Gadget Review: Vivo's V1Max - Play it right

Design With brushed aluminium back and stainless steel ring running along the width the V1Max is a stunner The front face has the earphone speaker an ambient light sensor and front camera on the top followed by a hidden LED indicator whereas the control buttons are placed at the bottom and gel well with the design The Vivo logo sits pretty at the back the rear camera is on the top right corner along with the LED flash There are two rear speakers on the right side of the device parallel to each other one at the top and the other at the bottom Overall the V1Max is an impressive deviceRating 810Display The V1Max gets a 55inch screen with 1280x720 resolution and pixel density of 320 ppi Now a 720p screen may not seem ideal especially since you have several other makers offering 1080p in this price range but the clarity of text and picture makes it a worthy choice The screen however is prone to smudges and seems lacking a quality screen protection as it developed scratches during the usageRating 610Connectivty The V1Max is a dualsim device with support for 4G3G2G support in either cards What it means is if Sim1 is on 4G3G Sim2 will be set automatically to use 2G network only and vice versa It supports nano sim for Sim2 whereas micro sim for Sim1 which also doubles as an external memory card slot The other connectivity options include Bluetooth 40 WiFi 80211 abgn 24GHz and 5GHz and WiFi Hotspot The device comes with a bunch of sensors including ones for lightecompass gravity acceleration direction proximity and GPSRating 710Audio The V1Max features a HiFi audio chip DAC AK4375 by Asahi Kasei Microdevices The sound reproduction pleased us but itrsquos best noticeable while using headphones or when connected with external audio systemRating 810Camera The rear camera is a 13MP auto focus and LED flash Daytime light pictures were good but we had difficulties getting a clear shot in night or lowlight conditions Using the flash could be a better option in these conditions The 5MP front camera on the other side is superb Not only does it cover a wide area but it also manages to get a clear picture in lowlight conditions which will please selfie fansRating 810Battery The V1Max gets a 2720 mAh battery which gave us nearly a fullday usage on 3G and WiFi However it may vary depending on your usageRating 710USER INTERFACE amp OS The V1Max features the FunTouch OS a customROM built on Android Lollipop 502 and resembles the iOS Though some features may take some time getting used to we have to admit we like it Every part of the ROM exudes superb craftmanship right from the icons to settings and controls For those concerned about privacy iManager is a useful tool offering total control over app permissions and accessRating 910HARDWARE amp PERFORMANCE The phone runs on a 64bit Qualcomm S615 Soc with 14GHZ octacore processor and comes with 2GB RAM Though there are devices with better processing power in this range we didnrsquot face difficulties performance wise mdash while gaming videos multitasking or with multitab browsing Though a slight heating was noticed during gaming the device was also quick to cool down The builtin storage is set at 16GB and is expandable up to 128GB However doing so will limit you to a single sim A variant with higher storage capacity will be much appreciated We also like that the specific absorption rate SAR values of electromagnetic radiation has been kept to low levels mdash less than 13rd of the limits prescribed by the governmentRating 710