Vivo’s new Y55L smartphone features a decent mix of hardware, but has gone wrong with the pricing.
Vivo has launched a new smartphone in India called Y55L. Successor to Y51L, the new smartphone brings some key under the hood upgrades – including newer Android operating system, better display, faster processor, bigger battery and VoLTE voice calling support. Priced at Rs 11,980, Vivo Y55L will go on sale across offline retail stores in India starting October 15. The smartphone will be offered in gold and space grey color options.
One of the highlights of the smartphone is its full metal unibody design. The front panel has selfie camera, earpiece, the display and three capacitive keys for menu, home and back. The SIM card tray is placed on the left edge, whereas the volume rocker and power buttons are placed on the right panel. The 3.5mm audio jack is placed on the top, whereas the microUSB port is placed at the bottom. Besides the design, Vivo has also worked on the software aspect of the smartphone. It runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow-based Funtouch OS 2.6 with split-screen feature for multitasking and blue light filter mode to reduce strain on your eyes.
Vivo Y55L specifications
The smartphone features a 5.2-inch HD (720p) display with 2.5D curved glass on top. It is powered by Qualcomm’s 64-bit Snapdragon 430 octa-core processor (eight Cortex A53 cores) paired with Adreno 505 GPU and 2GB of RAM. With 16GB onboard storage, a microSD card slot for further expansion up to 128GB is also present.
In the photography department, the Y55L sports an 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and a 5-megapixel selfie camera. Vivo has also added a smart screen selfie flash option, where the display turns bright to illuminate the face. Armed with a 2,650mAh battery, connectivity options such as dual SIM card slots (micro SIM and nano SIM), 4G LTE with VoLTE support, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS are present.
Now, coming back to the pricing bit, Vivo seems to have gone wrong yet again. At its price point, you have Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, LeEco Le2 and Coolpad Note 5, all of which are equipped with better hardware, and sport larger 5.5-inch full HD displays. But, there are other smartphones such as the Redmi 3s Prime, Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus and Moto E3 Power, all of which are priced under Rs 9,000 and offer better value for money compared to Vivo Y55L. ALSO READ: Motorola Moto E3 Power vs Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime vs Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus: Price, specifications and features compared
For one, the Redmi 3S Prime features a larger 4,100mAh battery and fingerprint scanner at the back. The Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus has a full HD display, better processor and a gig of extra RAM, but misses out on a fingerprint scanner. The Moto E3 Power, on the other hand, is equipped with a MediaTek quad-core processor and a 3,500mAh battery. The only advantage Vivo has right now is its offline presence, something that the competitors don’t. It remains to be seen if Vivo can pull this off.