Vivo Y66 Review

Design

The Vivo Y66 looks chic, to say the least. The good-looking Crown Gold unit we received has a premium finish. At a glance, it looked like metallic finish, but a closer peek confirmed a plastic body. However, it doesn’t look plasticky.

The front side comes fitted with a 5.5-inch HD display with a 2.5D glass atop flanked by a slightly wider bezel on the upper and lower sides. On the upper side, you will find the earpiece, Moonlight flash, light and proximity sensors and the 16MP front camera, while the lower side embeds three touch buttons. The right edge accommodates the power button and volume rocker, and the left edge has the hybrid SIM slot. The SIM slot either allows you to use dual SIMs – one micro and one nano – or a micro SIM and microSD card. This is disappointing, but a common trend seen in almost all dual SIM devices.

 

You will find the Hi-Fi speakers, microUSB port and audio jack on the lower edge, while the top edge remains smooth. The device doesn’t support fingerprint scanner, which is found in devices of this price range or even lower. The rear camera and flash are embedded on the back.

The device is lightweight at 155 grams and has mere 7.6mm thickness, and it felt sturdy in palms. The company has also bundled a case and the unit comes with a layer of tempered glass (not high quality though) for further screen protection. It was easy to use the device with one hand, and more viewing real estate is maintained in a compact form factor, we must add. 

 

Display

It’s a large 5.5-inch display, and the 1280 x 720 HD resolution was a led down. That gives roughly 267 pixel density. Despite the low resolution, there wasn’t anything starkly bad about the display. The viewing angles were fine and we watched a 2-hour HD movie, which the device handled pretty well. 

Camera

The highlight of the Vivo device is the selfie-centric 16MP front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture and the Moonlight flash. The moonlight flash worked efficiently in low light conditions. The beauty corrective features look natural, as long as you don’t go overboard. 

We took some landscape shots with the 13MP rear snapper with f/2.2 aperture that managed to reproduce natural colours. Outdoors pictures were detailed, to some extent.  However, we cannot say the same about low-light images shot from the Y66. We did hope for better.

OS and Performance

Under the hood, it gets the same 1.5GHz MT6750 chipset as seen in the Vivo V5. It is coupled with 3GB of RAM. We got the 32GB unit, but you can expand it further using the hybrid slot up to 256GB. But, as aforementioned, it will come at the cost of the dual SIM mode. 

 

The device runs Android Marshmallow with a layer of its proprietary Funtouch OS 3.0. The navigation is simple, and new users wouldn't take too long to get the hang of it. It has gesture-based features, seen in most phones from Chinese vendors. We played a few casual games and tried multitasking while listening to music and surfing the web, with some social use. And, surprisingly, the device didn't stutter. The bundled earphones are uncomfortable and look cheap. We had no choice but to pack it back in the box, and continued using our own earphones.

 

Running some popular benchmarks, look at what the Y66 scored on Antutu, Geekbench and GFX.

Battery

The battery easily squeezed through a day with average usage. We ran the battery test, and the results showed 8 hours and 47 minutes, which is good. And, we still had 20 percent battery remaining. It also has low consumption and super-saving modes.

Verdict

The Vivo Y66 is a good-looking device that performs efficiently. However, the ₹14990 price tag seems to be the hurdle as devices at the same price pack in superior specs. The  and Moto G5 Plus, will be among its biggest competitor in the price range.

 

Having said that, the Y66 has been specially crafted for selfie lovers, and does a pretty good job at that. Overall, it is a neat package. So, if you are looking for a specs-heavy, value for money device then this one isn’t for you, but those looking for a selfie-focused, premium-looking device then the Y66 is worth considering. 

 

Take a look at our first impressions below: