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VIVO V3 Max Unboxing, Overview, Gaming and Benchmarks

VIVO launched its V3 Max smartphone in the first week of April, and it is priced at INR 23,980. The main highlights of this device are its premium looking metal design, 4 GB RAM and HiFi music technology. Another appealing feature of this device is its snappy fingerprint sensor and also the AK4375 chipset for enhanced music experience.

To make it more worthy, VIVO has used a full metal built, Gorilla Glass coatiung and fast charging technology. We unboxed the VIVO V3 Max and tested almost each and every aspect of the phone, after all the tests here is what we found.

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VIVO V3 Max Full Specifications

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VIVO V3 Max Unboxing

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V3 Max comes packed in a decent looking cuboid shaped white box. You will find the Indian Premier League 2016 branding along with the VIVO branding as VIVO is the main sponsor of the tournament this year. You will find the specs on the left side and other details on the back side of the slide out cover. As you open the box, you’ll find the handset lying on top and then a pack that has silicon cover and other documentations.

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Rests of the accessories are placed neatly at the bottom.

VIVO V3 Max Box Contents

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VIVO V3 Max comes with the following contents inside the box.

  • V3 Max Handset
  • SIM Ejection pin
  • Silicon Case
  • OTG connector
  • 2A Fast Charger
  • Earphones
  • USB Cable
  • Documentations

VIVO V3 Max Quick Review, First Impressions [Video]

Physical Overview

VIVO V3 Max has a 5.5 inch display which is protected by a 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass. It boasts of an aluminum body, which the company says is treated with zircon sand coating and to smoothen it up it has been anodized as well. The handset feels smooth in hand and the curved sides give it a more comfortable grip. It has a flat back which is slightly curved towards the edges, which means the 2.5D glass runs from the front and carries the curve to the back. The sides have a chamfered finish on the edges which is a pretty common design element these days.

Overall the look and feel of the V3 Max is good; it feels solid in terms of build and looks premium for sure. Despite the metal body, it is considerably lightweight to hold. Let’s take a look around the phone and see how it looks from each angle.

Front top has the VIVO branding on the bottom left part of the bezel. The speaker grill, primary camera, and proximity and ambient light sensors are placed in the center of the bezel.

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You will find 3 capacitive navigation keys at the bottom bezel.

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Primary camera is placed at the top left corner of the back panel and the LED flash is baked right below it.

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The fingerprint sensor is placed in the center which has a chrome lining around it.

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Power/Lock key and volume rocker is on the right hand side of the phone

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While the left side has dual SIM tray

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Loudspeaker grill, micro USB port and primary microphone are at the bottom edge.

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3.5 mm audio jack is placed on the top.

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VIVO V3 Max Photo Gallery

Display

It comes with a 5.5 inch IPS LCD with full HD resolution (1080 x 1920p). A full HD display with pixel density of 401 ppi is always good for anyone but it is still not the best we have seen so far. From a company like VIVO we can expect a quad HD from a phone that costs 23K as there are many other phones which offer qHD resolution.

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As far as the quality is concerned, it has good amount of brightness for outdoor use and also adjusts well under low light. Colour production and viewing angles are also impressive .

User Interface

As far as the software is concerned, it runs on Android Lollipop with the flavor of Vivo’s own Funtouch OS 2.5. Funtouch OS looks a bit inspired from the Apple’s iOS. Like most other Chinese OEMs, VIVO has also added colourful icons and lacks an app drawer. It offers great level of customizations, which include interesting themes, gestures and modes. Some useful features include the spit screen mode which allows you to use two apps at once. The UI is not cluttered with a lot of useless options and mostly all the features worked smoothly.

The UI looks cool and easy to use, but has a lot of differences compared to the stock Android. It also has smart motions which include smart wake, air operations smart call and more. You will find many other useful options like but in the end it all depends on your personal choice and how you use your device.

Camera Overview

VIVO V3 Max comes with a 13 MP rear camera and 8 MP front cameras. The main camera is capable of clicking some good quality photos in day light and in good lighting conditions, but the low light performance is not satisfying for the price. Another thing that did not impress me on the whole is the lack of OIS, as the camera has minor stability issues. You may get away with a good shot in natural light if your hands are shaky but if the light is poor, you will struggle getting a clear shot. Other than this, the colour production is good, and the pictures come out to be pretty sharp.

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Front camera does a good job overall, although the camera software saturates the selfies a bit but it does not look bad at all. Low light selfies may look blurry and noisy but it is something very common for smartphones like these. It offers a lot of modes for selfies so that you can get the best selfie shot without any third party app. For a better idea about the camera, you can go through the picture gallery below.

VIVO V3 Max Camera Samples

Gaming Performance

V3 Max comes with the Snapdragon 652 processor and 4 GB RAM, which is good enough to handle any type of game presently available on Android. To test its capabilities and performance, I played Asphalt 8 on this phone and the experience was buttery smooth. I did not find any lag or hiccup at any point of time.

Being a graphic greedy game, I expected Asphalt 8 to stutter at least once during the game-play but being a powerful phone, it did not give me any chance to complain. The phone did not heat up unusually, although it was getting extra hot around the rear camera after 20 minutes but it cooled down pretty fast.

I played Ashalt 8 for 25 minutes and noticed 11% of battery drop. The highest temperature noticed was 44.5 degrees.

VIVO V3 Max Benchmark Scores

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Conclusion

VIVO V3 Max is a great phone for those who prefer power before anything else. At INR 23,980 it offers almost everything a busy smartphone user may demand. If you’ll compare it with the other smartphones of its range, then you might find some upgrades over this one. Camera is one part that falls short according to me otherwise everything is impressive.

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Abhishek Bhatnagar

Abhishek Bhatnagar, a known technology blogger & YouTuber from India. A Software Engineer by qualification, now he works as the editor-In-Chief, Webmaster, & Managing Director at Gadgets To Use. He runs a number of other technology websites as well.