Remember that phone from last year with the motorized pop-up camera – the Vivo Nex S?
Well Vivo is back at it again with another super innovative design, with both a screen
on the front and back of their latest flagship.
In the box comes with headphones, charger, and a thick bumper case to protect the phone
from drops.
It's time to see how much thought Vivo put into durability.
Let's get started.
[Intro]
This is the second dual screen phone we've seen.
With the Nubia X, switching screens was a carefully calculated, simultaneous double
button press.
But with this Vivo phone, pressing one power button on the right side of the phone will
activate whatever side is facing you much easier.
It also has a 3 finger side swipe to switch between the screens on the go, which is as
equally easy.
So the whole point of a dual screen phone is to one, look cool, but also to get rid
of an notches or hole punches in the larger front display.
With an additional screen on the back, all selfies can be done with the higher quality
rear main cameras, instead of having lower quality front cameras taking up space inside
of a notch.
The main camera on this phone has 3 LED lights for better lit pictures.
Two of which can activate a circular lunar ring for more even light during pictures or
videos.
You know, the same circular lights that YouTubers might use during makeup tutorials.
I'm going to leave the makeup tutorials to the experts, but a ring light is definitely
a cool addition to a cell phone camera.
The included case has a solid fit.
I always have a case on my personal device, so I'm glad Vivo added some extra protection
in the box.
Speaking of protection, there is also an included plastic screen protector on the front surface.
The guys over at Vivo are getting all the bonus points today.
As you know, with my systematic durability test, we check the scratch resistance of the
screen with Mohs scale of hardness.
It's a pretty safe bet that if a company isn't advertising sapphire, it's probably going
to be tempered glass, which is where we start seeing faint scratches at a level 6, with
deeper grooves at a level 7.
Vivo was the first manufacturer to come out with an under display fingerprint scanner,
and the same technology is here in this phone as well.
Underneath the front screen, protected by the front glass, the display shines up onto
your fingerprint.
And the little sensor underneath the display can tell if it's your finger or not so you
can unlock the phone securely.
With two screens, we need double the testing since there's twice as much real estate to
cover.
Let's scratch test the back.
Dbrand should start making clear skins for these dual screen phones.
This side as well is covered by a screen protector, which makes sense.
Screen protectors not only stop scratches, but also add a cushion layer of impact protection
so brittle glass doesn't shatter right away during a drop.
This time after testing all the different levels, we still find tempered glass covering
the back panel, resulting in scratches at 6, with deeper grooves at a level 7.
The rear design of the Vivo dual screen phone is unique.
Instead of a metal lip around the camera lens, the whole circular unit is glass and protrudes
just slightly over the top of the rear glass panel.
With it's own little screen protector, the circular camera lens is very solidly adhered
to the rear panel.
Even with some prying from my razor blade, it doesn't want to come off.
The back panel, surprisingly, does have it's own earpiece, a bi-directional earpiece speaker
shooting out both the front and the back.
This will be fun to see from the inside.
It's a thin little sliver, especially here on the front side, to minimize the bezels.
But the grille can come off on it's own.
There isn't much adhesive holding it in place.
It's definitely interesting to see speaker grilles on both sides of the phone.
Speaking of sides, the material inside of this dual screen sandwich is metal, the long
volume button, and power buttons are both made from metal.
The bottom of the phone has a loud speaker and USB-C charging port, along with a dual
SIM card tray, with a protective rubber ring around the opening to help keep water out.
The Vivo Nex Dual Display doesn't have an official IP rating, but it's good to see some
steps were taken.
This hole is protected and I'll have to check the other holes from the inside during the
teardown.
The far side of the phone is also made from metal, along with the second tower button
with Vivo printed on the surface.
And what's this?
Dost mine eyes deceive me?
A headphone jack.
You gotta love a phone with all the features.
Another interesting design choice is at the edge of the screen on both the front and the
back are surrounded by a layer of plastic.
Plastic as we know is much softer than metal or glass, so it does provide a nice cushion
layer between the hard metal sides and the clear brittle glass.
So if it does happen to get dropped, it might not break as easy.
It's a good thing, and not something you would notice at first glance.
With the previous dual screen phone I tested, the Nubia X, it had an LCD front panel, while
the smaller rear panel was AMOLED.
This phone, the Vivo Nex Dual Display, has a larger rear screen than the Nubia at 5.5
inches and it's still a 1080p AMOLED.
It's kind of sad when you think that the backup screen on this phone is still higher resolution
than Apple's iPhone XR.
No permanent marks were left on the display, even after my lighter was in place for 45
seconds.
It might be the dual thickness of the clear camera lens glass.
But even with all that heat, there is no separation of the rather unique circular lens.
There's a 12 megapixel main camera, a 2 megapixel depth sensor, and another 3D camera called
TOF for Time of Flight for facial recognition are all back here.
The TOF camera has some pretty cool 3D scanning capabilities.
I jumped into the camera app to check it out.
It has the standard measure of banana features that a lot of phones have.
But it also has this pretty in depth 3D face scanning unlocking thing that Vivo claims
is better than Apple's.
But I think we can all agree that this is either super creepy or super awesome.
Isn't that right, Digital Jerry?
[Jerry nods]
The front screen is a massive 6.4 inch, no notch, 1080p AMOLED display.
This time with different placement of my lighter, and without the dual layers of glass, a white
burn mark appeared at about 27 seconds and never did quite recover.
And now for the bend test.
This phone has no moving parts, just one solid hunk of glass, metal and plastic.
And the whole contraption seems very heavy and very solid, with only a slight bend during
the flex, but with no creaks, snaps, kinks, or cracks anywhere in the body, even when
bent from both directions.
I like where things are headed.
This whole flagship phone with dual screens, 3D camera, headphone jack, and in-screen fingerprint
scanner is still cheaper than Apple's budget iPhone, the XR.
And Vivo's phone comes with double the internal memory.
Vivo's got my attention.
I'm impressed and I'm excited to see what they come out with next.
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Thanks a ton for watching.
I'll see you around.