Vivo V25 Pro Review: The Value Option Now?

Hey guys, we recently reviewed the V25 a while back and although our impressions were less than stellar, its older, pro-er bigger brother is here to save the day, this is the Vivo V25 Pro! With a triple camera setup, 120hz display and premium build quality to boot, we think this might currently be the go-to option right now if you are looking for a dependable smartphone without breaking the bank!

Design

Let's talk design, take the regular V25, curve all the straight edges and you'll get the V25 Pro. Jokes aside, there seems to be this particular trend of pro versions getting curved displays and edges, as if somehow it makes the phone seem more... "premium"?

Nevertheless, it really is just a curved version of the V25, as far as smartphones go, nothing too unique here.

But what is unique however is its glass back, which Vivo calls Colour Changing Fluorite AG Glass first introduced in its predecessor the V23. While at first glance it may seem like a simple matte finished back when it is exposed to UV light the colour tone will change depending on the colour of your phone.

And with some homemade design cutouts, you can even give your phone some unique looks. Of course, the colour change is only temporary and will go away after about an hour or so but if you have a UV light laying around, it is a good gimmick to show off to your friends!

Display

The V25 Pro sports a 6.56" 120Hz AMOLED display which is 1080p and supports HDR10+.

The refresh rate does quite intelligently switch between 60 and 120hz to save on that battery life. Colours pop as they should in all forms of content consumption, no complaints here.

Sound

Where we do have complaints though, is in the audio experience. The V25 Pro only has single firing speaking at the bottom, which means you can't really enjoy your content in stereo without whipping out a pair of earbuds or speakers.

Not only that, the audio fidelity is underwhelming, to say the least, with no separation and barely any mids. Probably not the phone you want to consider if built-in audio is a major factor in your purchase, but since we usually use the phone with earbuds, we can look past it quite easily.

Performance

The V25 Pro is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 1300, while it's much weaker in benchmarks compared to the likes of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 or even the Google Tensor.

	SINGLE	MULTI
Vivo V25 Pro (MediaTek Dimensity 1300)	674	2897
Google Pixel 7 (Tensor G2)	1046	2749
Vivo X80 Pro (Snapdragon 8 Gen 1)	1240	3619

The optimisation of Android and FunTouch OS does make the low numbers much less worrying, the experience is still buttery smooth and you only occasionally run into stutters when you are pushing it to its limits, like running multiple apps or gaming longer hours.

That's not to say the OS experience is perfect by any stretch, we do have our nitpicks with it, such as why is the fingerprint sensor placed so low, it's really uncomfortable to reach it at a normal hand-holding position. Also, why is there a need to pre-install a bunch of apps right from the get-go? Strange decisions there but well, not a new occurrence at this point for Vivo phones, thereby, nitpicks.

Gaming

Nothing much to shout out here for gaming, lighter games will run without issues but games like Diablo and Genshin will cause the mid-tier SOC to struggle quite a bit. However, it did fare pretty well for at least 10 minutes into Diablo at 60fps before it started to get really toasty.

	WILD LIFE	WILD LIFE EXTREME
Vivo V25 Pro (MediaTek Dimensity 1300)	4476	1289
Huawei Mate Xs 2 (Snapdragon 888)	3487	-
Vivo X80 Pro (Snapdragon 8 Gen 1)	Maxed Out!	2573

Numbers-wise, right where you expect for a mid-tier chip like this, it can compete with older-gen flagships like the Snapdragon 888 but against newer mid-tier chips like the 778G, it will be a close battle.

Needless to say, it pales in comparison to newer flagships.

Camera

The cameras are where the phone will fare slightly better than other mid-range options. It's kitted with a 64 MP f/1.9 Main, an 8MP f/2.2 Ultrawide and a 2MP Macro.

Nothing much to expect from the Macro as even newer flagships are still trying to figure it out but photos straight off the camera are fairly good. Colour reproduction is not by any means true to life but it is vibrant and ready to go on your Instagram.

With human subjects, skin tones are well handled and the phone generally adds a stronger contrast to photos, regardless of whether the HDR is on or off. The cameras do get confused in low light in some situations but night mode is usable for the most part.

The Vivo camera experience also presents you with a bunch of options for filters and bokeh styles, while the range of options isn't as extensive as the X80 series, it still is something built-in and different from stock options. Unless, of course, you download a third-party app for it.

Battery

The V25 Pro has a somewhat large 4830mAh battery and battery life has been...actually good? We brought it out for our recent trip and even with a combined 10 hours of Netflix and Disney+ we were still left with 15% battery, pretty impressive!

Of course, with regular use mixed in and standby time you can probably stretch that out by a little but you shouldn't have any major problems with it. Once you are low on juice you can get the phone charged up from 1% to about 70% in less than an hour. No wireless charging though, bummer there.

Pricing & Availability

The Vivo V25 Pro cost S$849 and RM2,499 for the 256GB version with 12GB of RAM. It's available in most retail stores and e-commerce platforms like Shopee and Lazada.

At about S$200 more than the V25, you get a 120Hz display, a much better SOC and of course, curvier edges. If those upgrades are worth the extra for you, there you go. Even if it's not, it's still an affordable mid-range option worth recommending to others.