vivo V29 review

High-res cameras on both sides

The vivo V29 inherits the V27's camera system, for the most part. The rear setup contains a 50MP OIS primary and an 8MP ultrawide. While a 50MP front-facing camera is there for selfies. Gone is the 2MP macro camera on the back, replaced by a 2MP monochrome depth sensor.

vivo has replaced the main camera's sensor from the Sony IMX 766 to the Samsung GN5. It's still a Quad-Bayer design (or, rather, Tetrapixel, now that it's a Samsung imager) with an 1/1.56" optical format and 1.0µm pixels. The stabilized lens in front of it has the same actual focal length as before, but the EXIF now reports a 23mm equivalent. The aperture remains f/1.88.

Nothing's changed on the ultrawide - it uses an OmniVision OV08D1 sensor (1/4", 1.12µm) coupled with a 16mm f/2.2 lens. The focus is fixed.

Similarly, the selfie camera is the same as on the previous model. You get the Tetrapixel JN1 Samsung sensor (1/2.76", 0.64µm), coupled with a 24mm f/2.45 lens, and the camera supports PDAF.

The camera app is quite familiar as it is similar to the one seen on the V and X series. There's a straightforward zoom selector with 0.6x, 1x and 2x steps. Accessing the Macro mode is done from the flower icon next to the hamburger menu.

The main modes are arranged in a carousel formation, and you can switch between them by swiping or tapping on one of the visible modes. The More tab lists the rest of the modes, and from there, you can also customize the modes you have available in the viewfinder.

The Pro mode gives you all the freedom to adjust the focus distance, white balance, shutter speed, ISO and exposure. You can do so on the primary and ultrawide cameras. There's an 'i' button where you can get helpful information explaining all of the options in case you are just getting into photography. Shooting in RAW is also an option.

Camera UI

Daylight photo quality

The V29 captures great looking images with its main camera. The lively approach to color science tends to jump at you even from the thumbnails, but somehow we wouldn't say that saturation or vibrance are too much - the photos are just expressive. Overall contrast is high and dynamic range is also nicely wide allowing for good development at the extremes.

Thee 12.5MP resolution images retain plenty of detail and its rendition is very organic. There's no noise to speak of, unlike the fairly grainy images we got on the V27.

Daylight samples, main camera (1x)

The Natural mode toggle brings down the color saturation visibly, so if you find the above images too vibrant, you'll probably like the ones below better. Blues in the sky are more muted, greens aren't as lush, but overall these aren't bad either, just good in a different way.

Daylight samples, main camera (1x), Natural mode

The 50MP full-res photos don't necessarily capture more detail, though they do come with less contrast and more noise.

Daylight samples, main camera (1x), 50MP

The 2x zoom mode looks like a center crop from the 50MP shots, but somehow a little better. Contrast is back to the levels of the 12.5MP 1x photos which makes detail look better defined. It's also worth pointing out how in the last sample, the indoor one, the 2x shot is even more notably sharper than the corresponding 50MP image than in the outdoor pairs.

Daylight samples, main camera (2x)

The unassuming ultrawide actually captures quite good images. The 8MP resolution isn't a lot and it's not the sharpest lens off-center, but detail is still good in the middle, and there's no noise to speak of. Dynamic range is generally very good, and even the color rendition is very consistent between the two cameras.

Daylight samples, ultrawide camera (0.6x)

The lack of focusing capability on the utlrawide means you won't be getting sharp shots of nearby subjects and there's no dedicated 'macro' camera either. The main camera is able to focus close enough to fill the frame with palm-sized subjects (the red fire truck toy) so maybe that will be good enough.

Low-light photo quality

There's some Night mode action going on in Photo mode on the V29, as we've come to expect. The resulting images are excellent, with well developed tonal extremes and nicely lifted shadows - perhaps a darker rendition is closer to 'reality', but we'd argue it's better to see more things. We encountered no missteps with the auto white balance and color saturation didn't fall victim to the dark. Detail, meanwhile is very good overall.

Low-light samples, main camera (1x)

The dedicated Night mode brings subtle differences, and while there can be improvements on occasion, they're hardly worth thinking about. In fact, we're almost convinced that whatever differences we may be seeing are more likely due to shot to shot variation rather than a consistently different behavior of the two modes.

Low-light samples, main camera (1x), Night mode

At 2x zoom level, we're seeing more of a pattern - Night mode shots have the lower midtones lifted. There's a bit more grain in the Photo mode samples, which Night mode smooths out. Either way, examined at 1:1 these shots don't look particularly great in terms of detail, though they're easily good enough for fit to screen applications.

Low-light samples, main camera (2x)

Low-light samples, main camera (2x), Night mode

The ultrawide is a bit of an improvement over what we got out of the V29. Photos are a little sharper now and with better definition in the shadows, though it's not like the V27 set a very high bar for that. Dynamic range is actually quite great and the camera is doing a solid job with color too. Overall, these are decent results given the hardware.

Low-light samples, ultrawide camera (0.6x)

Night mode may bring up the shadows a notch more in certain scenes, but we reckon the V29 is doing okay without it.

Low-light samples, ultrawide camera (0.6x), Night mode

Once you're done with the real world samples, head over to our Photo compare tool to see how the vivo V29 stacks up against the competition.

vivo V29 against the Galaxy A54 and the nothing Phone (1) in our Photo compare tool

Portrait mode

Portrait mode on the V27 can be used at both 1x and 2x magnifications, with the first offering the main camera's native field of view and higher per-pixel quality, and the second giving you the better perspective. The phone will default to the 2x mode. Either way subject detection is generally very competent (though the phone did mess up the wooden wall panelling background at 2x) and the blur level at the default setting is convincing.

Portrait mode samples, 1x

Portrait mode samples, 2x

Vivo is making a big deal out of the Aura light - a dedicated light on the back that is separate from the flash and can vary in light temperature based on the surrounding conditions.

Aura light

It appears they're on to something and the Aura light delivers balanced lighting on your subject resulting in better exposed shots without the harshness and the shadows caused by a flash.

Portrait mode, Aura off • Portrait mode, Aura on • Photo mode, flash on

Selfies

The V29's selfie camera is different than the one on the V27 and the use of a wider lens has allowed vivo to implement several zoom levels - 0.8x, 1x, and 2x. Obviously, the 0.8x mode is the native field of view of the camera and the phone reports a 20mm equivalent focal length, which looks about right. Shots have very good sharpness and detail, lifelike skin tones and overall pleasing colors, and nicely wide dynamic range.

Selfie samples, 0.8x

'Zooming in' to 1x doesn't change much and detail remains good.

Selfie samples, 1x

The 2x zoom level is hardly meant for arm's length shots, but rather for taking selfies from a distance. Detail and sharpness drops significantly, but these remain usable, we think.

Selfie samples, 2x

Video recording

Video recording on the vivo V29 maxes out at 4K in resolution on the main camera, where you get 30fps. If you want 60fps, you'd have to settle for 1080p resolution. It's the same story with the selfie camera, while the ultrawide on the back is capped at 1080p30.

Stabilization is available on all three cameras, though the selfie camera is limited to 1080p30 when it's enabled. As usual, you get to choose between the h.265 and h.264 codecs.

The bit rate is 50Mbps to 60Mbps when recording in 4K30 and using the h.264 codec, while 1080p30 gets up to 21Mbps. Audio is recorded in stereo at 128kbps in all modes.

You can expect good 4K footage from the V29's main camera in daylight. It's sharp and detailed in the center though it softens up towards the sides, which we didn't observe the same way in stills. Dynamic range and contrast are great, but we can't quite agree with the exposure - half a stop to two thirds of a stop darker makes these a lot better. Colors are lively and the auto white balance doesn't bring weird casts.

The ultrawide is oddly unenthusiastic in its colors when shooting video, in comparison to both the main camera's video output and the ultrwide's stills. We'd also choose a slightly lower exposure here than what vivo is going with. Detail is good for 1080p.

Overexposure remains a thing in in low light on the V29's main camera though at least here it could be argued that it's serving a purpose. Saturation takes a bit of a dip but remains acceptable. Detail is pretty great and we don't mind the noise one bit.

The ultrawide isn't quite as happy in the dark and produces soft videos, even though it too tries to expose brighter than most.

Stabilization is pretty good on the V29. It deals expertly with pans and is nearly tripod-like when shooting from a standstill. Walking does introduce some noticeable shake on the main camera, but not the ultrawide.

Here's a glimpse of how the vivo V29 compares to rivals in our Video compare tool. Head over there for the complete picture.

vivo V29 against the Galaxy A54 and the nothing Phone (1) in our Video compare tool