If you remember Vivo showed off its fully bezel-less phone back at MWC. It had a pop-up front facing camera that comes out when you want to take a selfie – they called Vivo APEX and it was hardly believed to be out in public anytime soon as it was just a concept phone. The company might had other plans and now it has launched the phone as Vivo NEX.
Vivo has now formally announced the phone in China. The Vivo NEX features a 6.59-inch display with FHD+ resolution covering an aspect ratio of 19.3:9 aspect ratio. It’s 91.2% screen-to-body ratio with Super AMOLED display.
With the full screen covering the whole front with no bezel on top and no notch at all, the Vivo NEX doesn’t come with the standard earpiece. Instead, the phone features the Screen SoundCasting technology. The company claims it to be better than traditional earpiece – saying it enhances the sound quality with more powerful bass and softer smoother treble.
In addition the phone features the company’s famous under display fingerprint scanner from the 3rd gen iteration. Vivo insists that its new In-Display Fingerprint scanning tech has improved in both the accuracy by 50% and in speed by 10%. Previous generations have only made their ways with Vivo X20UD and X21. Another model of the NEX smartphone has a standard rear-mounted fingerprint scanner.
Vivo NEX has a glass back which is coated with what Vivo calls “Holographic Dynamic Color” illusion technology. The back is laser engraved with thousands of diffraction units to create an effect like dreamlike sci-fi as they the company describes it.
There is dual-rear camera on the back – 12MP Dual Pixel PDAF sensor with f/1.8 aperture lens paired with a 5MP sensor f/2.4 aperture with 4-axis optical image stabilization.
Vivo NEX lacks a selfie camera that is visible on the front screen of most phones. Instead, it features pop-up selfie camera due to the fact of having no bezel on top-front. The moving part of the phone that slides out from within the body of the phone, and that is what most innovative thing about the phone. The module contains an 8MP camera which features all the trendy features such as beautification mode and bokeh mode.
According to Vivo, the poppable module works with a micro-drive system along with the independent drive ICs. It allows the camera to elevate with absolute precision. If you are wondering how would the moving parts of the phone would survive for long, then you may take company’s words for granted. The camera module is said to be raised and lowered over 50,000 times and the motor is claimed to push up to 500 grams withstanding a thrust force of 45 kilograms.
Vivo NEX comes in two models – NEX A or NEX S (aka NEX Ultimate). Both the models have pretty much similar features as plotted above, except the fingerprint scanner. Both run Android 8.1 Oreo out-of-the-box and is backed by a 4000mAh battery.
Vivo NEX (NEX A)
The standard model is powered by the Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 (or SDM710). Two cores of Cortex-A75 are clocked at 2.2GHz while the other six cores of Cortex-A55 are clocked at 1.7GHz. The standard Vivo NEX smartphone features a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner and comes as only option to buy with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage.
Vivo NEX Ultimate (NEX S)
That’s an expensive model of the two and comes with really a big package of Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 with an octa-core processor on board. The four Kryo 385 Gold cores are clocked at 2.7GHz while the other four cores of Kryo 385 Silver are clocked at 1.7GHz.
This model features a whopping 8GB of RAM and comes in two options to buy from – 128GB or 256GB of internal storage.
Pricing and Availability
For now, the Vivo NEX is only available in Chinese market and there is no words if and when the phone will make its way to other markets. When it will do, we’ll sure update you.
The Vivo NEX, the standard model comes in two colors – black and red and costs CNY 3,898 (or USD ~600, PKR ~73,000/-).
Vivo NEX Ultimate, or NEX S on the other hand, with 128GB of storage will cost CNY 4,498 (or USD ~690, PKR ~84,000/-). The variant with 256GB of storage is priced at CNY 4,998 (or USD ~770, PKR ~94,000/-). This model will also be available in same two colors – black and red.
