Benco V90 Plus Review: A Basic Smartphone, Affordable Price

Benco V90 Plus Review: TechLekh Verdict

The Benco V90 Plus is a good option for its price. To start, it is a very basic smartphone with basic features. Yes, the camera is not great, and the performance is not the best.

However, for what it costs, this is the best you can get right now. People buying this phone might just need a basic smartphone at an affordable price. The price is its selling point. It’s hard to find a decent smartphone with at least 128GB of storage below this price.

What do you get for the price? You get a good design, a satisfactory display, excellent battery life, and usable front and back cameras. The performance may also be sufficient for light users.

Benco launched the Benco V90 Plus in Nepal in June 2024. This entry-level smartphone is the Plus variant of the Benco V90, which hit the Nepali market in December 2022.

The Benco V90 Plus offers performance upgrades, a 90Hz refresh rate display, and faster battery charging. Plus, it’s cheaper as well.

Priced at Rs. 11,599 in Nepal, the Benco V90 Plus comes with 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, making it Rs. 2,500 cheaper than the launch price of the Benco V90.

However, despite its improvements and lower price, it’s important to see how it performs in real-life situations to determine if it is worth purchasing.

That’s where I come in! I’m Pranish Khadgi, your gadget reviewer and writer, and I’ll be sharing my experience with the phone in this Benco V90 Plus review.

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Benco V90 Plus Review

Design

• 163 x 75.7 x 9 mm
• 197 g
• Dual SIM (Nano-SIM)

The phones launched recently are all going for plain, smooth back panels. But the Benco V90 Plus is still sticking with a vertically lined textured back panel. The back has a pattern that looks like a reversed “S” and changes visibility depending on the light. The camera module is circular.

Honestly, I don’t mind the textured plastic back compared to the plain, smooth ones. It actually gives a better grip when holding it. However, the textured back does make it look like an entry-level phone. But again, considering the price, it’s not something that should be complained about.

On the front, it has a water-drop notch for the selfie camera and thick, asymmetric bezels surrounding the display, both of which are common in entry-level phones.

It’s good to see that every phone, including entry-level ones, now comes with a fingerprint sensor. The Benco V90 Plus is no exception. It has a side-mounted fingerprint sensor embedded into the power button, and it works well.

The power and volume buttons are tactile and function well. Likewise, the other side has a SIM card slot for two SIM cards and a microSD card.

On the bottom, there is a mic, a USB-C port, and a speaker. The speaker is loud but has mediocre quality, with high treble and no bass. Lastly, there is a 3.5mm headphone jack on the top.

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Display

• 6.56 inches
• 720 x 1612 pixels
• 90Hz refresh rate

The Benco V90 Plus sports a 6.56-inch display with 90Hz refresh rate support. Benco has not specified the display panel type, but I assume it’s an IPS LCD.

The display is decent for the price. The HD+ resolution may not be the sharpest, but it is usable. The brightness is quite low; it can be difficult to use the phone outdoors on a bright, sunny day.

The colors of the displays of entry-level and budget phones all appear dim and are not very vibrant, and the same goes for the Benco V90 Plus. However, this is expected. On a brighter note, the 90Hz refresh rate makes the phone feel slightly smoother.

Moreover, Benco has added a feature called Smart Window. Similar to Apple’s Dynamic Island, the Smart Window feature expands the display notch via software to show information. It can show limited information such as charging status, face unlock, and call status.

Camera

• Rear Camera: 13 MP, f/2.0

• Front Camera: 8 MP, f/2.2

The Benco V90 Plus has a single usable rear camera of 13MP. There is a secondary lens and Benco calls it “AI lens,” but its use is questionable. The front has an 8MP selfie camera.

The camera app has a noticeable shutter lag and it has a hard time focusing on things quickly.

Main Camera

We naturally do not expect entry-level phones to have good camera performance. As expected, the Benco V90 Plus’s photos are decent at best. They are acceptable in good lighting conditions. However, at times, the colors appear boosted, the dynamic range is poor, the contrast is lacking, and noise is visible even in daylight photos.

The Benco V90 Plus has a new feature called Motion Photos. When enabled, this records a few seconds of video before and after taking a video. It’s like the iPhone’s Live Photos.

The only problem is that it’s not as seamless as iPhone’s Live Photos. When you enable the Motion Photos on the Benco V90 Plus, the phone takes very long to capture a single photo, around 3–4 seconds. So, I kept it turned off.

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Portrait Photos

The Benco V90 Plus also has a portrait mode. The background blur doesn’t look natural, and the edges appear rough.

The portrait photos are unreliable. Occasionally, it produces a decent portrait with satisfactory skin tones. However, most of the time, the colors are over-saturated, and faces appear dark and red.

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Front Camera

The selfies from the Benco V90 Plus are mediocre at best. They are usable, with faces exposed fairly well in good lighting conditions. However, they lack detail, and noise is noticeable.

Additionally, the camera often produces overly warm photos, causing faces to appear orange, especially in sunlight.

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Videos

• 1080p@30fps

The phone can shoot video up to 1080p at 30fps. As expected, the video lacks detail, has a poor dynamic range, and is shaky. However, this is typical for entry-level phones.

Performance

• Unisoc T606 (12 nm)
• Octa-core (2×1.6 GHz Cortex-A75 & 6×1.6 GHz Cortex-A55)
• Mali-G57 MP1
• 128GB 4GB RAM

Powering the Benco V90 Plus is a Unisoc T606 chipset, an entry-level processor with two high-performance Arm Cortex A75 cores and six power-efficient Arm Cortex A55 cores, all running at up to 1.6 GHz.

This chipset is a popular choice among entry-level phones and was also used in the Benco V91. For normal, light daily tasks, the phone performs well, although the camera app feels a bit slow.

The app opening speed is decent, and it can handle 5-6 apps in the background without needing to reload them when reopened. This level of smoothness is impressive for an entry-level phone.

However, I should mention that not many apps were installed on this device, so performance may degrade over time.

Gaming

Gaming on the Benco V90 Plus is challenging. While you may be able to play light games without issues, it is not suitable for heavy games.

I tried playing PUBG Mobile on it. You can set the frame rate to High with Smooth graphics. Under those settings, I got an average gameplay of 22.9 fps. Although it is far from smooth, it is playable.

I also tried another popular game called Free Fire, which is lighter compared to PUBG Mobile. With Ultra graphics, High resolution, and High fps settings, it provided an average frame rate of 54.3 fps.

The Benco V90 Plus now supports a gyroscope sensor, which is an improvement. However, it is unusable in games like PUBG Mobile due to significant delays and inaccuracy.

Battery

• 5000mAh
• 18W charging

The battery life of the Benco V90 Plus is excellent. Since the entry-level chipset does not demand much power, the phone’s 5000mAh battery can easily last up to two days on a single charge.

This year, the Benco V90 Plus also supports 18W fast charging. Unfortunately, the box only includes a 10W charger. Using a fast charger, the phone charged from zero to 95 percent in two hours.

Software

• Android 13
• INONE UI 1.2

Sadly, the Benco V90 Plus does not come with the latest Android 14. It runs on Android 13 out of the box, topped with Benco’s INONE UI. We don’t know when, or if, it will get the Android 14 update, as the company has not shared its software support plans.

The quick settings on the INONE UI mimic the iPhone’s control panel, with square and rectangular buttons and toggles. The entire UI is pretty simple and has minimal customization options.

I did not find any noticeable issues with the UI. Obviously, there were a few lags here and there, which is expected from a budget phone.

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So, this is my Benco V90 Plus review. What do you think about the phone? If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments!