Someone asked me a few days back, ‘What is the difference between intelligence and artificial intelligence?’
This question was asked by a friend who wanted to buy a new smartphone and was pretty sore at the fact that with the introduction of innovations, the prices had gone beyond his affordability limit. ‘I can’t visualize myself carrying a mere smartphone costing half a lakh or more in my pocket in times when I know that all I want is a phone that will let me live my life a bit more intelligently,’ he added.
I said, ‘You’ve just answered your question. By not over-investing in a smartphone for features that you would never use, you’ve defined intelligence.’
‘And what about AI?’
Well, I quoted Kent Cheng, CEO, Vivo India who had said during the launch of Vivo V15 pro, ‘Innovation is one of our core values. Besides the industry’s first Elevating Front Camera that gave us the ultimate bezel-less display, we are always looking to introduce game-changing features, such as higher-quality cameras and smarter AI services that take the mobile experience to a new dimension just like when playing at ??? ??.’ I added that even AI had evolved into being smarter AI today and that the V15 Pro employed this smarter avatar.
This friend was obviously looking for some more explanation of what smarter AI really meant. I told him that the 48 Million Quad Pixel Sensor (12 Million Effective Pixels) + 8MP + 5MP triple rear camera with 1/2.25-inch sensor and a large f/1.8 aperture along with a 32MP Pop-up front camera gives this smartphone the ability to employ quad-pixel technology, combining 4 adjacent pixels into one ‘super pixel’ to deliver high-quality 12MP photos. The 8MP AI-enabled Super Wide-Angle camera and a 5MP Depth camera and an upgraded AI algorithm allows for a wider 108 degrees view that results in better picture composition. The output is not just better composed but also gives the phone a clearer and sharper low light ability. ‘So now you can have blur-free night shots without envying your friend who flaunts a DSLR,’ I said, ‘and the AI Super Night Mode can instantly take multiple photos at different exposure.’
‘When a smartphone does this one can safely call this ability a gift of smarter AI,’ I said with a smile, ‘and if if the price yet remains sub-30K, you can pat your back for being intelligent.’
This phone with a super unibody design and a 32MP pop-up selfie camera has a 16.23cm (6.39) Super AMOLED Ultra FullView™ Display screen that comes with a 91.64% screen-to-body ratio – a first in the V series, for those who are unaware of this tech trivia. In-display fingerprint scanning comes with a higher fingerprint pixel density and better algorithms for a faster and more secure action and a 0.55 second face-unlock time makes usage breezier. The latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 675AIE octa-core processor, 6GB RAM, 128GB storage and the latest Funtouch OS 9 Operating System, based on the Android 9.0 come together to give a seamless UI experience, outstanding gaming capabilities, stellar camera features and smoother multitasking.
‘You’re forgetting the battery capability,’ asked my friend.
‘You’re so helpful,’ I said, ‘Well, if a 3700 mAh battery isn’t charming enough, let me add that Vivo’s exclusive Dual-Engine Fast charging ensures that the phone is charged up to 24% in just 15 minutes.’
This phone may not have an IP rating for protection against the elements but then how many users want to dive in a swimming pool with their phone in their hands? How many will be stupid enough to dig a hole on a beach and bury their device? We are obviously not talking about the mindless minority with disposable incomes that knows no bound… the average user today is intelligent enough to understand that a good, sturdy phone that an excellent audio output, does well on the camera frontier, and has a battery that lasts long enough is what they need. The Vivo V15 Pro comes with all the new tech advantages and is perfectly in sync with the advancements in communication technology. This phone is good enough for me.
Note: I have conversed with this phone only cursorily and this review is based on the few minutes that I got to handle it. The review would have been much more insightful had a review device been handed over to me.
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Arvind Passey
12 March 2019
