Smartphone Vivo NEX 2 - advantages and disadvantages

The world of mobile devices is developing quite quickly, and more advanced models appear every year. However, no major revolutions have taken place recently. Today, few people will be surprised by the number of cameras, cores, processor frequency or amount of RAM. But the engineers of the Chinese company Vivo have found a way to shake the current stability. While the best smartphone manufacturers are trying in vain to increase the useful surface of the screen, Vivo engineers are creating a device with two displays. Of course, it is quite difficult to pass by such a novelty, and therefore today's review will be on the Vivo NEX 2 smartphone, the advantages and disadvantages of which will be discussed in detail below.

Two-faced smartphone

One has only to pick up the NEX 2, as immediately all its characteristics, design and price fade into the background. Two screens - that's what attracts attention.The gadget, which appeared in December 2018, is clearly one of the most interesting new products of the year. The device is made in the standard form of a rectangle, and its sides are almost invisible. The selection is significantly reduced, which also applies to the upper face. True, if on the sides and bottom the increase in the screen area was painless (and the phone looks very cool in a dark blue version with almost invisible frames), then the front camera had to be sacrificed from above.

True, selfie lovers need not panic - you can take a photo, but you need to turn the smartphone upside down. At the back is another display, but with decent bezels and a wide chin. But on top there are three cameras and an LED flash at once. The main feature of the NEX 2 is that the second display can be used as the main one (although the image quality will be worse).

Now about ports. At the top is everyone's favorite old man - a 3.5 mm mini-jack connector. At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port, a mono speaker, and a pull-out SIM card tray, which does not provide the ability to install additional memory. On the right are the volume rockers and the power button. On the left is the function key. With it, you can quickly call up Google Lens. However, with subsequent firmware it is likely that the user will be able to customize it to fit their needs.

As for convenience, there are almost no complaints about Vivo. The device lies well in the hand, is quite light (199 grams) and functional (key layout). However, due to the main feature of the model - two screens, the phone turned out to be slippery, which can easily slip out of your hand.And it doesn't matter which side it falls on, because there is a display on both sides, so users will have to be prepared for careful operation.

Applications and features of displays

Of course, both screens can be used as the main ones. However, we will talk about non-standard uses and functions that can make life easier. So, for example, selfie lovers will appreciate the quality of the cameras (which here perform the functions of both the front and the main ones at the same time), because with their help you can take great pictures with a variety of effects.

Another way of photography is also interesting, when one person photographs another, and he sees everything on the rear screen.

And the last interesting solution lies in the touch sensors. So it can be useful for active games, where the user can enable additional controls on the rear panel, which will make the control more convenient. True, this function is not yet supported, but this may change in the future.

And finally, one cannot help but recall the negative features of a far from budget device. The fingerprint scanner located on the main screen is very finicky and may not work if your hands are wet or damp.

Trio for cool photos

If the design and some features cause some distrust, then many will definitely like the characteristics of the device. After all, looking at them, it becomes clear how productive this smartphone is, and the answer to the question of which company is better to buy a new gadget becomes more obvious.True, it is worth considering that although most Chinese phones are inexpensive, the NEX 2 has an immodest price tag of 650-700 euros.

Starts an overview of camera features. There are already three of them here and each has its own task. So, the main one is represented by a module from Sony (IMX363) and has a resolution of 12 megapixels. The main range of its application is the usual photo and video shooting. It has the following functions: autofocus, optical stabilization system and digital zoom. The auxiliary camera is already simpler and has a resolution of 2 megapixels, designed for portrait shots and photos with bokeh effect. The third is a TOF sensor and is necessary for quick face unlock. The developments stated that the scanning speed would be 0.35 seconds, but in practice this takes longer. Also, with the help of the third module, you can create a three-dimensional model of the face, which is quite interesting, but useless.

Summing up the cameras, we should remember the flash. It works very well, really helping in poorly lit areas. The quality of the photos themselves is very good, although there is some fuzziness in small objects. At a double approximation, the photo quality also hardly suffers, but at 5x and 10x there is already a significant deterioration. However, this was to be expected, because the device does not have an optical zoom.

Power within

When starting to study the hardware of a smartphone, it is difficult to find an item that you can find fault with. The filling impresses with its power even according to the descriptions, and may well be considered top-end.

Performance

An 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chip with a core frequency of 2.8 GHz is responsible for this item in the device, and given that the device is equipped with 10 GB of RAM and a modern Adreno 630 GPU, the user may well forget about the system requirements for games. Indeed, with such a selection of components, any novelty of the game industry will fly at high settings. True, there is not a single performance test from independent sources yet, but even if it turns out to be a little underestimated, this will not play a decisive role.

But another question is interesting, if the highly efficient Snapdragon 845 in conjunction with the Adreno 630 is a completely objective solution, then with 10 GB of RAM it’s overkill. Of course, there must be a supply of RAM, but today it is difficult to imagine a game or an operating system that requires such volumes. So, this decision is very similar to a commercial move, because even the flagship models of top brands are limited to 6-8 GB of memory.

Data store

If everything is just great with RAM (even too much), then the volume of the drive introduces some kind of disappointment. Of course, 128 GB of internal memory is a decent amount, but users do not have the opportunity to expand it further (unlike other models, where the lack of internal memory is compensated by SD cards). Also, before buying, you should understand that a decent part of the memory will go to the needs of the system and will not be available.

Operating system

All the powers will be able to come together on the basis of the new Android 9.0 (Pie), in addition, the Funtouch 4.5 proprietary shell is installed in this model.

Display

The smartphone will please the picture from both sides thanks to the Super AMOLED matrix.The diagonal of the main screen is 6.39 inches with a resolution of 2340x1080, the additional 5.49 inches with a resolution of 1920x1080. So, apparently, the picture quality will be at a decent level and is suitable for both games and movies. But how they will manifest themselves in the sun is still unknown.

It is important to know that the screens cannot work at the same time. They are switched using special buttons.

Battery

With autonomy, too, not everything is clear. A 3500 mAh battery will be enough for many modern economical devices, but since the NEX 2 has two displays and very productive hardware, the question of battery life remains open. But here, not everything is so gloomy - the presence of the possibility of fast charging pleases.

Technologies, communication standards, dimensions

The set of wireless technologies is standard, these are: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0, 4G VoLTE.

Navigation is represented by systems: GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo.

Network and Internet: GPRS, EDGE, 3G, 4G.

You can imagine the size of the device by examining its dimensions: 157.2×75.3×8.1 mm. Weight was 199 g.

Review results

After reviewing the filling of Vivo NEX 2, it becomes clear that this is a serious smartphone that can cope with any task. And adding here the unique design and functions, together with the name of the giant of the Chinese mobile industry, you can get one of the most attractive and productive devices for 2019. We have to admit that Vivo managed to do a cool thing, but it was not without mistakes. However, only time can give a real assessment of the phone. In the meantime, we suggest that you familiarize yourself with the features of this gadget:

• Unique design;
• Two screens;
• Excellent technical characteristics;
• Quality cameras;
• Really good and useful flash;
• The presence of a mini-jack 3.5 mm.

• Unreliability (when falling, the risk of breaking glass is very high);
• Slippery;
• No memory card slot;
• There is no optical zoom;
• Price;
• Autonomy.

As can be seen from the comparison, this model has a lot of advantages and disadvantages. But netizens in their reviews are still inclined to notice only positive aspects, it seems that the first sales, which will begin on December 21, will bring clarity, and it will also become known where it is profitable to buy a brand new Vivo NEX 2.

Absurdity or breakthrough

In post-Soviet countries, Vivo products are in average demand and rarely get into the rating of quality devices. However, in China, the company's popular models are sold in huge quantities. Speed ​​and uniqueness play a key role here - their engineers come up with new products much faster than European competitors. But it is worth recognizing that sometimes these know-hows are frankly useless. In the case of the NEX 2, nothing can be said for sure - its pluses may well become minuses during operation. But the fact that the model clearly deserves attention and will become one of the most interesting gadgets in 2019 is a fact.So far, the real drawback is the average price, which should be 50,000 rubles.