Vivo V23e

The Vivo V23e is the cheapest phone in vivo’s midrange, but it doesn’t appear to have too much of an issue putting up a fight with its competitors.

After all, when you think about it, this is probably the best all-around device vivo has launched so far – at least in terms of design and features. Why? Well, let’s find out.

Design & Build quality

The moment you get your hands on the vivo v23e mobile review unit, it becomes very clear that nothing about this device really screams “budget.”

The beautiful display (with deep blacks and vibrant colors), and even the rounded sides, which help provide the phone with a very comfortable grip, all give you the impression of holding something that’ll cost at least twice as much. And this is definitely not a bad thing.

The device feels compact and well-built for what it costs, but there’s no getting around its weight. You see, vivo added a lot of heft to the v23e mobile review unit in order to make it feel more premium – and I’m not going to lie: for about an hour or two, I was actually convinced that they’d done a good enough job making this phone feel like a much pricier model than it really is.

Vivo V23e price in Pakistan

Vivo V23e	128GB	Rs.49,600
Vivo V23e	256GB	Rs.55,999

The sad reality though is that after holding the device for hours on end – especially during those times when you’re lying in bed, staring at the ceiling – the weight of the v23e mobile review unit becomes rather unbearable.

And can you really blame vivo for this? I mean, if they’d cut out some of the metal accents on the back of this device for example, or used a more affordable glass panel up front, then more people would start complaining about how “cheap” it looks.

To sum things up: yes, even though there are definitely some issues with regards to its design and materials being used here (although that’s something that most ultra-budget devices suffer from), you still have to hand it to vivo, because no other manufacturer has done as good a job making a budget-friendly phone look so premium.

Display

Once you get over the fact that this phone has bezels (which are thicker than what you’d expect from a “premium” device), then there’s no denying that its display is actually quite nice for something that costs less than $400 and in Pakistan 52,900.

Not only is the resolution high enough to ensure sharpness – which, let’s face it, can’t be said about all devices at this price point – but colors also appear vibrant and accurate during everyday use. And if you ask me, I think vivo did an excellent job with regards to how well-calibrated these colors are.

The only thing about this display that’ll bother most users is the fact that it doesn’t get dim enough at night; but even then, I still think vivo has done a good job with this device’s screen overall.

Performance & Hardware capabilities

Underneath its beautiful body (and best-in-class bezels), there’s actually some pretty decent hardware specs to make note of on the Vivo V23e mobile review unit.

First off, this phone comes with either 8GB of RAM (with 128GB storage options available), which – if you ask me – is more than enough power for a device at this price point.

And when combined with the Mediatek Helio G96 (12 nm) chipset, it nets great performance in both day-to-day activities and more demanding tasks like gaming.

Now, if you’re someone who’s looking for an even better overall experience, then I do recommend that you go for the 8GB RAM model – even though vivo did do a good enough job handling memory management on this 8GB unit by making sure apps don’t get closed in the background too early (and consequently leading to slowdowns down the road).

Admittedly, there are still apps that won’t stay open forever (like Chrome), but at least they’ll never run out of memory either.

But what about storage? Yes, this phone does offer expandable storage via its micro SD card slot, which is good to see.

And while the unit I tested only had 128GB of built-in storage available, I don’t think that’s going to be an issue for most people; especially since you can just expand it with a cheap micro SD card if need be.

Battery life & Charging speed

Another place where this phone excels is in terms of its battery life – because believe it or not, all that high resolution display real estate doesn’t seem to affect its longevity much at all.

You might think that having 3 separate LCD layers would be a drain on this device’s battery, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

In fact, I was consistently able to get 2 days of use out of it before needing to charge its 4050 mAh cell – and even then, those last 10% or so would take quite a while to drain down as well.

Design:

Now in terms of its design (and build quality), this phone goes with the same aluminum unibody construction that we’ve seen from vivo since late 2017.

And while you can definitely say that it looks great, what ultimately stands out about this handset’s overall aesthetics really has more to do with how it feels.

In particular, I’d like to highlight how nice & smooth its back plate is; which makes holding onto this device really comfortable – even though it does tend to get a bit slippery at times!

To be fair though, I think vivo did a good job handling these design trade-offs in order to keep this phone’s overall footprint relatively compact.

For example, the fingerprint scanner is still easy to reach with your index finger – and this time around it doubles as a physical home button too.

And where vivo has moved its power switch over to the right frame of this device (and made it act like a volume rocker), along with adding an extra dedicated button for launching Bokeh mode on the left side instead.

Now granted, vivo could have done better when it comes to how you actually press these buttons, since they are not particularly sharp or distinct; but I don’t really mind them either way.

One last thing worth noting here is that vivo did make some slight changes to its triple-camera configuration; and the biggest thing you’ll notice is that this phone’s secondary depth camera now has a 5 lens setup instead of 4.

On its own, I don’t think this change in optics makes much of a difference – but it at least helps to make sure you get the focus right when shooting selfies.

And while vivo did also add support for HDR photography with its front-facing shooter too, that’s something I didn’t really end up testing since normal selfies turn out good enough (and there doesn’t seem to be any enhanced selfie portrait mode like on some other phones).

Detailed Specifications & Features

• Android 11 OS.
• Mediatek Helio G96 (12 nm).
• Display: 6.4″, 1080x2400px (~409 PPI).
• 128GB built in storage and 8 Ram.
• Micro SD card slot up to 256GB.
• Dual SIM (x1 hybrid slot).
• 12 MP f/1.8 + 5 MP f/2.4 rear cameras with PDAF, HDR & live focus portrait mode.
• 64 MP triple camera with 1.8f and 26mm wide. Selfie camera with 8MP and having 2.2f and 16mm ultra wide.
• Fingerprint scanner is on the screen.
• USB Type-C connectivity (USB 2.0).
• FM Radio support (headphones required as antenna).
• Having 4050 mAh Li-Po non removable battery. Fast charging in 1 hour and 30 minutes.
• Dimensions: 160.9 x 74.3 x 7.4 mm.
• Weight: 172g.
• Network: 2G, 3G, 4G LTE.
• Speed: GPRS, EDGE, 3G, HSPA+, LTE Ct4 150/50 Mbps.
• 2G, GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz.
• 3G, HSDPA+ 850/900/1800/1900.
• 4G, LTE B1 (2100), B3 (1800), B5 (850), B7 (2600), B8 (900), B20 (700), B28 (2600), B40 (2300). B41 (2500).
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, hotspot.
• Bluetooth v5.2, A2DP.
• GPS + GLONASS.

Overall Impressions

So should you get the Vivo V23e if you’re in the market for a new smartphone? Well to be honest, I think there’s definitely an argument to be made here about why this phone could be worth considering.

What I really appreciate about it is how well it manages its memory and internal storage. And while we do see some extra performance gains from having more cores and faster internals than this phone does, live upscaling hasn’t been an issue so far when playing games either.

In terms of what would hold back people from choosing this phone though, one thing that immediately sticks out to me is its lack of a dedicated micro SD card slot. Granted, there’s 128GB here as standard – but that’s still not enough if you’re anything like me.

And while vivo does have an option to help save some extra space by allowing you to swipe up on the home screen to use it in place of the default Google search bar, I did run into some issues with it crashing every now and then too.

Overall, vivio V23e is the best phone, if you need a phone with high specification and performance at a low price. Price of vivo V23e is 52,999 rupees which is a reasonable price.