Vivo X60: a splendid and affordable phone under Rs 40,000

Vivo has been up to some changes and revamps in its mobile business recently. The company has not only made big software alterations but also built up on some of its strengths. With that, the company has launched the new X60 series, and I have been using the most affordable from that lot, the X60. It comes in an interesting time in the smartphone industry with a lot of competition and launches. So, let’s take a look if the X60 worth your consideration.

The Vivo X60 is quite thin and light weighing under 180 grams weight and measuring about 7.4mm in thickness. That’s the first thing you would notice after holding the device. It has metal frame and AG Glass on top and back with something Vivo calls as Satin finish, which basically makes the glass surface less scratch-prone and softer grip adding to the gradient profile of the device. At the bottom, you have the USB Type C port, primary mic, loudspeaker, SIM card tray; while the right side houses the volume buttons and Power/lock key, which are slim and have enough give and feedback to them when pressed; the left side remains plain, while the top has the secondary mic and reads “Professional Photography”. The back sports the whole camera setup – 48 MP primary camera; 13 MP portrait camera, 13 MP wide-angle camera -- with the Zeiss branding and a separated LED flash module, along with Vivo branding towards the bottom. The X60 has smooth curved edges and is quite comfortable to hold and carry around for its size.

The device has a 6.56-inch full HD+ (2376x1080) AMOLED display on the front that supports HDR10+ as well. The screen is near edge to edge with thin borders and a noticeably small punch hole at the top for the front-facing camera. The display here is really responsive, sharp and quite capable for HDR content too, though it could have handled extra punchy brightness and contrast for HDR a little better. But otherwise, the screen has better colour calibration than some of the previous Vivo phones. The screen supports 120Hz refresh rate (60Hz is standard) and it comes out well while scrolling and using the device. By default, smart refresh rate is selected where the screen only goes 120Hz while playing supported games and scrolling quickly through phone UI and goes back to 60Hz otherwise to save on battery life. The display also houses an in-screen fingerprint scanner. The fingerprint scanner seems to be placed slightly lower than where it should be for ideal finger placement; the fingerprint scanner itself, though, is quite quick and reliable and does its job well most of the times. The face recognition performs well in sufficient light, but struggles in somewhat dimly lit environments leave alone in pitch dark rooms, where you’re better off using the fingerprint scanner or the security code.

The X60 comes with a big Zeiss camera setup – 48 MP primary camera (f/1.79), 13 MP wide angle 120°camera (f/2.2), 13 MP (f/2.46) portrait camera, dual LED flash; no gimbal stabilization unlike the other X60 series models. The camera performance is really good and holds well in this price range. Shots have a lot of details and sharpness and noise level seems to have gone down from some of the previous Vivo models in similar situations though there’s at times some underwhelming shadow boost in shots. The wide-angle camera takes detailed and bright shots, though disabling the AI feature made it work a little better in my experience. The camera shutter lag for regular shots is also not very high here. Plus, options like slow shutter, time lapse and of course Pro mode make it a complete package. The front side has a 32 MP camera that can take clear and sharp photos in decent daylight, but can take a bit getting used in low light, though it’s still quite capable of giving decent enough shots.

The phone’s powered by a 4,300 mAh battery unit and comes with a 33watt fast charger in the box. It often lasted me 22-24 hours in a single full charge with moderate to heavy use, and a little over a day with light to moderate usage. The phone battery charges from 1% to full in around 70 minutes, but the phone at times heats up a little at the rear while charging full in one go.

The device sports Qualcomm’s 870 5G chipset (3.2 GHz Kryo octa-core CPU, Adreno 650 GPU, and X55 5G modem) along with 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage space (there’s an 8 GB + 128GB model, too). The performance of the phone is satisfactory. Running most apps and switching between one and another is smooth, scrolling through media apps is responsive, while playing games is also a nice experience especially for ones that support 120Hz refresh rate. The phone doesn’t stutter while doing basic tasks and while having two apps in split-screen mode. Worth noting, there’s no 3.5 mm headset jack, no LED light, and no IP rating, which is definitely a bit of a bummer. If not all three, at least the last two hardware features are kind of expected from an Android phone at this price point, but Vivo has done this earlier too, especially going with no IP rating for its premium smartphones.

The phone runs on Android 11 with FunTouch 11.1 on top (March security patch). The Vivo skin is now much flatter and lighter in design as well as cohesive to use. There’s a menu launcher and a theme store to customize wallpaper, fonts and ringtones. You can customize animations particularly for when the phone is on charge, when the fingerprint scanner is used, and for the always-on display mode. The OS also supports double tap to wake and double tap to lock the screen. Controls like WiFi, Bluetooth, split screen, etc. are now a swipe down away from the top instead of swiping up from the bottom. There’s a little bug with notifications where a new message, if deleted from the notifications shortcut, still appears in a blank notification until your clear it yourself. Earlier FunTouch used to constantly notify in the status bar that your developer options are enabled if you switched it on, for some reason, which has been rightly done away with. Overall, the software certainly feels a bit more polished and thought out that previous iterations without taking away the added features that Vivo has had for a while.

Call quality on the X60 os top notch. 4G/LTE reception and VoFI (WiFi calling) connection is now much more reliable than many smartphones tend to show, though it still loses in continues VoWiFi connectivity when compared to the Apple iPhone 12 (which is priced significantly higher), it is still much better than phones at this price range. The device supports dual band WiFi and Bluetooth 5.1, both of which showed no performance glitches. The mono speaker at the bottom, though, is strictly average and isn’t ideal for videos or games; it often distorts in even medium to high volume and seems Vivo didn’t really pay attention here.

In conclusion, the new Vivo X60 is a solid performer in most fronts that shows Vivo’s new take on the software side of things while keeping camera and design as its USPs. It’s priced at about 41,990 (and Rs. 37,990 for 8 GB and 128GB model) has tough competitors in this price range, but the X60 does hold its own when it comes to providing good value for the price tag to a user looking for a good looking smartphone that doesn’t take day to day performance as secondary.