Vivo NEX Camera Review – Does a brilliant job, both with front and rear cameras

Flagship smartphones are generally not determined by one specific factor and there is a lot that is involved when it comes to the flagship devices. We talk about the design, the usability, the performance, and always have a lot of emphasis on the cameras of the phones. The latest from Vivo, the Vivo NEX is one that has excelled in several departments and the camera segment is one of them.

The NEX is a wonderful phone and as we had discussed earlier, there’s a lot of reasons to say that, but one of the major reasons is the camera combination packed into the phone. Let’s talk more about it.

The Vivo NEX comes with a dual-lens camera on the back and there is an elevating front camera as well, which was placed such to give the display the maximum area on the front. While usually there’s a lot talked about the rear cameras, here we have to mention both, the front and the rear cameras.

As far as the specs are concerned, the back of the phone has a Sony IMX 363 sensor, which is a 12MP one but a dual-pixel sensor so offering 24 million photosensitive units and it comes with the F/1.8 aperture, and to support it for portrait shots, there is also a 5MP camera beside it for the depth sensing. On the front, or what is usually hidden and elevates only when you are taking a selfie, is an 8MP camera.

Now, it is always a Google Pixel or a Samsung camera that we talk about when there are the best camera performances coming into the play, but Vivo has made a statement here with the cameras offered on the Vivo NEX. The rear cameras can capture beautiful shots, with perfect color reproduction and there is a lot of sharpness that sometimes is missed if there is not a good processing done even though the camera sensors are good. Here, the mix of the good ISP on Snapdragon 845 along with the 12MP+5MP cameras has done an excellent job.

We went out to capture the best of the conditions and the worst of them, with different light amounts around, and for the most part of it, the camera was able to easily capture the proper colors and also the dynamic range was well managed, with not a lot of time being taken for focusing on the object, even when the light available around was not much.

With these samples, you at least know what we are talking about. The colors are brilliantly captured and even the details are, though keep in mind that these are all scaled down for the easier viewing of the users, or there is more detail when the pictures are in full resolution.

There is the support from Artificial Intelligence that helps detect the scene and then adjust the colors and dynamic range automatically. For example, point the camera towards the sky, a flower, or an animal, the app automatically adjusts things to make it looks the best. So far, not even in a single capture, we have found the app to overdo anything, as the colors look very natural, close to how they were to the naked eye.

While flagships are mainly rated based on their cameras, the Vivo NEX clearly takes a good lead here, and the addition of the elevating front camera giving the entire front area to the display area is an added advantage and that’s where the competition in the market lags behind against this smartphone.