To cater to more of its customers, vivo continues to sell a more affordable “e” variant of the V Series. While older attempts seem like the brand doesn’t care, recent ones got more care. If my experience with the vivo V27e were any indication, I wouldn’t underestimate that variant again. With that in mind, I’m happy I got to check out the “e” variant of the V30 Series: the vivo V30e. Here’s my full review to know whether this phone is worth considering.
Disclaimer: vivo Philippines sent the vivo V30e loaner review unit in the Coco Brown color. The phone arrived on July 14, 2024. I’ve used the V30e for around 3 weeks during the review process. I have since returned this phone.
Unboxing Experience
We get a typical unboxing experience with the vivo V30e. I will never get over the fact that flagship phones ditched the included charger. Seeing one included in midrange phones makes me feel at ease knowing that reselling this phone would be easier. (This is a loaner unit, so I returned the phone after reviewing it.)
Design and Build
For some reason, vivo keeps nailing its phone designs. While its X Series continues a more classy look, the V Series always takes risks and the V30e is no different. This unique take on a two-tone back looks good, especially this Coco Brown color. I like the contrast of the frosted matte back and the shiny vertical bar on the back. That also helps with the grip that the glossy frame offers.
A nice thing about the V30e is its support for up to a 1 TB microSD card! However, we can use either two SIMs or one SIM and microSD card.
At 7.65 mm thin and weighing 188 g, the V30e feels good in the hand without being too bulky despite its big display. Speaking of that display…
Display and Speakers
The V30e has a 6.78-inch 120Hz 3D Curved Screen. It uses an AMOLED with a resolution of 2400 x 1080 and 1300 nits peak brightness. The display is probably the least controversial part of this phone. It’s plenty bright for most scenarios despite being not as bright as some phones with 2000 nits peak brightness.
The V30e uses an optical in-display fingerprint sensor. While its placement is lower than I would like, it works fairly well. There’s not much to complain about besides the usual glare you get because of its curved screen.
I almost forgot to talk about the speakers on the V30e because there’s only one speaker. It is loud enough, but you can easily cover that speaker especially when playing games. I can’t understand why vivo can’t just put stereo speakers in its midrange phones.
Performance and Software
The vivo V30e 5G has the Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 processor with 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB of UFS 2.2 storage. This phone also has 8GB of extended RAM to store more apps in memory. While this collection of specs isn’t anything to write home about, vivo made sure that it generally ran smoothly.
I only played a few games on the V30e, but two were my usual Pokemon UNITE and the new Hoyoverse game Zenless Zone Zero. Both ran well, although I mostly used Low settings for Zenless Zone Zero. There weren’t any obvious crashes when I played a more graphics-intensive game.
While I don’t lean on benchmarks to determine how a phone performs for most people, I usually do it for those looking for them. To those people, here you go:
The vivo V30e runs Funtouch OS 14 based on Android 14. While I don’t prefer using vivo’s Android skin, I had no hiccups when using the phone. The software feels smooth and I didn’t feel significant lag during normal use.
Battery Experience
The vivo V30e 5G has a 5500 mAh battery which is bigger than many phones in its price range. It has support for 44W FlashCharge fast charging. vivo claims that the V30e’s battery can keep 80% of its charge after 1600 charging cycles. That’s impressive considering not many phones can claim that.
vivo continues to impress with the battery life numbers of the V30e. While other phone makers are starting to catch up, this feels next level to me. You can conceivably go two days without a charge on a light-use day. I typically went for a day and a half with my usage. That’s at least 2 hours of social media, around an hour of YouTube, and a few rounds of Pokemon UNITE or Zenless Zone Zero. Charging time is still less than an hour, which is great if you don’t want to wait too long for your phone to fully charge.
Cameras
The main highlight of the vivo V30e 5G is its cameras. On paper, it’s probably a tamer selection of cameras compared to the competition. It uses two rear cameras: a 50MP Sony IMX882 main camera, and an 8MP ultrawide camera. This phone has a 32MP front camera as well. Do the photos hold up? Here they are!
If my experience with the V27e is any indication, then the V30e should be at least as good. Right?
Click on the photos for full-resolution versions!
It turns out the V30e takes advantage of that Sony IMX882 sensor well. Even at 2x zoom, this phone manages to keep as much detail in the photo. While the images coming from the 8MP ultrawide camera are okay, I would only use it for group photos since it doesn’t keep as much detail due to the resolution.
If you limit yourself to using the main camera, you can be more creative and flexible in the shots you can take. One thing that impressed me was how the main camera handles portrait photos. Sure, I added a filter before taking the photo on the right. It still looks good to me as the bokeh of the flower was handled pretty well.
While it can tend to lose focus sometimes (like the photo of the closed red flower below), I’m happy that its bokeh is consistently good.
How’s the Aura Light?
You might be wondering why I didn’t talk much about its Aura Light Portrait 3.0. I think it’s because vivo kept the same circular Aura Light as its predecessor and not like the newer one in the V30 and V30 Pro. It still does what you need it to do, but I felt that having more surface area for the light to be more effective was better.
Front Camera
Another highlight of the V30e is its 32MP front camera. It handles HDR and various scenarios well. Portrait photos are also clean, as vivo’s image processing magic works well here too.
Should You Buy the vivo V30e 5G?
While I liked the V27e when I reviewed it last year, there were some clear deficiencies over the V27.
There are still things I wish the V30e had from the V30 and V30 Pro (the biggest being the bigger Aura Light). However, the vivo V30e is a much better phone than the V27e. Its standout features are its 50MP Sony IMX882 main camera and 5500 mAh battery. The rest of the phone is good enough to support those standout features with just one dealbreaker (that single speaker). If anything, its slightly lower P17,999 price tag helps it more.
Pros
- Stylish two-tone design
- Good 120Hz AMOLED display
- Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 provides good enough performance
- Funtouch OS 14 gives a good enough user experience
- Amazing battery experience thanks to its 5500 mAh battery
Cons
- A single speaker on a midrange phone in 2024 is unacceptable
- Mobile gamers can find better-performing phones at or lower than the V30e
- Funtouch OS 14 looks dated compared to other Android skins
- Subpar ultrawide camera
The vivo V30e 5G retails for P17,999 and is available in Cloud White and Coco Brown colors. You can buy one at your nearest vivo physical store or authorized retailer nationwide. It is also available online via Shopee, Lazada, and TikTok Shop.