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The Vivo V27 Pro is the company’s latest premium mid-range smartphone. The device debuted alongside the Vivo V27 in early March. The two phones are virtually identical with the processor being the only notable difference. The former is powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 8200, an almost flagship-grade 4nm chipset with a clock speed of up to 3.1GHz. The latter gets the Dimensity 7200, which is also 4nm SoC but its fastest CPU is clocked at 2.8 GHz.
In this review, we will be looking in-depth at the Vivo V27 Pro. We will also talk about the vanilla model in between, comparing how the two devices stack up against each other in everyday performance. So, without further ado, let’s dive in and find out what Vivo‘s new V-series smartphones are all about.
Table of contents
Vivo V27 Pro Review: Hardware / Design
The Vivo V27 Pro is a stylish slim phone (7.4mm thick) that looks and feels premium in hand. It is a glass sandwich with a plastic frame, but the build quality ought to impress you. The front and rear panels are curved along the longer edges. The back glass is silky smooth and gets a matte finish that doesn’t retain fingerprints. The punch-hole selfie camera is reasonably small, while the earpiece grille is blended into the frame nicely.
The recessed top and bottom edges add to the Vivo V27 Pro’s aesthetics. The top edge has the text “PROFESSIONAL PORTRAIT” inscribed next to a microphone hole. At the bottom, you get the SIM tray, microphone hole, USB Type-C port, and a down-firing speaker grille. The Vivo V27 Pro is quite big but the power and volume buttons are at a comfortable height on the right side. Weighing in at 180 grams, the handset is reasonably lightweight for its size.
Color-changing back isn’t going away
Unless you’re new to Vivo’s V-series phones, you probably already know that these devices have been getting a color-changing back panel lately. That isn’t going away with the Vivo V27 series. The Magic Blue variant of the Vivo V27 Pro changes from a lighter to a darker shade of blue under sunlight. You can also use a UV flashlight to perform this magic trick. You won’t get this effect on the Noble Black color variant of the phone.
We wouldn’t call it a game-changing feature, though. It’s a gimmicky extra and nothing more. You can use objects to block sunlight and draw temporary patterns on the phone’s back glass to wow a few people. But that’s about as good as it gets. You’ll soon lose interest in it. Perhaps the feature may make your phone look messy when outdoors. Your fingers will block sunlight to cast some messy patterns on it.
The ring LED flash makes the bulky camera array look nice
The rectangular rear camera housing of the Vivo V27 Pro is quite large and bulky. But the new ring-shaped dual-LED flash unit gives the handset a nice look. The metallic camera bump is home to three cameras and they protrude further out of the housing. It makes the device a bit unstable when kept with the screen facing up on the table. But it still shouldn’t be a problem for anyone. And if it is, a case eliminates the problem. The camera housing doesn’t feel too big with a case and the phone also sits stable.
There’s another reason to apply a case to this phone
The Vivo V27 Pro is a rather big phone with a slim profile, which makes it sturdy yet premium. While adding a case would take away some of that premium-ness, and the gimmicky color-changing trick too, it still might be a better trade-off. The device’s dual-curved design and silky smooth back glass make it extremely slippery. And since glass is glass, it can break easily. Thankfully, at least in some markets, Vivo supplies a transparent back cover in the box. If it doesn’t in your region, you can grab one separately. A transparent solution would retain the back panel’s color magic.
Vivo V27 Pro Review: Display
The Vivo V27 Pro features a 6.78-inch curved AMOLED display with a 1080p resolution (1,080 x 2,400 pixels) and a 120Hz refresh rate. Vivo hasn’t shared official numbers for the screen brightness but it is fairly readable under bright sunlight. The colors may look a little washed, though. And speaking of colors, the company offers three custom color settings — Standard (default), Bright, and Pro. Each option gets a separate color temperature slider as well. So you can customize display colors according to your liking here.
You get three options for the display refresh rate as well — 60Hz, 120Hz, and Smart Switch. By default, the Vivo V27 Pro ships the refresh rate set to Smart Switch. It analyzes the app you’re using and decides whether to apply a 60Hz or 120Hz refresh rate depending on the need. Vivo says this saves battery power by only using a 120Hz refresh rate when necessary. But back and forth switching between multiple apps may feel a little inconsistent at times due to a sudden drop in the refresh rate.
HDR playback is missing on some streaming platforms
The Vivo V27 Pro has a nifty feature called Visual Enhancement that optimizes the colors and contrast in streaming apps. It gives you more vivid display effects for a better viewing experience. However, despite an HDR10+ certification and Widevine L1 DRM support, we noticed that Netflix and Mazon Prime Video don’t recognize this phone as HDR-capable. They only serve 1080p SD content. YouTube, meanwhile, supports HDR playback. A software update should enable HDR playback on other streaming platforms as well.
Vivo V27 Pro Review: Performance
The Vivo V27 Pro is powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 8200 chipset. It isn’t quite a flagship processor, but certainly the most premium mid-range solution. It features one Cortex-A78 prime CPU core with a clock speed of 3.1GHz, three Cortex-A78 performance cores clocked at 3.0GHz, and four C0rtex-A55 efficient cores at 2.0GHz. For graphics, the chipset integrates ARM’s Mali-G610 MC6 GPU with a maximum frequency of 950MHz. Vivo didn’t detail the RAM and storage type of this phone, but the chipset supports LPDDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage.
The unit we have boasts 8GB of RAM and 128GB of built-in storage, though the phone is also available in 8GB+256GB and 12GB+256GB memory configurations. In our usage so far, the Vivo V27 Pro has delivered a buttery-smooth performance with no major stutters or lags even when pushed to the extreme. It excellently managed apps in the background, with a smooth transition between apps. The phone didn’t slow down with multiple apps running simultaneously in split-screen or PiP (picture-in-picture) modes.
The Vivo V27 Pro got a little hot when continuously playing COD for about an hour. But the phone was still comfortable to hold, and it cooled down pretty quickly. It could run COD in maxed-out graphics settings, including ray tracing, with no lags. The built-in Ultra Game Mode offers three different options: Battery Save, Balanced, and Boost. We played in the default setting (Balanced) and got superb gaming performance. Overall, performance isn’t a weakness of this phone. It might very well be the best-performing phone in this segment.
The vanilla Vivo V27 stuttered once in a while during lengthy gaming sessions, though. Its Dimensity 7200 processor isn’t as powerful and that showed up. The phone also takes longer to load some apps. However, the vanilla model goes neck-on-neck with its Pro sibling in most other areas, including the battery life and camera performance, which we will talk about in detail below.
Vivo V27 Pro Review: Battery
The Vivo V27 Pro packs a 4,600mAh battery and supports 66W fast wired charging. The in-box charger offers a maximum output power of 80W, but the phone won’t take in more than 66W. It could charge the phone from 0 to around 41% in just 15 minutes. By half an hour, the battery charged to 70%. A full charge took 52 minutes, which is pretty good. But the device’s battery life is even better. We could get around seven hours of screen time consistently with a few hours of gaming and camera usage. The battery life is certainly a strength of the Vivo V27 Pro.
Vivo V27 Pro Review: Camera
The deeper you look into the Vivo V27 Pro, it goes from strength to strength. If the battery life and performance were among the best in the class, the cameras are top notch too. The device features a 50MP primary rear camera with an f/1.9 aperture, 1.0µm pixels, PDAF (phase-detection autofocus), and OIS (optical image stabilization). It is flanked by an 8MP ultrawide lens with a 120-degree field of view, a 2MP macro camera, and a ring-shaped dual-LED flash. On the front, the phone gets a 50MP selfie camera with an f/2.5 aperture, 0.64µm pixels, and autofocus support.
The Vivo V27 Pro’s primary rear camera is a custom version of Sony’s IMX766 sensor, paired with Imagiq 785 ISP (Image Signal Processor). It produces 12.5MP shots by default and the output quality is impressive with a great amount of detail, excellent contrast, and dynamic range. The images come out noise-free, though Vivo gives them a “pop” effect for more vivid colors. You can enable “Natural Color” mode if you want your pictures to look the way they are captured. The results may feel a little bland to some people, but you won’t lose any detail.
Main camera samples:
The stock camera app offers dedicated buttons for 0.6x (ultrawide) and 2x shots. Ultrawide shots aren’t as detailed and dynamic as the regular shots, though they come out fairly usable. But 2x zoom shots hardly lose any quality. Despite lacking a zoom camera, the Vivo V27 Pro does an excellent job at producing lossless 2x images. Everything from colors and dynamic range to contrast and detail is retained almost as like in regular shots. Further zooming takes a toll on the quality, though. You can use the “Natural Color” mode for 0.6x and 2x images as well.
2x camera samples:
2x to 10X zoom samples:
Portrait and macro shots come out fairly decent
The Vivo V27 Pro offers a Portrait mode that uses 2X zoom by default, though you can manually switch to 1x. You can also select from a variety of styles, beautification, and postures, as well as manually control background blur for portrait shots. The subject separation isn’t perfect but usable. The colors are nice, with photos showing enough detail and dynamic range. Both 1x and 2x portrait shots come out identical in terms of overall quality. You’ll get similar results with the 2MP macro camera as well. Nothing extraordinary, but usable.
Portrait, macro, and ultrawide camera samples:
This phone is great for videos
The Vivo V27 Pro impressed with its video quality too. You can capture 4K videos at up to 60fps (frames per second), though turning on stabilization drops the output to 30fps. If you opt for Ultra stabilization, the video resolution is capped at 1080p. But despite a resolution drop, the videos come out almost as detailed and dynamic. Colors are rendered almost perfectly, while exposure is well-balanced too. Zooming in while recording videos isn’t quite smooth, though. It affects the video quality as well. Zoomed videos aren’t as detailed as regular ones.
The selfie camera is excellent too
The 50MP selfie camera of the Vivo V27 Pro also delivers amazing results. Both regular selfies and selfie portraits offer excellent detail, colors, and dynamic range. Subject separation leaves a little to be desired in portraits but we won’t call it a problem in this segment. By default, selfies are also shot at 12.5MP resolution. While you can manually choose to capture 50MP shots, don’t expect much difference in quality or colors. The same goes for Auto HDR and HD Portrait features too.
Coming to selfie videos, you can capture 4K footage at up to 60fps with the Vivo V27 Pro. However, there’s no stabilization here, so that’s something you should be wary about. If you use a tripod, the videos come out decent. You get enough details and great dynamic range. The Voval Enhancement feature is available for selfie videos as well. If you’re okay with 1080p videos at 30fps, the Steadiface feature gives a little bit of stabilization by cropping the video and tracking your face as you move around.
Selfie camera samples:
Low-light camera performance is on par with the competition
The Vivo V27 Pro’s camera performance in low-light conditions is on par with other options in this segment. The dedicated Night Mode ensures that low-light photos capture enough detail and colors without over-exposing the subject. Of course, not as detailed and vibrant as daylight photos. A Tripod Detection feature helps detect if the phone is on a tripod. When detected, it automatically extends the shutter speed to give you even better results. Low-light selfies and ultrawide shots lose some detail, though.
As for low-light videos, the Vivo V27 Pro does an excellent job there as well. It captures good detail in videos even if there isn’t enough light. There’s little to no noise while you get a good exposure. The same cannot be said about low-light videos from the ultrawide camera and the front camera, though. Well, these cameras struggled to produce excellent photos in dim environments, so we weren’t expecting a better job at videos. Overall, the Vivo V27 Pro doesn’t disappoint with its camera performance.
Low-light camera samples:
The camera app offers tons of fun features to play with
Vivo’s stock camera app is one of the most feature-rich out there. You get tons of fun features to play with. For every camera mode, you can use various preset filters and styles to give your images and videos a whole new look. A new Micro Movie mode lets you create short vlogs or TikTok/Instagram Reel-style short vertical videos. It works with the selfie camera as well. The Pro mode gives you manual control over shooting parameters such as exposure, ISO, shutter speed, white balance, and autofocus/manual focus. You can save RAW photos too. Other notable camera features include Supermoon, Dual-view, and Document.
Vivo V27 Pro Review: Software
The Vivo V27 Pro ships with Android 13-based Funtouch OS 13. It’s a heavily customizable Android skin. You can customize everything from your home screen transition animation and app drawer animation to recent app carousel, fingerprint icons, fingerprint recognition, face recognition, charging animation, the screen on/off animation, and many other system UI elements. All of these customizations are housed within the Dynamic effects section in the Settings app, so customizing your phone won’t be arduous.
This phone also lets you customize your sound experience according to your hearing preference. The lack of stereo speakers is a blemish, though the down-firing single speaker is fairly loud. If you’re into gaming, the aforementioned Ultra Game Mode lets you customize your gaming experience by filtering notifications and disabling gestures like “three-finger screenshot”. You can entirely block notifications or mute calls. Supported games also offer 4D vibration for a realistic effect.
The Quick Settings panel is fairly simple and easily customizable too. We would have liked it better if the Settings shortcut appeared at the top of the Quick Settings panel rather than showing up only after a second swipe. But that’s not a major problem. What we consider a problem is Vivo’s post-purchase software support. The Vivo V27 Pro will get only two major Android updates and four years of security updates. Some competing phones get three or even four major Android updates (Samsung’s Galaxy A54 5G) and five years of security updates.
Vivo V27 Pro Review: Should you buy it?
The Vivo V27 Pro is an easy recommendation for anyone looking to buy a stylish and powerful premium mid-range smartphone. It gives you segment-leading display, day-to-day and gaming performance, battery life and charging speed, and photo and video quality. The software experience is superb too, with numerous customization options. Like most other phones, you will have to deal with a few bloatware that can be uninstalled or disabled easily.
That said, this segment is quite crowded with many other excellent devices, including the aforementioned Samsung Galaxy A54 5G. We haven’t evaluated the latter for its everyday performance yet, but it already has the advantage of longer software support. In that sense, Vivo’s offering would feel outdated in just a couple of years with no new Android features to look forward to. But otherwise, the Vivo V27 Pro doesn’t falter much.
You should buy the Vivo V27 Pro if:
- You want a slim and stylish phone
- You need excellent cameras
- You need super performance at an affordable price
- You prefer big screens
- You need a charger in the box
- You want a phone ready for occasional gaming
You shouldn’t buy the Vivo V27 Pro if:
- You need stereo speakers
- You need a strong grip without a bulky case
- You want excellent macro shots
- You need dust and water resistance
- You want long post-purchase software support