Vivo V70 Malaysia review: Better than I thought it would be
If you know me, you’d probably know that I’m not much of a Vivo user. Nothing against the brand, it’s just that I’ve never gotten a chance to daily a Vivo in years. Which is why when offered the opportunity to review the Vivo V70, I thought why not, let’s try a Vivo.
This is.. Gold?
Alright, let’s first address the gold elephant in the room. This is supposed to be the Vivo V70’s signature Golden Hour colourway, and I don’t know about you, but it’s more peach than gold. It’s not a real complaint of course, but I did have fun asking multiple PR people from Vivo about it. Besides, if you don’t like the flashy look, there’s always the more plain and minimalist Alpine Gray option.
Nevertheless, the actual phone itself it smaller with flat sides and round edges, similar to something like an iPhone or a Galaxy smartphone. It’s a nice change from the curved edges of its predecessor, making it feel more in line with contemporary devices. The aluminum frame also adds a touch of premium-ness to it, belying its midrange parts. Another nice-to-have with its build is an IP68/IP69 dust and water resistance rating, adding to its durability.
As for its display, being a smaller device also means a smaller display of course. It’s a 6.59-inch AMOLED display with a 2750 x 1260p resolution with an up to 120Hz refresh rate, along with a peak brightness of 5,000nits. Despite its reduced size, the screen actually has a higher resolution now, up from the FHD+ screen on its predecessor. Together with its stereo speakers, it delivers a pretty decent audiovisual experience; I had no issues doomscrolling or watching Dune on repeat with the V70.
Great battery life, too much bloatware
The Vivo V70 comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 system-on-chip, with up to 12GB of LPDDR5X memory and up to 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage. It comes with Android 16 out of the box, skinned with OriginOS 6 over it and it’s nice to see Vivo guaranteeing at least four major OS upgrades and six years of security patches for it.
Performance-wise, it will comfortably hold its own in nearly all day-to-day tasks, as you’d expect in an upper midrange smartphone these days. I’m not one to ‘clear’ my apps, but the V70 still handles having all my social media, messaging, music, video and numerous Chrome tabs open without much problem. As for gaming, it easily plays the lighter titles that I usually play, such as Teamfight Tactics, with no issue. Titles like League of Legends: Wild Rift will see occasional dips in big team fights, while I was capped to a max of 30fps in Where Winds Meet, which is much more demanding.
One thing I didn’t like though was OriginOS 6. Yes, it’s much better than FuntouchOS with nicer UI animations, a mostly bug-free experience and a relatively clean design, but there’s just too much bloatware. I mean, I can take the pre-installed apps and games as that just requires a quick uninstall, but do I really need to see ‘app suggestions’ when trying to use the search bar? I also certainly didn’t need the constant notifications about recommended apps to download from the V-Appstore.
Having said that, the V70 scores really well when it comes to battery life. The 6,500mAh battery comfortably delivers a full day of use, usually with around 30% left by the time I hit the bed. This means that on days where I didn’t doomscroll as much as usual I could squeeze closer to a day and a half of use before finally reaching for a charging cable. And even when I do need to charge it, its 90W fast charging can get me back to half charge in around half an hour.
Surprisingly decent ZEISS shooters
The Vivo V70 has the ZEISS logo on the back, and that’s because it features ZEISS optics over its camera setup. Specifically, you’re getting a 50MP, f/1.88 main camera using a Sony IMX766 sensor, a 50MP, f/2.65 Super Telephoto using the Sony LYT-600 sensor, and an 8MP, f/2.2 ultrawide on the back, while a 50MP, f/2.0 selfie shooter sits in front.
Perhaps its my lack of experience with Vivo’s smartphones, but I was quite surprised by how good the cameras are on the V70. For the most part, the main and telephoto cameras delivered pretty nice shots, though the ultrawide is largely forgettable compared to the others. I was impressed by the fantastic colour reproduction and dynamic range of these ZEISS shooters, and had way too much fun just taking random photos of the sky.
Portraits meanwhile were also decent, but the default point-and-shoot experience does seem to incorporate some amount of beautification going on. As for night time shots, the V70 again does pretty well for its class, never overbrightening the shot though if you’re pinching into your photos a lot you will notice a slight loss of detail. One thing to note though was that the post processing will take a noticeable while to kick in, so you’ll need to be patient at times with the V70 when snapping photos.
New sub-RM2,000 contender
Despite the few quirks, the Vivo V70 overall left a largely positive impression with me. If you’re looking for a new smartphone and you have at most RM2,000 to spend, the V70 should at the very least make your shortlist for consideration. As a quick refresher, the Vivo V70 starts at RM1,999 for the base model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
That being said, it’s going up against some pretty tough competition here. Perhaps its biggest challenger is the Xiaomi 15T, which starts at RM1,899. It’s got its own German giant on its side in the form of Leica co-developed cameras, and offers a 6.83-inch display with a MediaTek Dimensity 8400-Ultra under the hood.
Regardless, if you do end up with the Vivo V70, you’ll probably still enjoy the photography chops it offers, along with its excellent battery life, sleek look and long software support policy.
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