Vivo S19 Review – A Portrait Phone All-Day Champion?

The front of the vivo S19 features a 6.78-inch OLED screen and a four-edge narrow bezel visual effect. This generation finally incorporates a straight-screen design. Regarding specifications, its maximum brightness reaches 4500 nits, ensuring easy visibility of the screen even in strong outdoor light.

The screen offers a resolution of 2800×1260, a refresh rate of 120Hz, an 8 million:1 contrast display effect, 100% P3 color gamut, and 10-bit color depth, directly comparable to flagship models.

We received the Misty Green color variant. Vivo designers drew inspiration from freehand ink brushstrokes, creating lines that transition from thick to thin, capturing the dynamics of water mist rising and drifting with the wind. The design combines large areas of white space, inviting unlimited imagination.

Vivo used the bisque glaze dyeing process, inspired by bisque porcelain techniques, and employed glass to mimic the clear, dazzling texture of the glaze. This makes the back look as white and smooth as jade and as bright as a mirror, evoking the bright and clear porcelain glaze and infusing the color with a more spiritual quality.

Vivo named the rear camera module Sunrise Cloud Step Lens Group, drawing inspiration from the sunrise in the east. Around the circular glass, interlocking metal light bands create a surrounding glossy effect. Metal edges on the mirror group further enhance this effect, outlining a rich and delicate Deco layering.

The vivo S19 is only 7.19mm thick and weighs just 193g. The top and bottom details include speakers, noise-canceling microphones, SIM card slots, and USB-C ports.

The package contains a water bottle, instruction manual, SIM card needle, charger, and data cable. The charger, with an 80W specification, supports multiple output levels of 5V3A, 9V2A, and 11V7.3A.

Cameras

The vivo S19 features a dual-camera solution and a rear-mounted studio-level soft light ring. The rear main camera includes a 50-megapixel ultra-shake large-bottom main camera with a 1/1.56-inch photosensitive unit, f/1.88 aperture, and a single pixel size of 1.0μm. Vivo’s exclusive customized OIS super optical image stabilization supports CIPA 4.0 camera-level image stabilization, ensuring 1 second-long exposure without blur and enhancing the night scene experience.

The camera also comes with an 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera with a 1/4-inch photosensitive unit, f/2.2 aperture, a single pixel size of 1.12μm, and supports FOV 106°.

Portrait experience

In portrait mode, the vivo S19 offers three preset focal lengths of 24mm, 35mm, and 50mm, corresponding to 1x landscape portrait, 1.5x narrative portrait, and 2x classic portrait respectively.

These focal lengths capture the expressions and emotions of the subject, making portraits more expressive. Although it focuses on portraits, the S19 does not overly whiten the skin. It retains facial features while enhancing skin tone, making it more rosy and radiant, and presenting the natural beauty of the subject.

Leveraging Vivo’s advancements in optical and computational photography, the S19 achieves a camera-like light spot effect in background blur. It allows customization into three light spot effects: natural, rotation focus, and bubble, enhancing the current atmosphere.

With precise AI calculations throughout the process, the S19 avoids accidental edge damage to hair, achieving a natural look comparable to SLR cameras.

Main camera

Imaging stands as Vivo’s strong suit. With years of development, it captures scenery effortlessly with a high-saturated style that is pleasing to the eye.

The addition of customized OIS super optical image stabilization means you don’t need to hold the phone for long to take night scenes. Simply press the shutter button, and the picture will be captured.

Ultra-wide angle

Despite the ultra-wide-angle lens having only 8 million pixels, it proves to be more than just for show. It is ideal for shooting magnificent buildings and multi-person group photos. The vivo S19 corrects the distortion typically seen in wide-angle shots, ensuring the picture remains natural and realistic.

When photos contain many cluttered objects, the vivo S19’s AI elimination function seamlessly removes passers-by, reflections, shadows, debris, and other unwanted elements with one click, enhancing the photo’s beauty and highlighting the subject.

Performance and Games

The vivo Y200 features the third-generation Snapdragon 7 chip, built with a 4nm process. This octa-core processor includes 1-core 2.63GHz A715, 3-core 2.4GHz A715, and 4-core 1.8GHz A510, paired with an Adreno 720 GPU.

For memory and storage, only the top-end 16GB+512GB version utilizes the LPDDR5+UFS 3.1 solution, while other versions use LPDDR4X+UFS 2.2.

We tested the top-of-the-line 16GB+512GB version. We disabled the phone’s memory expansion function and activated the BOOST performance mode to maximize its performance.

Performance Testing

The vivo S19 achieved a total score of 928124 in AnTuTu V10, with 277254 points for the CPU, 280224 points for the GPU, 204736 points for memory, and 165910 points for UX, showing a balanced performance overall.

In the CPU test Geekbench 6, it scored 1216 points in single-core and 3511 points in multi-core, meeting expectations for a third-generation Snapdragon 7 chip.

Game Testing

1. Honor of Kings

We set the frame rate to Very High and the resolution to Ultra High, enhancing the overall picture quality to HD.

During a 10-minute battle in “Honor of Kings,” the average frame rate stabilized at 120.73 FPS, with no lag or frame drops. The power consumption was 3.15W, resulting in an energy efficiency ratio of 38.3 FPS/W.

The chip temperature remained at 41°C and the holding area at 37.9°C, which felt normal and did not produce noticeable heat.

2. Genshin Impact

In “Genshin Impact,” we selected the highest preset image quality and adjusted the frame rate to 60 frames.

Testing in Fontaine’s main city with fast-moving characters like Ye Lan and Zao You for 10 minutes, the average frame rate was 36.84 FPS. The power consumption was 3.54W, resulting in an energy efficiency ratio of 10.4 FPS/W.

Although the frame rate didn’t reach the maximum, it remained stable without significant fluctuations, and there were no lags or frame drops, allowing for normal gameplay.

Players might consider lowering the image quality and frame rate for smoother performance. The temperature remained at 40℃, and the holding area at 35.8℃, which is even cooler than “Honor of Kings.”

This performance likely stems from vivo S19’s power consumption limits to ensure battery life and temperature control. Given the third-generation Snapdragon 7’s positioning, this performance is acceptable.

Battery