tested all performed extremely well and at high detail levels. A vapor chamber cooling system does its best, but I believe repeated hour-long gaming sessions are a bit too much for the hardware.
One of the Vivo V30 Pro’s best features is its long battery life. Vivo has crammed in a 5000mAh cell, which is more than enough to last a full day between charges. I snapped hundreds of photos and yet managed to remain out of the red by nightfall. 80W rapid charging support allows you a complete refuel in just over 45 minutes, so you’ll never be waiting long.
Buy it if...
- The full retail package includes a charger and a case.
- IP54-rated slim, light body with eye-catching color variations and various finishes.
- Bright OLED display with low bezels, 120Hz refresh rate, 10-bit color, and HDR10+ compatibility.
- Excellent battery life.
- Extremely competitive quick charging solution.
- Despite being carried over from the vivo V29 Pro and V27 Pro, the Dimensity 8200 retains plenty of power.
- The addition of ZEISS color modes and the Aura Light square light improves overall camera performance.
Don't buy it if...
- No stereo speakers.
- Incredibly slippery body with practically no grip without a case.
- Video stabilization is somewhat lacking.
Full Specification
NETWORK |
Technology |
GSM/WCDMA/FDD-LTE/TD-LTE/5G |
LAUNCH |
Announced |
2024, February 29 |
Status |
Available. Released 2024, March 7 |
|
BODY |
Dimensions |
164.36 75.1 7.45 mm |
Weight |
188g |
|
Build |
glass back |
|
SIM |
Dual SIM (2 Nano-SIMs) |
|
DISPLAY |
Type |
AMOLED |
Size |
6.78 inches |
|
Resolution |
2800 1260 |
|
PLATFORM |
OS |
Funtouch OS 14 |
Chipset |
MediaTek Dimensity 8200 |
|
CPU |
8-core (1 A78 3.1GHz + 3 A78 3.0GHz + 4 A55 2.0GHz) |
|
GPU |
Adreno 720 |
|
MEMORY |
Card slot |
no |
Internal |
12 GB +512 GB (RAM & ROM) |
|
MAIN CAMERA |
QUAD |
50 MP VCS True Color Main Camera, OIS, f/1.88, 84 FOV, 6P50 MP Professional Portrait Camera, AF, f/1.85, 47.6 FOV, 6P50 MP AF Ultra Wide-Angle Camera, f/2.0, 119 FOV, 5P |
Features |
High resolution, Pano, Documents, Slo-mo, Time-lapse, Supermoon, Astro, Pro, Snapshot, Food, Dual View, Live Photo, Night, Portrait, Photo, Video, Micro Movie |
|
Video |
4K/1080P/720P |
|
SELFIE CAMERA |
Single |
50 MP AF Group Selfie Camera, f/2.0, 92 FOV, 5P |
Features |
High resolution, Dual View, Live Photo, Night, Portrait, Photo, Video, Micro Movie |
|
Video |
MP4 |
|
SOUND |
Loudspeaker |
Yes, with stereo speakers |
3.5mm jack |
No |
|
FEATURES |
Sensors |
In-display optical fingerprint sensor |
BATTERY |
TYPE |
5000 mAh (Li-ion battery) |
Charging |
80W |
|
MISC |
Colors |
Andaman Blue, Classic Black, and Peacock Green |
Models |
V30 Pro |