Vivo for instance, has been coming out with devices that have the most or the first - the slimmest phone, the first 2k phone, and what this review is about, the first phone with both Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and F/1.8 lens - the Vivo XShot.
Hardware and Design
Vivo XShot comes with two variances, a higher speced Ultimate, and a cheaper Elite version. The Ultimate version sports with the popular Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor at 2.5GHz, 3G RAM, 32 GB ROM, micro SD expansion slot (up to 128GB), 5.2 inches 1080P screen, and an impressive high-end audio chipset. The Elite version compromise slightly on a slower Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor at 2.3GHz, 2GB RAM, and 16 GB ROM. It is no slouch in terms of hardware, and is on par with the current flagships.
See the full specification here.
The highlights of this phone however are really its cameras. The Vivo XShot comes with a F/1.8 + OIS 13 megapixel back camera (Sony 2nd gen IMX214) with dual tone flashlight, AND a 8 megapixel 84 degrees wide-angle front camera with LED flashlight. More on them in a while.
The phone itself is a well made device. XShot felt substantial in the hand, due to its steel made chassis that also surround the phone. The steel body is clamshelled by polycarbonate plates and a gorilla glass. Underneath the glass, the 5.2" LG produced 1080p IPS display dominates the front, leaving very little bezels at the side. Delightfully, the display does a good job in complementing the viewing experience for the camera centric phone. The screen is bright (and dim enough when needed), and has good color accuracy. Not that you should be bothered, fyi you will notice a warmer tone when looking diagonally across from the bottom right to the top left of the display. This is commonly found on LG G2 which uses the same panel. It does not affect normal viewing. Even at wide deviated angles, the IPS screen provides good visibility.
Aside of the usual sensors on the front, you will be surprised by a led flashlight! Trust me, you will absolutely love this 8 MP front camera and its accompanied flashlight if you are a selfie person. At the bottom of the screen, there are three capacitive buttons (menu/ home/ back), which sadly do not light up. Though in actual use, I do not find it hard to locate the buttons in the dark.
At the sides, there are four physical buttons all on the right, the volume buttons, the power button which is positioned nicely for your thump, and a welcomed dual-stage camera button nearer to the bottom. On the left, there is a slot with an unique single tray design for both the SIM and SD cards.
The non-removeable back of XShot has a slight curve that helps with the grip. You will not miss the protruding camera. The prominent lens probably fits its image as a camera centric phone. That said, you do worry about the lack of protection on the lens. Also on the back is a long speaker at the bottom which produces respectable sound both in terms of loudness and quality.
The device is powered by a 2600 mAh battery. It is not big for an over 5" phone, but in actual use it proves to be pretty reliable. It can easily last for a day, with over 4 hours screen on time, i.e. active usage.
Software
The XShot comes with Vivo's Funtouch OS which is built on Jellybean 4.3. Currently at version 1.16.2 beta, the Funtouch OS is still very young, and require some polishing, particularly on attention to details. However, it is by no mean immature. The Chinese are very good in 'learning' from the best. You will find several familiar features such as gesture control, one-handed control, double tap to wake and etc. Being a chinese phone, the local version does not come with Google services by default. Instead, the missing Playstore is made up by the Vivo App Store. Not to worry though, the process of setting up Google services is fortunately pretty straightforward. However the de-chinese process is far from complete. Although you can set the language to english, you are almost certained to run into chinese at some corners. Other bugs include for instance unknown location of your contacts (only chinese cities are recognized), and mismatching caller ID due to country prefix.
The Funtouch is a heavily customized OS from the vanilla Jellybean. E.g. the light color tone, iPhone esque slide up control center, just to name a few. The launcher does away with the app drawer, which means all applications are laid out on the main screens, together with the widgets. You can also apply different themes, which are downloadable from the theme store, to the launcher, icons, lockscreen and etc.
Camera
If you only want to know one thing about this device, it will be its cameras. Yes the cameras - both the main and the front cameras.
The main camera on the back is a 13 MP Sony camera module that features an F/1.8 lens, with optical image stabilization (OIS). The big deal is that it should produce better images in low light situations. Firstly the F/1.8 lens means the XShot has a much larger aperture than the market norms F/2.0 -F/2.2 (the smaller F/ number means the bigger aperture) , which also means the lens allow more lights to go in. Secondly the OIS helps to steady the shot when the aperture is left opened for longer time, or when in motion. Most of the manufacturers only go with one of the two, or compensate it with digital stabilization. Vivo XShot is the first mobile phone that has such combination. Also worth mentioning is that larger aperture allows faster shutter speeds, and produce images with shallower depths of field. So you can achieve better close up effect where the focus is on the foreground object, and the background goes blur. There is even a dual-tone flashlight for more natural color balance when it is required. To top it off, there is also a two-stage shutter button that gives you a more camera like experience. At half pressed, the camera will lock the focus, and at full pressed photo will be taken. Double pressing the shutter, even when the screen is off, will activate quick shots where 5 consecutive photos will be taken.
The software side of the camera is packed with various tricks as well. There are a number of predefined scene modes, including the usual Panorama, HDR, Night, Sports and etc. The one unique feature which will surely appreciated by parents is the Children mode - you can trigger sounds (train, bell, kitten etc) that will attract children attention, and the camera will capture a shot when it detects a curious looking face. Another worth highlighting feature is the independent focus and exposure. This allows the camera to detect a better lighting reference from the main object.
But that's not all, there is also a hidden Pro mode, which can be activated with a left swipe to the capture button. In the Pro mode, which you may find the UI familiar, you have a suite of manual control from focus, white balance, shutter speed (up to 32s!), ISO, and EV. There is not much for video recording unfortunately. Yes it shoot 4k, but that's really it. There is no option to chose frame rate,no slow motion, or other video effect. [Edit] Turn out there are slow motion, and a fast video recording options. It was missed as the submenu "Funny Video" simply was not self explanatory.
Normally there is not much to talk about on front camera, but not for the case of XShot. Its selfie shooter is an impressive 8 MP camera with 84 degrees wide angle. Now here is another unusual one, the front camera is aided with a LED flash. You can now take a selfie during a night out. To make taking selfie even more fun, there is Face Beauty mode which will help to boast your confidence by beautifying your skin, giving you bigger eyes, slimmer face, and even give you virtual make up!
Hardware and Design
Vivo XShot comes with two variances, a higher speced Ultimate, and a cheaper Elite version. The Ultimate version sports with the popular Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor at 2.5GHz, 3G RAM, 32 GB ROM, micro SD expansion slot (up to 128GB), 5.2 inches 1080P screen, and an impressive high-end audio chipset. The Elite version compromise slightly on a slower Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor at 2.3GHz, 2GB RAM, and 16 GB ROM. It is no slouch in terms of hardware, and is on par with the current flagships.
See the full specification here.
The highlights of this phone however are really its cameras. The Vivo XShot comes with a F/1.8 + OIS 13 megapixel back camera (Sony 2nd gen IMX214) with dual tone flashlight, AND a 8 megapixel 84 degrees wide-angle front camera with LED flashlight. More on them in a while.
The phone itself is a well made device. XShot felt substantial in the hand, due to its steel made chassis that also surround the phone. The steel body is clamshelled by polycarbonate plates and a gorilla glass. Underneath the glass, the 5.2" LG produced 1080p IPS display dominates the front, leaving very little bezels at the side. Delightfully, the display does a good job in complementing the viewing experience for the camera centric phone. The screen is bright (and dim enough when needed), and has good color accuracy. Not that you should be bothered, fyi you will notice a warmer tone when looking diagonally across from the bottom right to the top left of the display. This is commonly found on LG G2 which uses the same panel. It does not affect normal viewing. Even at wide deviated angles, the IPS screen provides good visibility.
Aside of the usual sensors on the front, you will be surprised by a led flashlight! Trust me, you will absolutely love this 8 MP front camera and its accompanied flashlight if you are a selfie person. At the bottom of the screen, there are three capacitive buttons (menu/ home/ back), which sadly do not light up. Though in actual use, I do not find it hard to locate the buttons in the dark.
At the sides, there are four physical buttons all on the right, the volume buttons, the power button which is positioned nicely for your thump, and a welcomed dual-stage camera button nearer to the bottom. On the left, there is a slot with an unique single tray design for both the SIM and SD cards.
The non-removeable back of XShot has a slight curve that helps with the grip. You will not miss the protruding camera. The prominent lens probably fits its image as a camera centric phone. That said, you do worry about the lack of protection on the lens. Also on the back is a long speaker at the bottom which produces respectable sound both in terms of loudness and quality.
The device is powered by a 2600 mAh battery. It is not big for an over 5" phone, but in actual use it proves to be pretty reliable. It can easily last for a day, with over 4 hours screen on time, i.e. active usage.
Software
The XShot comes with Vivo's Funtouch OS which is built on Jellybean 4.3. Currently at version 1.16.2 beta, the Funtouch OS is still very young, and require some polishing, particularly on attention to details. However, it is by no mean immature. The Chinese are very good in 'learning' from the best. You will find several familiar features such as gesture control, one-handed control, double tap to wake and etc. Being a chinese phone, the local version does not come with Google services by default. Instead, the missing Playstore is made up by the Vivo App Store. Not to worry though, the process of setting up Google services is fortunately pretty straightforward. However the de-chinese process is far from complete. Although you can set the language to english, you are almost certained to run into chinese at some corners. Other bugs include for instance unknown location of your contacts (only chinese cities are recognized), and mismatching caller ID due to country prefix.
The Funtouch is a heavily customized OS from the vanilla Jellybean. E.g. the light color tone, iPhone esque slide up control center, just to name a few. The launcher does away with the app drawer, which means all applications are laid out on the main screens, together with the widgets. You can also apply different themes, which are downloadable from the theme store, to the launcher, icons, lockscreen and etc.
 |
 |
 |
| Laucher | One-handed mode | Various gesture control |
 |
 |
|
| Apple esque slide up control panel | Themes |
Camera
If you only want to know one thing about this device, it will be its cameras. Yes the cameras - both the main and the front cameras.
The main camera on the back is a 13 MP Sony camera module that features an F/1.8 lens, with optical image stabilization (OIS). The big deal is that it should produce better images in low light situations. Firstly the F/1.8 lens means the XShot has a much larger aperture than the market norms F/2.0 -F/2.2 (the smaller F/ number means the bigger aperture) , which also means the lens allow more lights to go in. Secondly the OIS helps to steady the shot when the aperture is left opened for longer time, or when in motion. Most of the manufacturers only go with one of the two, or compensate it with digital stabilization. Vivo XShot is the first mobile phone that has such combination. Also worth mentioning is that larger aperture allows faster shutter speeds, and produce images with shallower depths of field. So you can achieve better close up effect where the focus is on the foreground object, and the background goes blur. There is even a dual-tone flashlight for more natural color balance when it is required. To top it off, there is also a two-stage shutter button that gives you a more camera like experience. At half pressed, the camera will lock the focus, and at full pressed photo will be taken. Double pressing the shutter, even when the screen is off, will activate quick shots where 5 consecutive photos will be taken.
The software side of the camera is packed with various tricks as well. There are a number of predefined scene modes, including the usual Panorama, HDR, Night, Sports and etc. The one unique feature which will surely appreciated by parents is the Children mode - you can trigger sounds (train, bell, kitten etc) that will attract children attention, and the camera will capture a shot when it detects a curious looking face. Another worth highlighting feature is the independent focus and exposure. This allows the camera to detect a better lighting reference from the main object.
But that's not all, there is also a hidden Pro mode, which can be activated with a left swipe to the capture button. In the Pro mode, which you may find the UI familiar, you have a suite of manual control from focus, white balance, shutter speed (up to 32s!), ISO, and EV. There is not much for video recording unfortunately. Yes it shoot 4k, but that's really it. There is no option to chose frame rate,
Normally there is not much to talk about on front camera, but not for the case of XShot. Its selfie shooter is an impressive 8 MP camera with 84 degrees wide angle. Now here is another unusual one, the front camera is aided with a LED flash. You can now take a selfie during a night out. To make taking selfie even more fun, there is Face Beauty mode which will help to boast your confidence by beautifying your skin, giving you bigger eyes, slimmer face, and even give you virtual make up!
 |
 |
| Beauty Face mode | Selfie with front facing flashlight in a total dark room |
Photos Samples
Here are some photos comparison between the Vivo XShot and Galaxy S4. I wished I could get a newer and better opponent for it, but S4 is the best device I have in my hand, and I trust it as a worthy reference.
Galaxy S4 on the LEFT, Vivo XShot on the RIGHT.
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Under good lighting conditions, XShot produces good images with a lot of details. The color reproduction is pretty accurate. You can also produce punchier colors in Auto Scene mode, where saturation tends to be higher. It is not without faults however. In the 4th set of photos [water drop sculptures, HDR], there is noticeable purple fringing at the ceiling window grills. The control on glaring light sources (e.g. street lamp, direct sun light) also require further improvement.
Where XShots really stands out, is when under low light situations. The last three sets of photos were taken with Night mode on both phones. XShots' images are without doubt brighter, have less noises, while retaining more details.
More XShot photos
Conclusion
The Vivo Xshot is one capable device. It has the flagship hardware. It has good cameras that provide fun photography experience. And it looks decently nice.
However at RMB 2,999 (US$ 407) for the Elite version, and RMB 3,499 (US$ 570) for the Ultimate version, the Vivo Xshot is not exactly cheap. Particularly from a lesser known chinese brand. Also, the phone is currently only available in China, Malaysia, and Thailand. Yes, you can still get it online, but you may not get the necessary support both in terms of geographic, and language barrier.
All in all, I will recommend the device to people that enjoy mobile photography, who appreciate manual control, and don't mind the potential lack of support. As it is to me, a keeper.
Great review, the non availability of Google store will be a bummer but since there is a way around it, will be fine. A bit concern on battery juice but not too much..I am sold on the Xshot sleek design and its great camera. Hv been looking for flagship phone (1080p screen) w LTE that did not say Apple or Samsung, so i think this is it. The Elite version at Rm1599 here in Malaysia is still a reasonable value at these specs. Continue writing or add more review on Xshot. Tq
ReplyDeleteHey thanks for checking out my post.
ReplyDeleteIf there is local warranty in Malaysia, I think it will be a good buy. That was my main concern for recommending this device.
I bought this phone after fiddling with it at the shop last week. I was sold right there :-) The nitty gritty with initial Google Play set up was solved after a version update. Now it is just like any other flagship.. fast and efficient.. with damn fine camera (most impressive). The battery lasted 1.5 days with normal usage. Who needs water n dust resistance features again? he he.. at 20 to 40% cheaper pricing than other major makers, worth every penny. Thanks for your review.
ReplyDeletei was wondering about the Malaysia's version, is it a change in the UI to suite the international version and less of the original chinese characters and software? If it is so, i am interested to get one here. And during this review did u use the 'ultimate' or 'elite' version? Did you experience any lagging or stutter from time to time? Lastly, are u using it with a 4g or 3g connection when testing and in terms of battery life? Hope to hear from u soon
ReplyDeleteLess chinese yes. If you can't pick up an international model, you can DIY and flash the international ROM to a Chinese model.
DeleteI am using the Elite version. It is fast and with no lag, well, at least 90% of the time. Occasionally I did have the launcher redraw, probably due to low RAM, but that's doesn't happen frequent. BTW i run a lot of background apps.
And I am on 4G most of the time. I am happy with the battery life so far - constantly have more than 4 hour screen on time. Full day usage is not a problem.
are there such thing as an international version and Malaysia's version are two separate things? the good thing is that the service center is just a 5 minute ride from my home. For the newer updates, is google play available out of the box or can it be downloaded from the vivo store?
DeleteI am a user from Malaysia..see my earlier comment. The Google Play is available now with the latest update 1.16. May ask the shop person to update for you if they have slightly older stock. Great great phone ..never regretted my decision not to move to S5 from my old S4 (and bye bye >2K phone)..
Deletebtw,, if you are budget concious, the new Huawei Honor6 at ~Rm1K looks appetizing as well with great features :-)
Malaysia and Thailand model should come with the international version, and Google Play should come out of the box. But I can't say for sure. Vivo sales channel/website outside of China is not that established, and there's not much info available.
ReplyDeleteis the midnight blue available yet?
ReplyDeleteHi, how did you manage to get Google play store to work?
ReplyDeleteDo you have to root it? And if yes, how?
Thanks
You can find some good threads about Xshot on this forum.
Deletehttp://vivoforums.com/thread-guide-fix-google-services-and-install-the-play-store
The highlights of this phone however are really its cameras. ... cameraschildren.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteHi does this phone have slow shutter setting so you can do similar photos like the lumina 1020 can do with light in the dark ie light trails
ReplyDeleteyes you can adjust the shutter speed - up to 32 sec.
Deletein fact, the Xshot camera interface is very much like the one found in Lumia 1020。
Just made a full detailed review of the vivo Xshot:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtYISfxCCfM
How's the performance overall after months of usage? Laggy? Overheating? I need some answers here. Planning to buy one
ReplyDeleteThe main thing that makes this handset best buy is its selfie feature.Talking about Vivo V5 Plus smartphone, if you ask me define this phone in one word, I will say i can’t. Vivo V5 Plus comes with a 5.50 inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1080 pixel by 1920 pixel
ReplyDelete