Meet the Vivo V25 Pro, an eye-stealing phone designed to take perfect selfies and not break your budget in half.
This is a phone that is all about aesthetics but does have some surprises under the hood.
In short, the sleek design with a color-changing back and the huge amount of work put into the cameras make it a perfect phone for those who want to look good. Considering so many devices go for the bland black and oddly threatening look, Vivo’s colorful approach for the V25 Pro is a breath of fresh air.
Let’s see why.
Vivo V25 Pro: Look and feel
Right from the start, the Vivo V25 Pro gets full marks for the design although you are definitely going to want to use a case.
This is a sleek phone with premium feel, thanks to the glass back using the color-changing fluorite AG glass and to the 3D curved screen.
All of this makes it feel much more expensive than it is but this is also a very slippery device that’s unforgiving to use without a case.
Fortunately, there’s a transparent case included in the box to let the glass back truly shine.
One of the main selling points of the Vivo V25 Pro is that, just like its predecessor the V23, it uses a glass back featuring AG fluorite glass that changes color to a dark blue, almost purple hue with sparkles when exposed to sunlight and UV rays. To demonstrate this perk, Vivo also included an UV flashlight and a cool pattern you can use to see AG fluorite in action.
In our studio, the pattern made by the UV flashlight remained visible for about 20 minutes but, if you’re outdoors, you’ll see the phone changing colors in mere seconds. The Vivo V25 Pro goes from a pale blue indoors to a beautiful navy with purple inflections and tons of sparkle.
While this isn’t a feature that will sell a phone on its own, some of the people who saw me using it did notice that half the phone changed colors whenever I took a photo, in a wavy pattern coinciding with where I held my fingers.
Vivo phones aren’t readily available in our part of the world (south-east Europe), so we didn’t get a chance to check out the predecessor, the Vivo V23, and this was our first encounter with fluorite in the wild.
Did you know that fluorite (not to be confused with fluoride) is actually the crystal that gave name to the phenomenon of fluorescence, way back in 1852? We didn’t but, thanks to Wikipedia, we found out that many fluorite samples exhibit fluorescence under ultraviolet light. Indeed, it’s this crystal that gave us the word “fluorescence”.
You do have to give credit to Vivo for this. Not only did the company have the courage to spend more to visually separate this phone from the rest of Android handsets (remember when phones used to have an endless amount of designs? Pepperidge farm remembers!) but they also used a fascinating material to do so.
Furthermore, those who believe crystals have special qualities might be attracted to this device, since fluorite is said to absorb negative energy and transmute it into positive energy.
I myself am a non-believer but the Vivo V25 Pro did bring me some joy. I usually hold my phone face down on the table when meeting friends to avoid being distracted but with this phone I had the opportunity to turn it into a conversation piece.
Plus, it goes great with color-changing nail polish (both the temperature sensitive one and the UV-activated types), if that’s what you’re into.
The aquamarine blue unit we received is part of a lineup that also includes a Sunrise Gold option that shifts from yellow to orange to red and a more understated but no less beautiful Diamond Black, which catches the light and sparkles vividly under lights.
But enough about looks, let’s see some specs.
Vivo V25 Pro: Specs and performance
The Vivo V25 Pro lands in a very crowded market as a mid-range device aiming for the flagship experience but not really getting there. If top performance is what you’re after, take a look at Vivo’s other recent launch, the IQOO 9T, which performed superbly in our tests.
Still, the Vivo V25 Pro is nothing to sniff at either and handled most tasks we used it for.
Vivo V25 Pro Display
As previously mentioned, the V25 Pro comes with a large, 6.56-inch 3D curved display with slim bezels and adaptive display rate. You can use it in either 60Hz, 120Hz or let the phone optimize it automatically through Smart Switch.
With both 120Hz and Smart Switch on, we noticed its battery life dropped significantly and we had to charge the phone at night. That’s to be expected, but by keeping it at 60Hz we went almost two days on a single charge.
For the V25 Pro’s price point, the display can’t be criticized. It has HDR10+, 1300 nits peak brightness (which was perfect for the beach) and a resolution of 1080 x 2376 (~398 ppi density).
The under-display fingerprint reader is fast and reliable as well.
The default saturation setting will make your eyes water if you use the phone intensely but set it to Pro mode and the experience becomes much less eye-straining.
Vivo V25 Pro Performance
And for overall performance, we found it difficult to nitpick. It comes with a MediaTek Dimensity 1300 (6 nm) chipset with 12GB of RAM. This isn’t the most powerful combo on the market now but it doesn’t even need to be, considering this certainly looks like a phone designed for photography addicts.
What Vivo put under the hood is more than adequate for any type of task you could think of. Thanks to the Bionic Cooling System not found in the regular models, it can handle any type of Android game as well without overheating.
We played about two hours on it but mostly used it as a day to day driver, including actual work. With Excel, Powerpoint, Trello and about a half dozen apps, we found no lag switching from app to app.
Vivo V25 Pro Software
The phone runs Android 12 layered with Funtouch OS 12, which comes with plenty of widgets. There are widgets for browser quick actions, Netflix, Google Fit, the weather or a gallery of up to 25 of your most beloved photos.
The downside is that the phone does come with a lot of pre-installed apps. When setting it up initially, Vivo also recommended lots of others, like VPNs or file managers, but that step could be skipped and most other apps could be uninstalled quickly.
Vivo V25 Pro: Camera
Vivo certainly had a vision for the V25 Pro as a device for self-expression and that’s evident in all the camera options available.
There are the standard modes you’d expect like the 64MP option, live photo, slow-mo and panorama but there are also a cool few additional features that will keep you occupied on vacation.
Take a look at some V25 Pro camera samples for day to day items, and then let’s see what the special features are.
Vivo V25 Pro Camera samples
Vivo V25 Pro Selfie camera
“The AI Skin Retouching Algorithm functions like a senior make-up artist as well as a retouching expert, making the selfie portrait more natural and clearer,” says Vivo and our tests agreed.
Even with the mother of all zits, huge dark circles and in a totally unflattering semi-dark environment, the selfies I took with the Vivo V25 Pro 32 MP selfie camera made me look like a passable extra on Rings of Power.
Take a look at the Vivo V25 Pro selfies below. They were taken in almost all conditions, either with the AI Skin Retouching feature on or with all the beautification features turned off. Impressive, right?
Vivo V25 Pro Double Exposure
As the name says, this is a feature that’s perfect for the creative types or die-hard fans of True Detective.
You have four options: original, black and white, dreamy and silhouette to choose from, and each one will give you a result that looks exactly like the cover art of a mood playlist on YouTube. I intentionally chose the most unpoetic place to test it (the messy living room table) and the results look great.
However, my partner decided he isn’t one for artsy shots, so any attempts to do a double exposure with him were…well…interesting artistic choices?
Either way, with a bit of effort put into it, the V25 Pro’s Double Exposure feature will produce some beautiful results, especially selfies juxtaposed with dreamy shots of the city.
Vivo V25 Pro also has long exposure you can use to capture the beauty of the night sky or the bustling noise of the city.
What I liked most is the V25 Pro Vlog feature, which guides you through making cute, ready to share on social videos.
The feature lets you capture a few up to 4-5 seconds long takes of anything you want, then stitches them together in a video you can post right away. You could take the traditional route of using a video editor but the Vlog feature makes everything a lot easier.
Vivo V25 Pro: Battery
If you’re undecided whether to buy the Vivo V25 or the Vivo V25 Pro, the battery gains will make you choose the Pro.
While the base model has a 4,500 mAh battery with 44W fast charging, the Vivo V25 Pro ups the ante and offers a 4,830 mAh with a 66W fast charging capability – you’ll find the charger in the bx. In our tests, it charged completely in around 60 minutes give or take but went over 60 percent in about 20 minutes.
We had a hard time draining the battery in a day with about 8 hours of screen time. With regular use (scrolling on social media at night, 5-6 calls a day, watching Netflix), the V25 Pro kept on going for 1.5 to 2 days.
In a nutshell, the Vivo V25 Pro is a solid choice if you’re looking for an Android phone priced at midrange or a little above – especially if most of what you do with your device is take photos.
It’s a flashy, well-crafted phone for Insta-ready shots and has enough processing power so you don’t have to think of upgrading in the next couple of years.
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