Vivo T2 5G Review: Striking an Equilibrium between Style & Performance

VivoT2 5G Review Summary:

Editor’s rating: 4/5

Vivo T Series smartphones aim at the budget segment of consumers in the country. Vivo launched Vivo T1 Series in 2022 which received a good response in the country. Now, a year later, the brand is back with Vivo T2 Series. The Vivo T2 Series includes Vivo T2 5G and Vivo T2x 5G as of now. Today, we will review the vanilla T2 5G model. The Vivo T2 5G is the successor to Vivo T1 and although it comes with the same chipset, the device gets major design tweaks and several other spec upgrades. So, is T2 5G really a worthy successor that one can upgrade to? Let’s find out.

Vivo T2 5G: Design

Vivo is known for designing its smartphones in a way that catches the eye of consumers at first glance. Vivo T2 5G is no exception as the smartphone has a striking appearance from afar. The smartphone comes in two colorways- Nitro Blaze & Velocity Wave and I got Nitro Blaze (Blue) variant for review purposes.

The Nitro Blaze model looks gorgeous from the backside. It has a glossy finish but looks premium. The backside has a gradient look reflecting shades of sunset when sunlight falls on it. Diagonal lines run across the panel that make it look even more eye-catching. The handset doesn’t catch any smudges or fingerprints so that is a plus as well. If you like a bold and flashy color for your smartphone, this one will be apt for you. However, if you want something sober, go for the Velocity Wave variant.

The Vivo T2 5G has a polycarbonate body with curved corners and a flat frame design. The device feels light in hand weighing just about 172 grams (10 grams lighter than Vivo T1). It is comfortable to hold in hand with a thickness of a mere 7.8mm.

The Vivo T2 5G houses a volume rocker and power button on the right edge while the left edge is left vacant. The smartphone features a USB Type-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a speaker grille at the bottom while the SIM tray is placed at the top edge. The back has a rectangular camera module with two huge camera cutouts. One cut-out has a primary lens while the other one has a secondary lens and LED flash. There is Vivo branding at the bottom. At the front is a 6.38-inch display with a waterdrop notch for a selfie camera and noticeable bezels on all 4 sides.

The design and build quality of the Vivo T2 5G don’t leave much room for complaints.

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Vivo T2 5G Review: Display

The Vivo T2 5G sports a 6.38-inch FHD+ AMOLED panel with a 1080×2400 pixel resolution. The display quality is decent as the visuals are rich and sharp. The viewing angles are also just about ok. Moreover, it comes with a 90Hz refresh rate which feels much less smooth after you have experienced a 120Hz panel. There is a waterdrop notch design at the top for a selfie camera, that looks outdated and could have been avoided.

The display supports a 360Hz touch sampling rate which makes it quite responsive and 1300 nits peak brightness ensures that the screen is clearly visible even under direct sunlight. The display has bezels on all 4 sides with the chin getting the thickest bezels. There is an in-display fingerprint scanner and support for face recognition as well.

Vivo T2 5G Review: Camera

The Vivo T2 5G features a dual camera setup at the back. It includes a 64MP primary camera with OIS support along with a 2MP depth sensor. The front has a 16MP lens for selfies and video calls.

The 64MP primary camera works very well in bright daylight. The shots clicked are detailed and sharp with a good dynamic range and natural colors. However, the photos shot under artificial light have noise and the details to are not that prominent. When clicked under low light, the same result is obtained. Although colors are fine, the dynamic range takes a hit.

The 2MP portrait sensor claims to give an accurate bokeh effect, but in actuality, it misses out on proper edge detection. The clicks don’t have many details and the sharpness of the images is also lost. This 2MP sensor is mostly useless.

The 16MP selfie camera is impressive. Selfies clicked are quite detailed, and the skin tones of the people in the frame are very close to being accurate. Night shots clicked with night mode on or off are below average with no details or character.

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Vivo T2 5G Review: Performance

Vivo T2 5G is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 695 chipset that makes the functioning smooth and fast. The smartphone comes with up to 8GB RAM so the apps load quickly and multiple apps run seamlessly in the background. It comes with 128GB onboard storage so you can store whatever you want to. The chipset paired with RAM made sure there were no crashes or lags. Various benchmark tests were performed on Vivo T2 5G, the results of which are given below-

If we talk about gaming, then Vivo T2 5G does work fine for casual gamers. Even the heaviest games ran well but in medium graphic settings. Long gaming sessions did heat up the device but there were no issues with the animation or loading of the gaming session.

It runs FunTouch OS 13 based on Android 13 OS which doesn’t show much of a difference from its predecessor. FunTouch OS 13 is simple, convenient, and colorful in appearance, so the usage is fun for the consumer. The only issue is tons of bloatware that comes with the device. Applications like PhonePe, Snapchat, Moj, Spotify, Amazon, Share Chat, Josh, Linked In, and more come pre-installed, and have to be removed according to the user’s needs.

Connectivity options include 5G, WiFi, Bluetooth, and more. The calling experience on Vivo T2 5G was good while the single speaker too works just about ok.

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Vivo T2 5G Review: Battery

The Vivo T2 5G packs a 4500mAh battery under the hood. The battery can last for an entire day if you have moderate usage without any resource-heavy tasks like long gaming sessions. For me, it lasted for an entire workday without any hassles. The smartphone comes with a 44W fast charging adapter inside the box. It took about 27 minutes to charge from 0 to 50% and about an hour to get to 100%, which is decent considering the under 20k price point of the device.

Vivo T2 5G Review Verdict: Should you buy it?

The Vivo T2 5G comes at a fair price point of under 20k. It is the successor to Vivo T1 but doesn’t succeed in terms of the chipset which is kept the same. The smartphone has an AMOLED display, 64MP camera, 44W fast charging, and Android 13 OS, which is a good combination for specs in this segment. Although there are niggles like loads of bloatware, a useless 2MP lens, and an underwhelming speaker, these can be ignored if you want to opt for a budget device for everyday use.