vivo V11 review

AI powered dual-camera

The vivo V11 has a dual camera on its back with a 12MP primary sensor behind bright f/1.8 lens and a 5MP depth sensor. Phase-detection autofocus is available, and there is a single LED flash next to those cameras.

In tune with the rest of the Funtouch launcher, the camera interface is a bit overcrowded. On the top side, a settings wheel hides away most of the important stuff. HDR and Portrait toggles are also here.

vivo still refuses to include proper photo resolution controls. Instead, you get an aspect ratio selector, and you have to know that the sensor has a native one of 4:3 to get the maximum available resolution. Technically, you could get higher-res photos using the 24MP toggle, but this one uses simple interpolation from the native 12MP.

The available shooting mores are at the bottom - Manual (Pro), Panorama, AI Face Beauty, Photo, Videos, and AR Stickers. The AI Face Beauty allows you tune various aspects of your face such as chin, nose and eye size.

Photo • AI Face Beauty • Manual • Portraits • Settings • Videos

Image Quality

The 12MP picture we took with the vivo V11 have plenty of detail, accurate colors, high contrast and low noise levels. The dynamic range is average though, but there is always an HDR option for the more demanding scenes.

The AI scene recognition successfully recognizes most of the popular scenes - such as buildings, food, pets - but we found little differences between the regular and AI pictures.

Vivo V11 12MP camera samples

The Auto HDR mode is smart enough to know when HDR is needed, so we suggest leaving it set to Auto. The HDR shots do have a higher dynamic range and expose more detail in the shadows without going overboard in the highlights.

HDR off • HDR on • HDR off • HDR on

The low-light images are nothing special. They are soft and the noise reduction takes away most of the detail. The colors are okay, though the contrast is somewhat low.

Vivo V11 12MP low-light samples

When using the manual mode, you can select a shutter speed up to 32s with ISO up to 3200. You just need a tripod and you can snap some great low-light photos.

Vivo V11 12MP low-light shots at 4s shutter

You should check how the vivo V11 does against the Pocophone F1 and the vivo NEX S in our Photo Compare Tool. We've pre-selected these two, but you are free to pick any other phone to compare it against.

vivo V11 vs. Pocophone F1 vs. vivo NEX S in our Photo compare tool

Portraits and Variable Aperture

The vivo V11 offers native Portrait shot with a variable aperture option inside - you just need to tap somewhere, and the aperture slider will reveal itself.

The portrait shots turned out rather good and unless you have really curly or messy hair, the camera would do perfectly fine with the edge detection.

Vivo V11 Portrait samples

You can also use Portraits within the AI Face Beauty mode - there in addition to the bokeh effect, you will be able to do virtual plastic surgery on the subject. We just used the default beauty for the shots below, without changing any of Angie's face features.

Portrait shots with face beauty

You can do Portraits on subjects other than humans and you'll still get nice bokkehs. We played with the variable aperture for the shots below.

F/1.0 • F/1.4 • F/4 • F/16

Selfies

The notch on the vivo V11's display may be small, but it houses a 25MP selfie camera - some of the highest resolution available. It's a fixed-focused unit with f/2.0 lens, though, which is hardly ideal.

The highlights of this selfie camera are the AI Selfie Beauty and the Portrait mode (even though there isn't a second camera at the front). The AI Selfie Beauty lets you change the shape and size of your eyes, nose, mouth and chin, your lips and ears, you get the idea - vivo has put so many options.

And the 25MP selfie shots snapped with the vivo V11 are excellent. The resolved detail is way above average, the contrast is great, the dynamic range is good, and the colors are lively. You can choose from a variety of beautification tweaks, but if you want the most detail, you should stick to the normal shots. The V11 easily has one of the best selfie snappers around in terms of image quality.

Vivo V11 25MP selfies

As we mentioned portraits are available on the selfie camera, too, and those turned out pretty nice.

Vivo V11 25MP selfie portraits

And here are a couple of samples shot with the AI Selfie Beauty - we changed some of Will's face features for those.

Vivo V11 25MP AI selfies

Portrait Lightning is available when shooting selfies, too. Those effects are not our cup of tea, but we are sure they have their supporters out there.

Vivo V11 25MP selfies with portrait lightning

Video recording

Update, Sept. 14 Vivo has released an update, which adds native 4K video recording within the camera app. Those are captured at 42Mbps with stereo audio. Unfortunately the video quality is far from impressive - there resolved detail is mediocre and the dynamic range is below average. But the color presentation and the contrast are very good.

The 1080p videos come with decent colors and contrast, but they are simply lacking when it comes to detail and dynamic range. On the positive sound, they come with decent audio.

You can download the 2160p@30fps (10s, 52MB) video sample, as well as the 1080p@30fps (9s, 21MB) video sample taken straight off the vivo V11.

Finally, you can use our Video Compare Tool to see how the vivo V11 stacks against the Honor Play and Pocophone F1 when it comes to 4K video capture.

2160p: vivo V11 against the Honor Play and the Pocophone F1 in our Video compare tool