Vivo T1 5G review: you have to pay for everything

Vivo’s new T-series smartphones are targeted at Gen Z consumers. Vivo emphasizes that these consumers are looking for well-designed products with good value for money. The company is launching the Vivo T1 5G, priced at less than Rs. The price range is 20,000, which has many new 5G smartphones from different manufacturers. So will the Vivo T1 be the best option for you? In this review, I will take a closer look at it.

Vivo T1 5G price in India

Vivo T1 starts at Rs. 15,990 people in India. The base variant at this price has 4GB of RAM. There are two more variants of the Vivo T1 that offer 6GB RAM and 8GB RAM, priced at Rs. 16,990 and rupees. 19,990 respectively. The amount of memory is the same for all three – 128 GB. Vivo T1 is offered in two color options: Rainbow Fantasy and Starlight Black.

vivo t1 5g design

Vivo T1 5G uses a new design language with flat sides all around. This phone is comfortable to hold in your hand, and the rounded corners do not dig into your palms. Vivo has made the T1 5G thin at 8.25mm and its 187g weight is acceptable. It features a large waterdrop notch display that looks dated compared to other phones in this segment with punch-hole displays. It has thin bezels on the sides and a thicker chin.

The T1 5G has a plastic frame with power and volume buttons on the right. Vivo has integrated a fingerprint scanner into the power button, making it easy to unlock this phone. There is nothing on the left, and on top there is a SIM card tray and an additional microphone. The bottom of the T1 5G has a 3.5mm headphone jack, a USB Type-C port, a speaker, and a main microphone.

Vivo T1 5G in Rainbow Fantasy color will draw attention

Vivo has made the back completely flat. The camera module sits in the top left corner and doesn’t protrude much. I had a Vivo T1 5G in Rainbow Fantasy and it was a pleasure to look at. Shiny iridescent finish changes color as you move your phone. This helped hide fingerprints pretty well, but you also get a clear case in the box.

Specifications and software Vivo T1 5G

Vivo has focused on certain specs to influence Gen Z buyers. The Vivo T1 5G features a 6.58-inch LCD screen with a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz and Panda tempered glass. You also get a peak touch sampling rate of 240Hz when this phone is in gaming mode. By default, the panel is set to Smart Switch, which allows it to automatically switch between 60Hz, 90Hz, and 120Hz refresh rates.

The Vivo T1 5G is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 SoC, which is also used by competitors such as the Moto G71 5G (Review). Vivo says it has also added a vapor cooling chamber to prevent the SoC from heating up under load. It also offers a RAM expansion feature that allows you to use 1GB of memory as RAM in the base variant, while the higher variants allow 2GB and 4GB respectively.

While 128GB of onboard storage seems generous, you can expand it with a microSD card in the hybrid dual SIM slot. Vivo T1 is equipped with a 5000mAh battery and supports 18W charging, which is slower than the competition. The Vivo comes with an 18W charger.

There is support for dual band 5G, which is much less than the Moto G71 5G with 13 bands. It also supports dual 4G VoLTE, Bluetooth 5.1, dual-band Wi-Fi, and five satellite navigation systems. It doesn’t have NFC, so it won’t be possible to make one-touch payments on this phone.

The Vivo T1 5G has a USB Type-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a speaker at the bottom.

Vivo ships the T1 5G with Funtouch OS running on top of Android 12. The user interface is very easy to use and looks fresh. Android 12 features are now available, such as the privacy bar, and you can see which apps have access to the microphone, camera, your location, and other things. Vivo has also implemented privacy indicators, so you will see a green or orange dot in the top right corner of the screen when the camera or microphone is being used by an app. You can also choose to allow location access only when the app is in use. Vivo has even added a screen capture protection feature that prevents apps from taking screenshots or videos when you enter your passcode.

Vivo has made a few tweaks and you can apply your own style with the Themes app. This allows you to select the animation on the device. While all of this is great, the phone comes preloaded with a lot of malware such as Moj, MX Takatak, ShareChat, Cred, Josh, and Facebook. Fortunately, they can be completely removed.

GameSpace allows you to access all your games in one place and gives you information about the time you spent in them. There is an Ultra Game mode that is triggered when the game is launched. It offers a great voice changer feature and also allows you to block incoming notifications and lock screen brightness. Esports mode does all that too, but it also disables gestures and allocates SoC resources based on current framerate and temperature.

Vivo T1 5G performance and battery life

The Vivo T1 5G was fast and showed no signs of slowing down in my experience. For this review, I had the 8GB RAM option and the 4GB RAM expansion option turned on by default. I could easily switch between multiple apps and with my usage, the phone never had to kill apps in the background. Apps load quickly. The single bottom speaker was loud, but a stereo is always better. The Vivo’s side-mounted fingerprint scanner was accurate, and it only took a single tap to unlock the smartphone. Facial recognition also performed well during the review period.

Having tested the Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 SoC on another smartphone, I got a clear idea of ​​its performance. However, I ran some tests to see how the Vivo T1 5G ranks in comparison. It scored 414,287 on AnTuTu, which is higher than the Moto G71 5G. However, the two phones performed similarly in most other tests. In the Geekbench 5 T1 single-core and multi-core tests, the 5G scored 668 and 1930 respectively. It also scored 85fps and 18fps in GFXBench’s T-Rex and Car Chase tests, respectively.

Vivo T1 5G has a hybrid dual SIM tray.

I fired up Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) and set the graphics to “HD” and “high” framerate by default. These settings were playable and I didn’t notice any stuttering while playing. After 15 minutes, I noticed a 3 percent drop in battery level, which is acceptable.

The Vivo T1 5G offers good battery life and lasted around two days with light to medium usage. In our HD video loop test, the phone lasted 18 hours and 48 minutes. Idle battery drain was very low, which helped this smartphone avoid overcharging. There is support for 18W fast charging, which is lower than the competition. With the included charger, the phone charged up to 33 percent in 30 minutes and 64 percent in an hour, taking about an hour and a half to fully charge.

Vivo T1 5G cameras

Vivo T1 5G is equipped with a triple camera system on the back. It has a 50MP main camera, a 2MP macro camera, and a 2MP depth sensor. For selfies, it has a 16-megapixel camera. The camera app is pretty simple and easy to use. Shooting modes can be easily changed by swiping the screen. The macro camera switch is easy to miss and it would be better to implement it as a shooting mode.

Vivo T1 5G is equipped with a triple camera setup with a 50MP main camera.

Vivo claims to offer a Super Night mode for low-light photography and portrait styles, which are filters that can be applied when taking portrait photography. Ironically, these features are missing from the base 4GB variant. It also misses the opportunity for dual camera bokeh and relies on a single camera instead.

In daylight, the Vivo T1 handled detailed photos. The output from the main camera had good colors, and text at a distance was also legible. However, he struggled to get the exposure right in the brighter scenes. You don’t get the ultra-wide-angle camera on the Vivo T1 5G that most competing phones have. Close-up photos were decent, however those taken in direct sunlight had more vibrant colors. Portraits had decent edge detection, but this phone sometimes struggled to properly separate the subject from the background. The macro camera allowed me to get close to subjects and capture fine details quite well.

Vivo T1 5G camera samples. From top to bottom: main camera, close-up, portrait and macro (click to see full size)

Low-light shots were strictly average. Colors seemed muted and the main camera couldn’t capture much shadow detail. With super night mode turned on, the phone took 4-5 seconds to take a picture, during which I had to stay still. This resulted in brighter shots with more shadow detail and improved colors.

Vivo T1 5G low light camera samples. Top: low light sample, bottom: night mode sample (click to view full size)

The selfies were pretty detailed, and the T1 5G did a pretty good job of capturing HDR shots in bright scenes. Low-light selfies with a light source nearby were clearer than low-light ones. In selfie portraits, the subject and background were well separated, and the background was softly blurred.

Vivo T1 5G Selfie camera samples review. Top: daylight portrait selfie, bottom: low light selfie (click to view full size)

You can shoot 1080p video with the main rear camera as well as the selfie camera. The output signal was not stabilized and shaking was noticeable in the video recorded while walking. Low-light footage was slightly grainy and had judder.

Verdict

Vivo T1 5G is the first smartphone in the new T series aimed at Gen Z buyers. Vivo has focused on sought-after features such as powerful SoC, 5G, 120Hz refresh rate display and large battery. However, in order to sell them at an aggressive price point, some compromises have been made, such as a waterdrop notch that looks dated, limited 5G band support, no ultra-wide-angle camera, and only 18W charging. The entry-level 4GB RAM variant of the Vivo T1 5G is also missing some camera features that potential buyers should be aware of.

While some of these factors may make the Vivo T1 5G less attractive to some buyers, the price will still make sense for many others. If you want to consider alternatives, the Moto G71 5G (review), Realme 8s 5G (review) and Redmi Note 11T 5G (review) are worth considering.