vivo X5Max review

vivo X5Max review

Introduction

It's not every day we have a true record holder in our hands, and that's exactly what we were getting ready for waiting for the vivo X5Max to arrive. The slimmest smartphone in the world for more than six months now, the 4.75-mm X5Max snatched a crown that had been tossed between the Gionee Elife S5.1 and the Oppo R5, each of them holding it for a fleeting month or so.

You can then imagine our disappointment when it turned out we have the global version, which is "only" the third-slimmest phone in the world. A fraction of a millimeter thicker than the China model, the vivo X5Max is an extraordinarily slim device nonetheless, most certain to impress with a profile you wouldn't normally attribute to a smartphone.

It really looks almost like a planar object, its two dimensions much greater that the third, so to speak, in math terms.



In terms of hardware, the X5Max is less exciting, relying on the now ubiquitous midrange Snapdragon 615, coupled with the equally commonplace 2GB of RAM. It doesn't skimp on features though sporting a 13MP primary camera behind a fast f/2.0 lens, as well as a 5MP front-facer.

A 5.5-inch FullHD display helps keep thickness in check thanks to the Super AMOLED tech, while providing the signature colors and contrast. The extra 0.33mm thickness have allowed designers to fit a larger-capacity battery, though it still looks underpowered on paper for its screen size.
Key features

• Dual-SIM dual-standby capability, microSD slot shared with second SIM
• 5.5" 1080p Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 401ppi
• Octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU (4x 1.5GHz plus 4x 1.0GHz), 2GB of RAM, Adreno 405 GPU; Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 chipset
• 13MP autofocus camera, f/2.0 lens, single-LED flash; HDR, Panorama, Night, Pro mode with long exposure (up to 32s)
• 1080@30fps, 1/4x slow motion video recording, 10x speed timelapse
• 5MP front camera, f/2.4, 720p video recording
• 16GB of built-in storage
• Cat. 4 LTE (150/50Mbps); dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n; Bluetooth 4.0; GPS with A-GPS; microUSB
• 2,300mAh battery
• Standard 3.5mm headphone jack

Main disadvantages

• Dated Android KitKat 4.4.4
• No FM radio or NFC

Another in a long line of designer Chinese smartphones, the vivo X5Max relies on the proven formula of striking looks and all-round capable hardware. We don't expect it to outperform flagships, but its priorities lie elsewhere and the X5Max scores high on style. While it will certainly be on the short list of anyone looking to stand out, the smartphone needs to prove it has enough substance to match its upmarket exterior.

We're here to examine it in detail and we kick off with the unboxing and hardware overview.

Luxury packaging, usual contents

The vivo X5Max ships in a square retail box with a few luxury touches. All the accessories come individually wrapped. One small box houses the AC adaptor rated at 5V/2A and a USB cable.

The in-ear headphones are packed in another box complete with a model number and detailed specs - a nice touch for an otherwise regular piece. They have a single-button remote, but no flat cords.
Additionally, there's a frosted plastic bumper cover for the back of the smartphones, which wraps around the corners as well. Why you'd want to put it on a device you bought for its slim profile is a question we're not prepared to answer.

vivo X5Max 360° spin

The vivo X5Max is crazy thin, we've already established that. It measures 153.9 x 78 x 5.1mm (or 5.08mm if you want to split hairs) and slimness aside, is a pretty large device for its 5.5-inch display. The engineers simply needed room to fit all the innards somewhere and the phone inevitably had to grow in footprint.
here's a good 5mm worth of bezels on either side of the display, and the overall dimensions of the X5Max are more or less the same as the 5.7-inch Galaxy Note 4. That said, the X5Max is still shorter than the iPhone 6 Plus, though equally wide, so it's not massive after all.

At 156g, the X5Max feels a bit heavier than you'd expect from such a thin phone, but the metal build has had its say and it's a very solid slab.

Body and design

The vivo X5Max is built inside an alloy chassis, a single solid piece of aluminum. Most of the back is made of stainless steel, vivo claims, with an anti-fingerprint treatment and it is smooth but not shiny. It doesn't tend to get particularly greasy and even when it does accumulate dirt it's easy to clean up.

There are a couple of plastic strips, top and bottom, which are made of soft matte plastic and likely match the antenna placement, but also serve to house the camera module and loudspeaker.

The camera module sticks out a good 2mm from the back panel, there was no way around it with such a slim profile. To vivo's credit, it is a fast f/2.0 lens and the designers did well to mask the bump by raising the white plastic halfway around the assembly.
The speaker has a couple of raised dots to keep it from muffling, but they can't help with the sizeable camera bump, and the device will wobble on a table if you touch it anywhere along its left edge.
The vivo logo is vertically centered, and we can't decide if the shiny letters have been aligned less than perfectly, or the offset is a design touch. Then again, we might have spent a touch too long staring at details.

The front greets you with the 5.5-inch display surrounded by generous bezels, though we've seen worse, and here they're at least justified by the slimness. There's also a millimeter-wide black frame around the display, which you won't notice when the screen is off, but is a bit of an eye sore once you fire it up.

At least vivo has utilized the bottom bezel with three capacitive buttons, relieving the screen of such duties.

We've never been particular fans of extreme tests, but we couldn't resist subjecting the phone to a mild twist. You shouldn't expect military grade sturdiness out of a 5mm-thin device and it does deflect a bit, but does so without making a sound. Overall, it's surprisingly rigid, as long as you don't abuse it.

Controls and handling

The vivo X5Max relies on capacitive buttons in the bottom bezel for navigation in a Menu/Home/Back arrangement. Above the display there's the earpiece in the middle with the 5MP front camera to the left and the proximity/ambient light sensor on the other side.
The back features the 13MP camera in the top left corner, joined by its single-LED flash and a secondary mic midway between the two. The speaker mesh is mostly a design element, as the actual speaker is no more than a quarter of its length and is situated in its right end.
5.5 inches of Super AMOLED goodness
It you want thin, AMOLED is the way to go, and in the case of the vivo X5Max it's a 5.5-inch FullHD panel. That results in 401ppi, which is more than enough for sharp text.

The panel is a fine representative of the MOLED tech and offers plenty of punch and wide viewing angles, though it does exhibit a greenish tint when viewed from the side.

There are no color adjustments to be found in settings, nor is there a glove mode.

Out microscope shot revealed the expected diamond pentile arrangement, with twice as many green subpixels as any other color.

The maximum brightness of the X5Max is good for an AMOLED, but more importantly it's higher than either of the Oppo models as well as the Samsung Galaxy A7. The 50% setting corresponds to about 30% of the maximum, nothing unseen before.

Connectivity
For starters, the vivo X5Max is a dual-SIM dual-standby device. One of the cards gets the full 2G/3G/4G treatment with multiple bands each, while the other is limited to 2G. You can set which one is which in the settings and the micro/nano SIM slots mean you can use either form factor as your main card. You'd need to go microSIM though if you value the memory expansion, as the microSD slot is shared with the nanoSIM.

The smartphone has dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n with DLNA, Wi-Fi direct and hotspot support. There's Bluetooth v4.0, but no NFC or FM radio.

There's GPS with A-GPS for precise positioning over cellular, but for all we know, there's no GLONASS to utilize Russian satellites.
The microUSB 2.0 port supports USB On-The-Go and lets you attach peripherals. A standard 3.5mm jack completes the wired connectivity package.

Battery life
Slim phones typically struggle in this very part of our test for very obvious reasons - less space means less battery capacity. The thinnest 4.75mm vivo X5Max comes with a modest 2,000mAh cell, but the version we have for review is a bit better equipped with a 2,300mAh unit.

To put it simply, the X5Max amazed us in terms of its battery performance. It posted impressive scores across the board, not only considering its screen diagonal and battery size, but also in absolute values. Standby endurance, which is not included in the scorecard, is about 11 full days with a single SIM, and a day less with a second SIM inside. Call times on a 3G network are more than 17 hours, well above average.

Moving on to on-screen activities, the smartphone is good for nearly 11 hours of video playback - it can easily last you a transatlantic flight with constant movie watching.

Web browsing is the most taxing on the battery, but it also shows a marked difference between the stock browser and the also available Google Chrome. While the vivo offering manages a little over 6 hours, Chrome is substantially more efficient and with it the X5Max scored upwards of 9 hours of web browsing.

Read more : User interface, Performance, Phonebook, telephony, messaging and text input, Gallery, video and music players, audio quality, Camera, image quality, video recording, Web browsers, other apps, Conclusion : Continue