‘Rip Van Winkle in 2019?’ exclaimed a friend, ‘but isn’t he a character in a story published in America in 1819?’
Yes, we all know how Rip Van Winkle falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains only to wake up two decades later. The American Revolution was over by then and he is obviously unfamiliar with most things, including the ballot box and the system of voting.
I hope Washington Irving, the writer of this story, will permit me to borrow Rip Van Winkle for the sake of this article. Let us imagine Rip Van Winkle, a tourist from America who is here to escape the nagging of his wife, wakes up after twenty years and is comfortably sitting inside a starred hotel watching the Vivo Z1 pro being launched.
‘Ah, phones. I know these mobile monsters well,’ he might say aloud, ‘they are huge and expensive and a reason to become a show-off for many.’
As it so happened, I was sitting right next to him and I whispered, ‘What? We’re not in the late nineties any more, my friend.’
‘Aren’t we?’ he said, looking genuinely surprised, and took out his passport that had some date from 1999 mentioned as his arrival in Delhi. He looked a bit worried but said, ‘I guess that drink must have been completely spiced. Waking up after twenty years! Well, you must tell me what I’ve missed.’
I told him that he had missed the technological revolution completely. I had to explain to him how phones had evolved and that smartphones were the norm now. I had to inform him that the world was a far more connected place through the social media and that the Vivo Z1Pro was the newest smart wand that he could use to witness a whole lot of magic.
‘Ah!’ he said after a long thoughtful pause, ‘so the world is full of new thinkers, go-getters, energetic young souls with a lot of zeal?’
‘You’ve just defined Gen Z,’ I said with a smile.
‘Then I’m Z1,’ he said and we laughed.
Rip Van Winkle turned out to be a fast learner. He grasped rather fast about the way photography has zoomed way beyond being expensive and exclusive, how the audio revolution has dived into an inclusive policy to regale even the fence-sitters so far as music is concerned, and the rapid strides that design, aesthetics, and hard-core technology have taken to transform life into one lovable mass of real-time communication in a global sense. Well, if I were to hop aside from my Shashi Tharoor writing style, Rip Van Winkle got a rapid workshop on mobile technology from me.
I told him how 6.53-inch full HD+ IPS LCD display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 processor with AI Engine, 4GB/6GB RAM, 64GB/128GB internal storage, 5,000mAh battery, 32MP front camera, 16MP+8MP+2MP rear cameras, and Funtouch OS 9 based on Android 9.0 Pie would actually convert into the Vivo Z1Pro.
‘That’s quite a lot,’ said Rip Van and went on, ‘how are these configurations important for individuals today?’
I explained to him how the Snapdragon 712 AIE and a Qualcomm Kryo 360 upped the performance of this smartphone while multi-tasking and gaming. He loved the fact that a bigger display with a better screen ratio made human-machine interactions immersive and that the visual experience was indeed heavenly.
‘You mean things weren’t as good earlier?’
‘Well, this is what innovations are all about,’ I said, ‘and the camera in this very affordable smartphone has an AI Triple Rear camera setup with a 16MP Primary camera, 8MP Super Wide-Angle camera and 2MP Depth camera. This means that clicking both magnificent landscapes and charming portraits are possible. The front camera is 32MP In-Display and captures shots with unrivalled clarity. AI Face Beauty enhances your facial features and clicking selfies turns from a boring chore to a fascinating experience.’
I did spend some time telling him what modes like backlight HDR, portrait bokeh, portrait light effects, AR stickers, slow motion, time-lapse photography, AI Beauty etc really did and he was suitably impressed. ‘By the way, the AI Super-Wide-Angle1 camera expands your view to 120° in the Vivo Z1Pro and one can capture more inclusive landscapes.’
‘So have the batteries improved now?’ he asked, ‘in my time this was a major problem area.’
‘A 5000 mAh battery is way beyond the reality of 1999,’ I said, ‘and Vivo’s exclusive 18W Fast Charging technology to re-juice quicker than ever is a charmer. The Z1Pro also supports the OTG reverse charging function, which is something that makes this phone stand out.’
No, i didn’t get into the new Vivo Multi-Turbo with ART++ compiler enhancement technology that provides a breakthrough in mobile phone performance. It is fascinating how the ART++ compiler enhances Turbo greatly improving the performance of the phone and the response speed of the app or how through Net Turbo network acceleration the Z1Pro maintains better network status and that Center Turbo processor accelerates to ensure the game’s CPU and memory resources are smooth. The AI Turbo recognizes the usage pattern and enabling common applications to open faster. I know all this would have meant me sitting there and explaining everything in detail. The truth is that Rip Van Winkle seemed to have already fallen in love with this gadget of the future.
Rip took the Vivo Z1Pro and clicked a few pictures and was thrilled. He looked at this device for a while and asked, ‘Hey! What happens if something goes wrong?’
‘Vivo has 600+ service centres pan-India,’ I replied. To be frank he loved the hole punch display in the phone and was enthralled by its fingerprint sensor accuracy to capture biometric data without a hitch. When it came to facial recognition, he simply wanted to do shut and then open the phone repeatedly.
I asked, ‘So now do you understand what #FullyLoaded means?’
‘Yes, I do,’ he replied, ‘it means that I am now fully loaded with the future. After all I did say earlier that I am Gen Z1.’
‘The way you’ve grasped everything,’ I said, ‘you’re ready to be called a Z1Pro.’
And that was the moment Rip Van Winkle from twenty years back transformed into a Z1Pro who wanted to go online and buy this gadget the moment he had figured out how to connect to his bank in the US.’
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All pictures shared in this post have been clicked on Vivo Z1Pro
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Arvind Passey
30 July 2019
