Vivo Y91 - A Hands-On Review

Once upon a time, Misty (her owner actually) owns a really potato phone which it can barely runs stuff well. Oh you asked how horrible it is? So horrible that it couldn't run Antutu's benchmarking system, and you even need to reboot the phone to Safe Mode in order to play TOS. :pain:

Yeah that's how horrible and potato my good 'ol potato can be. At least most of my research as well as lots of experiments (such as using it as a computer mouse, a remote controller on Windows, and much more) was done on my phone. Not to mention that I found out the flawed Safe Mode where by right you cannot run any third party apps in Safe Mode, while me here managed to exploit it and use it for TOS (check out how to do it here if you have a phone at Android 6, note that Android 7 and above aren't available for this trick since they patched it up, as well for those with Chinese custom OS like MiUI or EMUI, your way on rebooting to Safe Mode is different so I cannot give a clear answer will this flaw work on yours). Yeah as well as finding out some phone speeding up tricks while using resource-hungry apps on it (well without using any third party apps of course :nom:)

Well it was until mid-March where my dad asked for my good 'ol potato (don't ask me why, highly possible for Pokémon GO usages), and in exchange for a new phone Mum is using for Pokémon that time. Yeah I refused at first, but at the end I still take it. Reasons? Copernicus' Ultimate stage.

You are wondering why one Ultimate stage in TOS (aka Tower of Saviors) can decide one to change his/her phone. Well it's because of the first wave of the stage is already making my phone in an almost-dead state where the FIRST mob of the stage weakens all runestones on the board (for those who don't play TOS, the runestone weakening visual effect is already resource-consuming for even just one runestone. Imagine this happens on a 6x5 board. :pain:

Translation: Full board weakening (20% team damage reduction for every weakened runestone dissolved, usage of crafts considered clearing them). Enemy attack will be increased for every attack made, 2 attacks will be launched instead of 1 after a certain amount of attacks. Uncontrollable. Image from G8Game's website.

Yep, I accepted the offer and nuked my phone (good luck with my potato dad). Made all backups and directly nuked the potato up. And here we are, with my new phone.

Well enough of the chitchat, you may be wondering Misty wants to make a real hands-on review about it. Yeah, because nobody does it. Yet (Quick fact: This model was just released last January).

For those who are interested on this, do consider continue reading it.

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Appearance

Not bad. Apart from the front camera (which takes only ±5% of space, you got plenty of space on your screen yay.

Vivo Y91, Starry Black variant, the one I'm currently using. Image from Vivo Malaysia's official site.

Performance

Before I begin this part, here's a quick fact: This model comes with 2 variations: The Snapdragon CPU version as well as the MTK (aka Mediatek) CPU version. Well I'm using this MTK version of Vivo Y91. Honestly speaking, despite hearing quite some bad reviews on MTK processors among smartphone enthusiasts (there's even memes about it lul), from what I see it's still performing well (yeah from the perception of a person who uses a very potato phone which can barely runs on stuff haha). A 3GB RAM phone equipped with an octa-core processor running at 2.0GHz honestly is pretty OK for most everyday users. Runs pretty well on most resource-hungry apps like PUBG (despite visual settings set at Low), Asphalt 8 (can't get Asphalt 9 for now due to device incompatibility), as well as good 'ol TOS.

Ah not to mention that this device has an average score of 76852 in Antutu's benchmarking system. Yeah may be a bit low if compared to today's flagship phones (don't expect much from a semi-budget phone). As long as you don't run too much 3D stuff (the device goes pretty laggy when entering the 3D test phase), the phone won't cause much trouble on you.

From my Antutu Benchmark app, a bit under average but whatever.

Camera

Well I'm not much a camera person, but 8MP of front camera with a 13MP + 2MP rear camera (that 2MP potato camera lens is for detecting depth) is really good and enough to most users I assume.

Resolution

Welcome to the 18:9 resolution era. Despite 18:9 ratio this phone runs on 1440x720 instead of the popular 2160x1080 resolution. But honestly I won't mind much on phone resolution as long it's at 720p or above.

Software

This part may be a bit of pain since we have a lot of aspects to talk about. This phone runs on Android 8.1 (NOOOOOO I can't use the Safe Mode flaw anymore but who cares) with FunTouch OS 4.5 running alongside (Fact: This is Vivo's version of custom UI, think of MiUI on XiaoMi phones, this is the Vivo version of it).

Not sure is it just me, the main pain of this phone is you need to endure with the bloats running in your phone (I can't Disable system apps for unknown reasons, not sure who should I blame, Vivo or Google), plus running background apps may be directly killed regardlessly when you clear them from the Recent Apps menu. Not sure is this due to FunTouch OS itself or from the Android system itself (boo my own alarm clock app can't go off for unknown reasons) but I'll find it soon enough.

Speaking of bloats, bloats include those unnecessary apps like Vivo's own App Store (well you can get some paid but outdated apps for free which is something good at times), the vivo.com app (just more to promoting new models in that app but this model is more than enough for me), the vivoCloud app (I have Google Drive), as well as the email app preinstalled (why another email app when you have the Gmail app preinstalled as well? :pain:). Oh it comes together with the Funtouch OS launcher. Same as my potato, no much freedom on desktop customisation, which means another bloat, sigh. Nova Launcher here I come.

Bloats aside, another main pain from this phone is this vivoService app running on the background. Well it's just a 100+kb system app running silently on the background, but this thing is annoyingly scary when you got access to the Developer Options menu. It forces you to use your phone without running it. Once you turned Developer Options on, you'll get a very annoying red DEV MODE banner at the right top of your screen and it won't go off unless you turn it off or clear vivoService's data at Settings.

Oh not to mention about the pre-installed Clock app. Goes off for a minute and then stopped ringing. My good 'ol potato's pre-installed Clock app is better than you at this aspect ya know that (rings at you non-stop unless you turn it off yourself)? :pain:

And not forgetting that you can use gestures in it (it's called FunTouch OS for a reason, making your phone touching time a fun time). It's hidden within the Settings app, you can set it for various occations like waking up the phone upon double tapping the sleeping screen, or maybe draw specific symbols at the sleeping screen to trigger an app launch. Do note that using gestures may consume more battery, be aware of that.

Media Playback

So you're thinking a still OK-leveled phone can't do much right? Lemme tell you something (especially those watching videos a lot, yeah anime lovers that's you):-
THIS DEVECE SUPPORTS HEVC PLAYBACK!

For those who don't know about the pain on HEVC, HEVC (aka High Efficiency Video Coding, or H.265) is a rather new video codec in the market, even though it's already a thing for a few years. Well not much devices can support this video codec at the moment, especially mobile devices as it could be considered a miracle if your mobile device can support HEVC playback since some sites across the internet claimed that ONLY Snapdragon CPU phones are capable on doing it by now (well done MTK you never let me down).

HEVC playback aside, this phone is also capable on most videos with codecs at H.264 or earlier as long as you have the appropriate software in it.

For audio playback, the only pain of this phone is it only has a speaker at the right bottom (the left bottom is taken as the 3.5mm audio jack), which makes listening to music a bit of painful and unbalanced (get earphones or headphones for it haha). Despite that, the sound projection is pretty good. Imagine you can hear your phone ringtone about 50m away if your ringtone is set at full blast. You'll never miss a call from it (unless you set it to Silent in purpose :lul:).

Customisation

Well you can't expect much from a phone with a Chinese custom OS in it (bloats here bloats there bloats everywhere :pain:). But there's one thing I liked about this phone (and perhaps to certain phone manufacturers as well).
YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR SYSTEM FONT!

Changing system fonts natively normally needs Root permissions, well not to all as some has the ability to change the system fonts natively (go try your luck at the Display Settings menu in the Settings app, who knows your phone can chnge system fonts natively too, IIRC most Samsung phones can do it). Well Vivo's own iTheme app (a bloat but a good bloat) gives you the option to change your system font, as well as your system theme (which I never really used a theme, since I have Nova Launcher running :nom:), and setting a custom screen lock in there too.

Despite giving you the ability to change system fonts and such, the options provided by Vivo themselves aren't enough, and third party apps (like iFont, the best option among them) isn't capable on changing or even adding a font you like into iTheme's catalog (Fact: I still need root permissions in order to use the fonts from iFont and other third party customisation apps since Vivo tightened up regarding this issue. Oh, there's no fonts specifically for Simplified and Traditional Chinese, why Vivo why, you are a Chinese company but why you don't provide ching chong fonts :pain:). Chinese fonts aside, they still have a good selection of English fonts (but still, very less options, sigh).

The lack on options not only happened on the fonts, this also applies to the screenlock styles whick it only gives you <10 options for you to choose (at least there's still one good option for fitting in Misty's wallpaper so yeah I won't blame much about this haha).

The plain 'ol system font.
The iekie Aallltred font from the Vivo iTheme app.
The lockscreen with Misty at the background, using Vivo's Classic theme (despite named Classic, but it's not pre-installed :pain:).

Hardware Support

Fun fact: This WHOLE article is typed from my phone, using a USB keyboard (borrowed from my dad's computer).

This phone supports USB OTG (aka USB on-the-go). Which means you can plug in your flash drives, keyboards, or even your mouse into this phone. But in order to do that, you need to turn on the USB OTG funtionality at the Settings app (you normally won't need to do this as it is always on if your device is supported, blame Vivo).

Oh, not to mention that there's a 3.5mm audio jack (in case you forgot), connect your speakers and headphones as you wish yay.

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Summary

The whole device experience is really good, though with exceptions to some apps that I cannot use (mostly utility apps I installed on my potato back then, unable to use it here due to the system's autokilling mechanism and I don't know who to blame :pain:). Multitasking in this phone is a lot easier thanks to the 3GB RAM in it (apps won't get killed due to low memory anymore yay). For everyday users who are planning to get this, this can be a good choice for you.

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Well I guess that's all from me for now, Thanks for reading it till the end (here's a cookie for you if you managed to finish it 🍪). So see you guys next time!

- Misty.EXE -
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Featured image (first image on the article) from Kelly Bourne's "Why I’m Breaking Up With My Phone".

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://mistythebot.rf.gd/2019/vivo-y91-review/

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