Introduction
Vivo's camera-centric, not quite flagship V line of devices has become a staple. It offers a solid and well-rounded experience, with a clear emphasis on camera performance, all inside a slick package that hits all of the basics, all without breaking the bank (usually).
Today, we are looking at the regular vivo V70. There is also a V70 Elite model available this year but only for certain markets. We are not quite sure how it relates to the previous Pro line, but regardless, the regular V70 is clearly a direct successor to the V60.
vivo V70 specs at a glance:
- Body: 157.5x74.3x7.4mm, 187g; Glass front, aluminum alloy frame, glass back or fiber-reinforced plastic back; IP68/IP69 dust tight and water-resistant (high-pressure water jets; immersible up to 1.5m for 30 min).
- Display: 6.59" AMOLED, 1B colors, HDR10+, 120Hz, 1800 nits (HBM), 5000 nits (peak), 1260x2750px resolution, 19.64:9 aspect ratio, 459ppi.
- Chipset: Qualcomm SM7750-AB Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 (4 nm): Octa-core (1x2.8 GHz Cortex-720 & 4x2.4 GHz Cortex-720 & 3x1.8 GHz Cortex-520); Adreno 722.
- Memory: 256GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 12GB RAM; UFS 4.1.
- OS/Software: Android 16, up to 4 major Android upgrades, OriginOS 6.
- Rear camera: Wide (main): 50 MP, f/1.9, 23mm, 1/1.56", 1.0µm, PDAF, OIS; Telephoto: 50 MP, f/2.7, 73mm, 1/1.95", 0.8µm, PDAF, OIS, 3x optical zoom; Ultra wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.2, 15mm, 115-degree.
- Front camera: 50 MP, f/2.0, 21mm (wide), 1/2.76", 0.64µm, AF.
- Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60fps, gyro-EIS, OIS, HDR, LUT; Front camera: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30/60fps.
- Battery: 6500mAh; 90W wired, PD, Reverse wired, Bypass charging.
- Connectivity: 5G; Wi-Fi; BT 5.4; NFC; Infrared port.
- Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, ultrasonic); stereo speakers.
It's all about subtle changes, tuning and small refinements with the V series. Vivo almost never makes sweeping changes. So much so, in fact, that the chipset powering the phone rarely changes generation from generation. The V70 is a perfect illustration of this, carrying forward the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4 from the vivo V60.
All that being said, the V70 is definitely not a carbon copy of last year's model. In fact, design-wise, the V70 brings the biggest change in a while, and it now takes after the more expensive vivo X300 series.
Interestingly, compared to last year, the V70 has shrunk in all dimensions. The curvy display is also gone. Now there is a smaller 6.59-inch flat AMOLED with wide-rounded corners. The overall build quality has gotten an upgrade as well, and now the bill of materials includes an aluminum frame and either a glass or a fiber-reinforced plastic back side.
There are other arguably smaller upgrades peppered here and there as well, like a reimagined telephoto, now at 85mm and a 3.7x zoom factor, 4K@60fps video capture capabilities, a brighter selfie camera and an ultrasonic under-display fingerprint reader.
Unboxing
The vivo V70 ships in a thick, two-piece cardboard box. Unfortunately, there is a plastic cradle inside the box, which is not particularly eco-friendly.
The vivo V70 has a solid accessory package - at least the unit we received, which appears to be from Thailand. Our retail box came with a 90W charger and accompanying USB Type-A to Type-C cable. Make sure you keep track of both if you want the fastest charging speed possible.
Also in the box is a nice transparent TPU case, so you can start using your shiny new phone worry-free right away.
Display
As already mentioned, vivo went for a slightly smaller flat display this year. The V70 uses a 6.59-inch AMOLED panel with 10-bit color, a 120Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ support.
The resolution has gotten a little bump to 1260 x 2750 pixels, up from FullHD+ on the V60. At that display diagonal, this new resolution works out to around 459 ppi of pixel density. That looks perfectly sharp by any metric.
We did our standard display testing, and we got around 550 nits by maxing out the slider. That is not a lot, and we recommend just leaving the auto brightness toggle on.
With brightness set to Auto, we measured an impressive 1,966 nits in a 75% window and a whopping 2,605 nits in a 10% window. That is plenty of brightness to go around and certainly enough for displaying HDR content nicely.
The minimum brightness we measured at point white is 2.0 nits.
The vivo V70 has a 120Hz display refresh rate. It uses an LTPS panel, so it's nothing fancy or very dynamic, but it can still switch between 60Hz, 90Hz and 120Hz.
There are three Refresh rate modes in Settings. One of them locks the refresh rate to 60Hz while the other two offer some form of automatic switching logic. The default "Smart Adaptation" mode is a bit more conservative, opting for 90Hz more often than 120Hz.
The "High" mode offers a per-app list to select which apps run in 120Hz mode. That is very handy, but unfortunately, it does not always work with some apps still locked to 60Hz. We tried a few games we know are capable of pushing more than 60fps, and unfortunately didn't get dependable results, not even through the manual override interface.
On a more positive note, the vivo V70 supports the highest possible Google Widevine L1 DRM, allowing apps like Netflix to offer up FullHD streams.
As mentioned, the display on the V70 is HDR10+ certified. On a decoder level, the phone can handle all the popular formats except for Dolby Vision. That includes HDR10, HDR10+ and HLG.
The phone also has full support for Google’s UltraHDR format. It can both capture photos in UltraHD and display them properly in the gallery app and the Chrome browser.
Battery life
The vivo V70 has a good-sized 6500 mAh battery on board, like last year's V60. Both phones use modern Si/C chemistry to provide high energy density.
The V70 also shares the same battery capacity, screen size and resolution as the Oppo Reno15, so that would be another interesting direction of comparison.
We performed our standard array of battery tests on the V70 and got some really impressive results, with it getting an overall Active Use Score of 16:52h. The phone did particularly well in our video streaming test but remained behind the Reno15 in our web browsing/socials scenario
Charging speed
The vivo V70 supports the same 90W vivo FlashCharge as last year's V60 model. It is an entirely proprietary charging protocol that requires both the charger and the accompanying cable.
Interestingly enough, despite having identical charging capabilities and identical battery capacities, the V70 and V60 don't charge at the same rate. The difference from empty to full is really not that substantial, but initially, at the fifteen and thirty-minute marks, last year's V60 managed better numbers. Overall, charging speed is decent, but nothing to phone home about.
Speakers - loudness and quality
The vivo V70 has a stereo speaker setup. It is of the hybrid variety with one main large bottom-firing speaker on the bottom and another one on the front, at the top of the display, firing forward. This intrinsically leads to some imbalance in output. It is not too bad on the V70, though.
The vivo V70 offers Very Good loudness in our testing. Its output is rich with a wide sound stage, and it also sounds pretty clear, especially in the mids, where it matters the most. Highs only get distorted slightly at max volume, and, as is typically the case on mobile phones, bass is not really a thing. Overall, a very good showing.
There are a few audio options to explore. Super Audio is vivo's take on a basic equalizer and audio enhancer. We only say basic since it has no full manual mode, but only presets. There is also Audio Super Resolution for automatic upscaling and Holographic audio, which promises a spatial audio effect.
Connectivity
The vivo V70 is a dual-SIM device. It has support for simultaneous SA/NSA Sub-6 5G connectivity of both of its Nano-SIM slots. Unfortunately, our review unit has no eSIM support.
Location services include GPS, GALILEO, GLONASS, QZSS, BDS and NavIC. Local connectivity is handled by dual-band Wi-Fi 6 (ac). Unfortunately, there is nothing too modern beyond that, like 6GHz coverage. You do get a modern Bluetooth 5.4 stack with LE support.
NFC and an IR blaster are part of the package.
The Type-C port is backed up by a simple USB 2.0 data connection, which means a theoretical maximum data transfer rate of 480 Mbps. There is nothing fancy like video output over Alt mode either. You do get support for OTG/Host.
The vivo V70 has a decent set of onboard sensors. There is an ST lsm6dsvx accelerometer, a vivo-branded gyroscope, as well as a vivo-branded mxg4300 magnetometer and compass combo. There is an STK stk63731 light sensor and a vivo-branded proximity sensor, which, to the best we can tell, is not an actual hardware sensor but a virtual one instead. Still, it does a solid job keeping the screen off during calls. There is no barometer.
