The Vivo Y20s – £149 from LaptopsDirect.com

Overall Rating : 3.6 out of 5.0 stars – 3.6 Stars

The year 2020 has brought us a number of things such as we have all become Zoom experts due to all working from home but in the mobile sector, it brought us Vivo who sent us 3 handsets – The Vivo X51 5G, Vivo Y70 and this latest the Vivo Y20s. 

The Vivo Y20s is the cheapest of the trio of handsets coming in at £149 via Laptops Direct. This is Vivo entry into the budget range of the market and compares with the likes of Xiaomi & realme. First impressions this handset looks good but like others in the budget sector the not going to blow you away. The main features of this phone include: 

  • Snapdragon 460 Octa-Core Processor
  • 4GB RAM 
  • 128GB Storage
  • 256 GB Micro SD Card Slot
  • 18W Flash Drive  

Design

As you might expect with a budget handset design-wise Vivo uses lots of plastic but this handset does not feel as cheap as you may have expected. The handset comes in two colours – Obsidian Black or Nebula Blue. 

The handset is the following size: 164.4 x76.3 x 8.4mm so it fits nicely in the hand and is not overly heavy either at 192g.  Controls wise just like the Vivo Y20 the volume and power button are on the right. This handset also embeds the fingerprint scanner in the power button which when the phone in your hand it’s easy to press.

Vivo Y20s

The fingerprint scanner is built into the power button.

On the base of the handset surprisingly you are given a micro USB port instead of the more popular USB-C port. Finally, the phone also offers a 3.5mm headphone jack. 

Display

This phone comes with a 6.51 inch LCD screen that had a resolution of 720 x1600. The Y20s also comes with that teardrop notch on the front that has the front-facing camera. The problem you’re going to have with this phone is some streaming services output FHD content and using the Y20s will provide a poor display and some images may look a little fuzzy in places and the colours won’t be as vibrant as you might have hoped.

Vivo Y20s review

Performance

Inside the phone, it uses a snapdragon 460 chipset and this is quite a low-end processor compared to what is available. It’s unfortunate they picked this chipset as the phone feels slow when playing mobile games. However, if you’re going to use this phone just for everyday use you won’t notice it being to slow but you will notice the handset below slow when scrolling between menus or opening apps its will appear a little on the slow side. The phone also comes with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage and the option of an extra 256GB via a Micro SD card slot if you’re looking for extra storage.

When this phone undertook the Geekbench 5 benchmark test that resulted in a score of 1140 which is very low compared to the Vivo Y70 – 1309 or any other budget device we have tested. 

The In-Built speaker is acceptable for the price range of the device. However, the audio quality does get distorted as soon as you take the volume to 70% or above. This speaker will be acceptable when taking calls or you could simply pair some Bluetooth headphones to the phone then you have not sound issues. If you wanted to use your headphones via a wired connection your feel lucky as the Vivo Y20S comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack.

Much like the Vivo Y70 and the X51 5G, they all use Android 10 but also use Vivo own interface laid over the top called Funtouch 11. This interface looks very similar to what you expect from Google but does offer some apps exclusive to the Funtouch 11 interface but with all of use so used to the Google offerings, it’s unlikely you will use the apps. What the interface does do its offer an easy to use experience.

Battery life

Battery life in the Vivo Y20s is one of the shining lights at 5000mAh which is even bigger battery then the CAT S62 Pro we recently reviewed and also bigger than the Sony Xperia 5 II. I was very impressed with the battery life of this phone and as long as you just use the phone for everyday use this phone could last two days.   

Unfortunately, when it comes to charging this phone for some reason you are given a micro USB port which is a little unusual but then you are given an 18W flash charge which is not very flash at all and in fact quite slow it took a few hours to get this phone from 0% to 100%

Camera

With this handset, I wasn’t expecting big things from the camera if I am honest but I was pleasantly surprised with the camera for what is a low budget smartphone. The main camera itself is only a 13mp and to be honest it holds out pretty fine on this handset with a couple of other features built in to make you camera picture’s a little more special but more on that later. Sure, this handset won’t set the photography world alight but with some downloadable tools on the Google Play store such as Snapseed you can edit your pictures and really make them stand out and to be fair the quality of the images on this handset, you will have no problems in making your photo’s bold and looking pretty trick. The pictures come out just fine and if you’re just looking to upload onto social media then this handset will provide a decent enough picture to make people stop and look twice at your pictures.
Vivo Y20s review
(The camera was tested in low-level light situations due to weather conditions at this time of year but the pictures come out clean and crisp with great clarity and picked up the true light colours well.)
The selfie camera on this handset weighs in at 8mp which, to be honest, is more than enough for a selfie shot and the image comes out pretty clean and crisp. If you select Portrait mode, the hit “beauty” then you can play around with your facial features and make slight adjustments to the shape of your face and skin tones etc without the need for filters.
Vivo Y20s review

Our Camera Guy James using the Selfie Mode on the Vivo Y20s

The Vivo Y20s lacks a couple of features on the camera such as night mode to make your pictures in a darker or night environment stand out and a wide-angle lens to get more of the image that you are taking a picture of but don’t let those put you off buying this phone as it’s a pretty decent point and click device that will hold its own.  The zoom on this fall short at only a 4x zoom so don’t expect any extreme close-ups of something that in long-range as this will fall short.
Other features that this phone has are 2 lens modes such as Super Macro and Bokeh. In the photo selection and under more, you have the “live” photo that you get on iPhones, slo-mo, time-lapse, document and also Pro Mode so you can fettle with the settings of your camera just as you can on a DSLR.
Vivo Y20s review

Shot using the super macro mode

Vivo Y20S review

Shot using the Bokeh mode.

I wasn’t expecting big things from this handset as its pretty basic and low end but the camera holds its weight on this handset and you do get some pretty clean and clear pictures. The camera function on this phone will appeal to all age ranges but for me, I was surprised what we got with this handset camera wise.
Vivo Y20s review

Verdict 

The Vivo Y20s is a real mixed bag for me it has a very impressive battery with 5000mAh this device will be last up to two days if you’re not going overboard in terms of usage. The design of this phone is also a positive yes its made of plastic but it does not feel cheap as you might expect. This phone also comes with a fingerprint scanner on the side of the phone that does work very well to activate this phone in a quick manner. 

The negatives on this phone include the use of a micro USB it seems an odd choice considering more devices and other gadgets are moving over to the USB-C option. The display on the phone is very average. The lack of FHD output does affect the image quality sometimes even making the images feel fuzzy at times. The camera is also average it’s not bad for taking the odd social media shot but for anything a little more detailed and this phone struggles. 

So if your looking for a no-frills budget handset and battery life is the most important factor you could do a lot worse.

Product Rating: 

Design: 4.0 out of 5.0 stars

Speed: 2.0 out of 5.0 stars

Battery: 5.0 out of 5.0 stars5.0

Camera: 4.0 out of 5.0 stars

Value for Money: 3.0 out of 5.0 stars

 

The Vivo Y20s – £149 from LaptopsDirect.com

Overall Rating : 3.6 out of 5.0 stars – 3.6 Stars

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