To the editorial board of the portal GameMAG.ru the test came last year’s flagship smartphone from the company vivo – NEX 3… The official price of the device in Russia is 59,990 rubles…
DELIVERY AND PACKAGING
We have received a test sample of the device. The smartphone comes in a large black square box made of thick cardboard with the NEX logo on the lid. Inside you will find an overlap that opens like the binding of a book. Behind it is the device itself, a 22.5 W power adapter and vivo XE710 branded headphones, which come with a set of ear pads in two sizes. There’s also a notch under the phone where you’ll find documentation, a USB Type-A to USB Type-C cable, a SIM eject tool, and a premium protective case. It should be noted that a protective film has already been applied to the screen of the device.
In Russia, the smartphone is presented in a single color “Glowing Night”, which shimmers from purple to dark blue. It looks very nice. Fingerprints remain, but due to the good oleophobic coating, they are not very noticeable.
The vivo NEX 3 is almost entirely covered with Schott Xensation UP, the German alternative to Gorilla Glass, and the metal side edges are so thin you barely feel them to the touch. It seems that the device is completely glass. Top and bottom edges are also metal.
EXTERNAL DATA
The size of the device is 167.4×76.1×9.4 mm. Weight – 217 grams. The smartphone is a bit heavy, but it is very comfortable in the hand, despite its large dimensions. The thumb reaches about 75% of the screen.
A curved POLED-matrix of the “waterfall” type (or Waterfall FullView, as it is called in vivo) with a diagonal of 6.89 inches, a resolution of 2256×1080 and a refresh rate of 62 Hz is used as a display. The pixel density is 363 ppi. The brightness is 664 nits and the contrast is 1400: 1. The matrix supports the output of HDR content. The screen occupies 99.6% of the front side of the device and is devoid of various cutouts and bangs. The camera extends from the top.
USE AND CONVENIENCE
Watching 21: 9 movies on this screen is a pleasure. The matrix is bright enough and of high quality.
When watching YouTube videos and other videos in 16: 9 format, black bars will be waiting for you on the sides, but thanks to the real black color on the display, they will merge with small frames at the top and bottom.
Due to the size of the screen on the phone, it is very convenient to surf the Internet and read. But like all OLEDs, there is PWM at less than 25% brightness, although the situation can be improved by enabling a special function to reduce flicker.
On the plus side, it is also worth noting the “always-on screen” feature, which has many settings for dials, backgrounds and colors. However, this feature does not quite live up to its name on the NEX 3, since after a few seconds the display goes out and is activated only when you pick up the phone.
Another nice feature is the Ambient Light Effects feature. Thanks to it, the edges of the screen begin to sparkle with different colors for notifications, incoming calls and listening to music.
Above the screen is a speaker hole, and below it is a fingerprint scanner, as well as ambient light and proximity sensors.
The scanner works fine, but if it couldn’t count your fingers three times, then a retractable front camera comes to the rescue, which quickly recognizes the owner. However, as is the case with fingerprints, first you will need to enable the Assisted Face Unlock feature and register your poker face.
Due to the strong curvature of the screen, there are no buttons on the side faces. Instead, on the right side there is a touch panel that recognizes pressure, which functions as a screen power button and a volume rocker.
The edge responds pleasantly with vibration under the finger when pressed thanks to the tactile Touch Sense system. The sensor does not respond when you just put your finger on it – it activates only when you press lightly. Thanks to this, you are protected from false presses when you just hold the device, which is undoubtedly a huge plus for the waterfall screen.
It’s also worth noting that the sensor is responsive when the phone is completely off. In the settings, you can set 5 levels of pressure sensitivity for each command (volume +, power and volume -).
SIM & EXTENSIONS
On the bottom there is a slot for two nano-SIM, a microphone, speaker holes, two antenna strips, as well as a USB-C version 2.0 with OTG support. The slot is not hybrid – there is no possibility of expansion with a memory card in the smartphone. We’ll have to be content with 128 GB of internal memory.
On the top, there is another microphone, a small button for unlocking the smartphone screen, a slide-out front camera, and a 3.5 mm jack for connecting headphones.
On the back there is a slightly protruding block of three cameras and a flash, as well as the NEX logo. Due to the slightly raised camera on the top side, the phone is not quite level on the table. But this is solved with the help of a complete cover. The latter is quite comfortable in the hand and is made of durable plastic, over which a certain material is stretched, resembling something between rubber or artificial leather.
SOUND
As for the sound, the speaker located below is responsible for the playback of multimedia content. The speaker on top is used only for its direct purpose, which means you will not hear stereo.
In defense of the speaker, we can say that the sound is clear and very loud. Great for watching movies and TV shows. The music plays well, but there is clearly not enough power to pump low frequencies. However, everything changes when you plug in good wired or wireless headphones. The device has a digital-to-analog converter AK4377 with a built-in headphone amplifier from the Japanese company Asahi Kasei Microdevices or simply AKM. I tested it on my Sennheiser CX 6.00BT APTX Hi-Fi Wireless Headset and the sound was amazing. The smartphone will definitely appeal to fans of high-quality sound in headphones.
Well, since we are talking about audio, it is worth mentioning the complete wired vivo XE710 headphones. Here the sound showed itself very well in the high and medium tones, but the lows are weak and dull, which is why you do not get any pleasure from the tracks with a priority on bass.
It should be noted that a non-standard set of ear pads is included with the headphones. There are small earplugs on the headphones out of the box, and the set includes very small to medium ear pads. There are simply no big ones.
CAMERA AND TESTS
The device is equipped with a block of three cameras on the back, as well as a retractable front camera, which should be given special attention.
When you switch to the front camera, a pleasant hi-tech sound is emitted from the phone speaker when you slide the unit out, complemented by sound from the speaker in the slide-out unit. When the module is closed, a different sound sounds. Apparently, vivo decided in this way to emphasize the already uniqueness of their flagship.
Another feature of the retractable unit is the backlight for the selfie camera. In poor light conditions, it will come in handy for those who like to take pictures of themselves.
The front camera is capable of delivering 16 megapixels (4606×3456) in photo mode and 4 megapixels (2304×1728) in video mode. The focal length is 3.31mm and the aperture is f / 2.0. The photo quality is good. Video shooting is possible at a maximum resolution of 1080p at 30 frames per second with stabilization.
The main camera with a resolution of 64 Mp (9216×6912) for photography and 8.3 Mp (3840×2160) for video. Focal length – 5.58 mm, aperture – f / 1.8. There is also a 13MP wide-angle lens with f / 2.2 aperture and autofocus and a 13MP telephoto lens with f / 2.48 aperture and 2x optical zoom. The quality of photos on the main module is good, the colors are natural, but in low light conditions, the details of the image begin to decrease.
In night mode, the camera does not show through the image and does an excellent job, offering a good detailed shot. It also has portrait, bokeh (background blur) and super macro functions. It is also possible to shoot animated pictures, panoramas, time-lapse. The latter can shoot at a distance of 30 mm.
The wide-angle module also does a great job in good lighting conditions, but in bad lighting it seems to blur the image a little. The main camera is capable of recording video at a maximum resolution of 4K at 60 frames per second. It has no optical stabilization, but digital is good, so the image quality does not suffer when shaking. It also has the ability to record in slow motion at 1080p at 240FPS and 720p at 480FPS.
BATTERY & COMMUNICATION
vivo NEX 3 is equipped with Bluetooth 5.0, NFC and Wi-Fi with support for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequencies. Navigation systems: GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou.
The smartphone comes with a 4500mAh Li-Pol battery. Thanks to the complete 22.5 W charging and vivo FlashCharge technology, the smartphone was charged from 0 to 50% in just 28 minutes. In 44 minutes, the smartphone charge reached 75 percent. The smartphone was charged up to 100% in an hour and a half.
With everyday use of the device (making calls, surfing the Internet, watching YouTube and listening to music in a Bluetooth headset) it lasts for one and a half to two days. This model does not provide wireless charging, which is somewhat frustrating, but in general you can live without it.
vivo NEX 3 runs Android 9 on the proprietary shell Funtouch OS 9.1. And thanks to the hardware, it is also one of the most powerful smartphones on the market. The core of the system is an 8-core Snapdragon 855+ processor (7 nm, one Qualcomm Kryo 485 Gold 2.96 GHz core, three Qualcomm Kryo 485 Gold 2.42 GHz cores and four Qualcomm Kryo 485 Silver cores at 1.78 GHz), which works in conjunction with the graphics accelerator Adreno 640 and 8 GB of RAM.
GAMES
We were able to test this device in games such as PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty Mobile, Asphalt 9 and World of Tanks Blitz. For several hours we did not notice any tearing or brakes. All games were smooth and comfortable to play. Thanks for that it is worth saying to the graphics accelerator Adreno 640.
Based on the basic tests AnTuTu and 3D Mark identified the phone as vivo NEX 3 or vivo 1912. In AnTuTu, the smartphone is gaining almost 495 thousand points and takes 12th place in the ranking of Android solutions.
The vivo engineers decided to tackle potential overheating problems and used a vapor chamber cooling system. It distributes excess heat from the processor and battery throughout the device. In normal operation, the processor temperature did not exceed 30-35 degrees, and the battery kept around 25-30. When running heavy games, such as PUBG Mobile and Asphalt 9, the processor temperature reached 45-55 degrees, and the batteries – up to 35.
RESULTS
vivo NEX 3 is a truly unusual flagship that has one of the largest screens on the market (and even with a tactile feedback system), as well as a real frameless design without annoying cutouts and bangs. The smartphone easily copes with all daily tasks without even sweating or running out, thanks to the large battery. Well, the wonderful clear sound should attract lovers of high-quality listening to music. All this allows us to call the device one of the best on the market. The only problem is that it is very difficult to find it in Russia. But if you have such an opportunity, we recommend it, and you most likely will not be disappointed.
Author: Sergey Dyakonenko (Madnfs)
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