Vivo V21 5G Review: The potential to beat the best

Vivo V21 5G is a smartphone that, with its equipment and price, goes to the ruthless waters of the middle class. On the one hand, it offers sufficient performance, a stylish look, or even a selfie camera with more than interesting parameters. On the other hand, there may be a certain distrust of – for our market – an unknown brand, which does not underestimate its price. And unfortunately, the fact that Vivo has more than rich experience in the production of smartphones does not change anything.

Review content Vivo V21 5G

In the package you will find everything you need

Fortunately, Vivo is not yet one to save on the contents of the package of its smartphones, so you can be sure that the phone itself, the USB-C cable and basic manuals will not be the only thing you will find in the dark blue box. The benefits will definitely come as well 33W quick charge adapter or clear case. Due to the absence of a 3.5 mm jack, some users will appreciate the included USB-C reduction and for occasional listening or as an emergency, headphones can also be used, which do not play completely badly but do not fit everyone’s ears and due to their construction can not attenuate ambient noise.

Stylish and elegant

The Vivo V21 5G is a two-faced smartphone – but it’s entirely up to you which one you choose. However, due to the equipment and the overall focus, we think it fits a little more silver color variant with brightly colored reflections. After all, we had it available for review. However, this certainly does not mean that we do not understand users who choose the second available variant. Exactly opposite, Vivo V21 5G in dark blue design it definitely has something in it and, in contrast to the more open silver, it makes the knowledge more discreet and elegant. In both cases, the design is marked by sharp edges and flat surfaces. The back lacks any rounding except for the subtly rounded edges of the back cover.

It is then, like the frame of the phone, made of plastic and its appearance only imitates frosted glass – albeit quite convincingly. The question mark then hangs over the cover glass of the display, because the manufacturer does not state what glass it is, so we can only speculate whether it is one of the older generations of Gorilla Glass or something completely different (Dragontrail?). Unfortunately we did nor have they met any official standard of increased resistance to water and dust. However, this is not so surprising when IP6x certification is not even offered by the Vivo X60 Pro with a double price. Although we have not seen the use of the most valuable materials, the Vivo V21 5G certainly does not look like a plastic toy to us. First of all, the manufacturers manage to camouflage the plastic structure to a certain extent, and the good feeling from use is also helped by top processing.

The chosen plastic construction has at least two advantages. The first is traditionally slightly better reception of Wi-Fi and mobile signal than most smartphones with a metal frame. And the second is to achieve low weight of 176 grams. With 85% use of the front side, the Vivo V21 5G is not one of the record holders with the thinnest frames around the display. However, it is definitely not bad, and with dimensions of 159.7 x 73.9 x 7.3 mm, the phone fits in your hand quite well. However, some people could still be complicated by the sharp edges and completely straight back of the phone.

Surprisingly good Super AMOLED

One of the biggest advantages of the Vivo V21 5G smartphone can be used without any debate Super AMOLED display. It has a diagonal 6,44″ a FullHD + resolution, but its main attractions are undoubtedly support 90Hz refresh rate and HDR10 + support. Even in practice, it is more than convincing and offers not only the obligatory great viewing angles, perfect black or vivid colors. The readability of the display on a sunny day is also very good, and in this respect the Vivo V21 5G will not find many winners in this price category – if any at all. There is also a color display adjustment and a choice of several profiles, including sRGB and DCI-P3. He is present only one loud speaker. Moreover, his performance is not entirely convincing and he cannot play even particularly loudly.

Fingerprint reader

Of course, a fingerprint reader must not be missing either. In the case of the Vivo V21 5G smartphone, it is hidden in the display and relies on the optical evaluation of fingerprints. In practice, it represents the better we can come across with smartphones with a price of around CZK 10,000. The reader works reliably and it only takes about one second to unlock the phone. It is a pity that the manufacturer did not place the sensor at least an inch away from the bottom edge. In this way, the user has to twist his thumb unnaturally when unlocking the phone.

The MediaTek Dimensity 800U does its part

Inside the Vivo V21 5G smartphone, the heartbeat of the Taiwanese MediaTek in the form of a chipset Dimensity 800U. It has an eight-core processor with a maximum clock speed of 2.4 GHz and a Mali-G57 MC3 graphics chip. A relatively modern, 7nm production process is then used here. It then seconds the chipset 8 GB of RAM with up to an additional 3 GB of virtual RAM. This is used to “defer” the background of running applications and processes, which the system evaluates as less important. It is then prepared for user data 128GB UFS 2.2 storage. As the name of the phone suggests, there is support for 5G connectivity. However, Wi-Fi was somewhat neglected, as the chipset used does not support the Wi-Fi 6 standard, which can currently be considered a minor disgrace.

But in terms of performance, the Vivo V21 5G performs well with the given hardware. In the popular bechmark AnTuTu smartphone scored 377,000 points. The Dimensity 800U chipset thus surpassed, for example, the popular Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G in the middle class. Although the Vivo V21 5G at the given price is definitely not the most powerful smartphone available, it has nothing to be ashamed of and it will be fully sufficient for the vast majority of ordinary users in this respect. Although this is not a smartphone for gamers, it will certainly not be intimidated by this task either. For example Call of Duty Mobile the second highest level of graphics is available in the settings and the phone handled the game very well. For a relatively demanding multiplatform game Genshin Impact It is known that the phone breathes a bit at a higher level of graphic settings, but for medium details the game runs smoothly and without problems.

Vivo with battery life charmed

We didn’t expect much from the reviewed Vivo V21 5G smartphone in terms of battery life. The capacity of the battery had to give way to the design and so it fit into the 7.3 mm thick body battery with a capacity of 4,000 mAh. On the one hand, this may not be a scary value, but for today’s conditions it is a clear below average. We were all the more surprised by the real endurance on a single charge. She is quite playful exceeded 6 hours of active use without having to connect the AC adapter. This result can be taken as proof that the MediaTek Dimensity 800U has succeeded not only in terms of performance but also energy efficiency, and also that Vivo can optimize the system in this respect. The included 33W adapter will then charge the phone from 15 to 100% in less than 50 minutes.

Greatly optimized Funtouch OS and Android 11

Vivo smartphones use their own superstructure called Funtouch OS, specifically in the case of the Vivo V21 5G, we have the honor of having Funtouch OS 11.1 running on Android 11. At the time of testing, the phone relied on a month-old security update. As we already admitted in the Vivo X60 Pro review, this superstructure was really successful from our point of view. We must also appreciate the fact that it is not like any other colorful “Chinese” superstructure, but – despite the name – it looks more mature. For example, we see a similarity here with the (very successful) One UI from Samsung. The design of the superstructure looks clean and clear. The functional side was not depleted either. Here you will find everything we could wish for from a modern superstructure. There is no longer a virtually necessary dark mode or Allways on Display function with really wide design options.