Vivo Y15s Review: Overpriced and Underpowered

Vivo updated its Y series smartphones with the launch of the Vivo Y15s in December 2021. Vivo is known to overprice its smartphones, and the Vivo Y15s is no exception.

The Vivo Y15s price in Nepal is Rs. 19,999. It’s a budget phone and competes with phones such as the Samsung Galaxy F22, the Redmi 9 Power, and the Narzo 50A, among others.

So, is the Vivo Y15s better than the competition? Is it worth spending Rs. 20,000 on the Vivo Y15s? All of these will be covered in our Vivo Y15s review.

Vivo Y15s Review

Lightweight Design

• 163.96 x 75.2 x 8.28 mm
• 179g
• Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
• Dedicated microSD card slot

From the front, the Vivo Y15s does not differ from any other budget phone. It has the same familiar water-drop notch and a noticeable chin. The back, however, has a good design to it.

It features a rectangular rear camera module, which, at first glance, looks similar to the OnePlus 9 or the Realme GT Neo 2‘s camera island but smaller. The plastic back has a pinstripe pattern on it that helps it to give it a good grip.

The overall weight of the device is also not that heavy, which I really found comfortable when holding the phone for a long period of time.

The fingerprint sensor on the power button, which is located on the right side of the phone beneath the volume buttons, also worked like a charm; it was very reliable and fast.

Moving on, the bottom side houses a 3.5mm headphone jack, a speaker, and a micro-USB port. The micro-USB port instead of the newer USB-C is a disappointment. Almost all of the other phones in this price range have a USB Type-C, yet Vivo chose to provide an outdated micro-USB on the Vivo Y15s.

Anyway, I really like the overall design of the Vivo Y15s. It looks good, feels light, and is comfortable to hold.

Decent Display

• 6.51″ HD+ IPS LCD
• 720 x 1600 pixels
• 60Hz

The phone has a 6.51-inch IPS LCD display and it’s an HD+ panel. Vivo could have given us an FHD+ display, but they chose not to do so. But it’s something I’ve found that only a few people can tell the difference, so I will not put too much emphasis on this.

When watching a high-resolution video, though, you may notice that it loses some crispness. As for the colours, they look fine to me. I noticed the display occasionally shifting towards a reddish tint, but it was not severe enough to ruin my experience.

Its viewing angles are also great. Likewise, the brightness is also enough for outdoor use.

Disappointing Performance

• MediaTek Helio P35 (12nm)
• Octa-core (4×2.3 GHz Cortex-A53 & 4×1.8 GHz Cortex-A53)
• PowerVR GE8320 GPU
• 3GB RAM 64GB storage

The Vivo Y15s is equipped with a MediaTek Helio P35 chipset and has 3GB RAM and 64GB storage. The same chipset can be found in much cheaper and older phones, including Vivo’s own Vivo Y1s, which was launched in July 2021.

If only Vivo had given a better chipset, the whole theme of this article would have been different. But Vivo has equipped the Y15s with an entry-level outdated chipset, which should not have been the case considering the price the users have to pay for the phone.

Let’s move on to how the phone actually performs in real life. So, in my experience, I did not find any major problems while using normal daily tasks and apps such as social media apps, YouTube, and Netflix. It handled opening, closing, and using multiple light apps comfortably.

However, I definitely felt the phone was not very responsive. The whole UI was sluggish, and scrolling through anything felt laggy to me. I cannot tell if it’s a software issue or the hardware, but the experience was not smooth.

For normal day-to-day tasks, the phone did fine, but the entire user interface was slow, and scrolling across anything felt sluggish.

Gaming

Moving on, for gamers out there, we tested two games on the Vivo Y15s: PUBG Mobile and Garena Free Fire. For PUBG Mobile, we set the Graphics to “smooth” and the FPS to “medium”. Yet, the average FPS we got was only 23.7 fps, with frequent frame drops and stutters.

The less demanding game, Free Fire, ran comparatively smoother. It managed to get 52 fps on average with Graphics set to “smooth” and FPS set to “high”.

Camera

• Rear camera:
  • 13MP, f/2.2 (main)
  • 2MP, f/2.4 (macro)
• Front camera: 8MP, f/2.0

The Vivo Y15s sports a dual-camera setup on the back comprising a 13MP main camera and a gimmicky 2MP macro camera. On the front, it has an 8MP camera.

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NORMAL PHOTOS

The main camera takes decent photos when given enough light. I noticed a bit of a reddish tint, resulting in warmer photos. You can see how warm the Vivo Y15s photos look below in comparison to other phones.

The dynamic range is okay, and overall, it produces decent photos that are good for casual usage.

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LOW LIGHT PHOTOS

The low-light photos it takes are very poor. As expected in a budget phone, it lacks enough details and clarity and comes out blurry.

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FRONT CAMERA

The 8MP front camera is good. The selfies taken in broad daylight have good enough details and look natural.

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The dynamic range of the front camera is also good. As you can see in the examples, it was able to properly expose the bright sky in the background without losing details in the shadows.

VIDEO

It can record video in 1080p at 30 frames per second. And, unsurprisingly, the video isn’t great. The video is shaky and grainy. It also lacks good details, which is true of all inexpensive phones.

Excellent Battery Life

• Non-removable 5000mAh battery
• 10W charging

One thing that all budget phones are good at is battery life. Similarly, the Vivo Y15s also packs a huge 5000mAh battery, which is more than enough for a day’s worth of battery life.

We do not have any complaints about its battery life, but we were disappointed with the charging speed. Every other phone comes with at least 18W fast charging support these days, yet the Y15s only comes with a 10W charger. As a result, it takes around 3 hours to fully charge the device.

Software

• Android 11 (Go edition)
• Funtouch OS 11.1

The phone runs on Funtouch OS 11.1 based on Android 11 (Go edition). It’s good that there are not many third-party apps pre-installed. Only a few Vivo apps and Google’s Go edition apps are there.

However, the software is not well-optimized. Going through the UI and scrolling through anything does not feel smooth, and that makes the whole experience of using this phone bad.

Speaker

• Bottom-firing mono speaker

The speaker is also pretty average. It does not sound rich and feels hollow. The overall sound is flat, with no good clarity or bass.

Vivo Y15s Review: Should You Buy the Vivo Y15s?

The Vivo Y15s does offer a good design, a good display, and a decent camera. But unfortunately, because of its weak performance and poor software optimization, the phone simply is not worth the Rs. 19,999 price tag. On top of that, the slow charging time and the HD+ display are additional drawbacks.

So, no! I do not recommend you buy the Vivo Y15s. The Samsung Galaxy F22, the Redmi 10 Prime, and the Redmi 9 Power are all great alternatives to the Vivo Y15s.

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What do you think about the Vivo Y15s? Let us know in the comments!

Also, watch our review of the Vivo Y15s in Nepali!