vivo V29 Pro review

Design

One of the signature design aspects of the vivo V series has traditionally been the UV-reactive paint job. Well, for better or worse, that is gone with the V29 generation. Color options are a lot simpler and straightforward this time around. The V29 Pro is available in Himalayan Blue, which is the color of our review unit. The Himalayas apparently inspire the wavy pattern on its back.

Left: vivo V29 • right: vivo V29 Pro

The finish is glossy, attracting and retaining plenty of fingerprints and grease. Thankfully, it is not particularly slippery and grips fairly well to the skin.

The V29 Pro can also be had in Space Black, which looks pretty plain in comparison. But we can't fault anyone for wanting a more traditional-looking device that blends into its environment. We did find info online about an elusive third Pink color option, but we can't find it in any picture, so it might not actually exist.

The V29 Pro doesn't have too much in the way of distinctive characteristics, but we do like the overall look of the camera island. It covers a large surface area, and that large Aura Light ring flash that takes about as much space as a camera module is definitely not something you see every day.

Some things haven't changed, though. The super slim profile was one of the design team's priorities, and they've kept it for the V29 Pro. The curves on both the display and the back panel that meet in a thin frame on the sides enhance the perception of compactness and contribute to an overall premium feeling. The middle frame itself is also glossy with a metal-like silver finish. We find it perfectly appealing.

That's further reinforced when you fire up the display on the V29 Pro and look at the slim bezels. It's one of the more premium-looking handsets you can get in the midrange.

The punch hole for the selfie camera is also quite reasonably-sized, especially considering that it houses a large 50MP camera with autofocus. This, too, contributes to the overall premium look of the midranger.

Materials and construction

First things first, we need to address the ingress protection situation. For the first time ever on a V-series device, the regular V29 gets an IP68 rating. For whatever reason, that is not the case with the V29 Pro. It does not have an official ingress protection rating.

The V29 Pro employs a standard glass "sandwich" design. Both the front and back are covered with some sort of glass, though vivo does not specify exactly what kind, which is not exactly confidence-inspiring. The middle frame appears to be made of plastic.

On the plus side, there doesn't seem to be any flex or give in the overall construction. The back side has a slight hollowness but nothing to lose sleep over.

Controls

The V29 Pro has a pretty standard control scheme. The volume rocker and power button are both on the right-hand side. Both are fairly thin, which is necessitated by the middle frame's width. Even so, the buttons still offer nice tactile feedback and are what we would call nice and "clicky".

There is nothing on the left side of the frame.

And the top houses just a secondary noise-canceling mic. Vivo continues to include a plastic insert in the top frame. That's presumably done for better wireless reception, though with a plastic frame and glass front and back, we don't really see the need for extra plastic.

The bottom of the V29 Pro is pretty busy. Just like its predecessor, it lacks a storage card slot. Instead, you get two Nano-SIM card slots on a single tray. The tray does have a pretty beefy rubber gasket, which suggests that the phone could perhaps still withstand some encounter with water despite the lack of an official ingress rating.

Speaking of omissions on the V29 Pro - it lacks a stereo speaker setup. Unlike many competitors, its earpiece does not double as a speaker, which seems like a missed opportunity. The only speaker you get is the singular bottom-firing one.

The V29 Pro uses an optical under-display fingerprint reader. It is perfectly snappy and reliable. We have no complaints.

One interesting thing to note is that the light and proximity sensors on the V29 Pro are also under the display and located somewhere around the selfie camera.

Connectivity

The V29 Pro is a dual-SIM 5G device with SA/NSA Sub.6 connectivity on both SIM slots. It also has dual-band Wi-Fi 6 (ac) and Bluetooth 5.3 with LE support. For positioning, there is GPS (L1), GLONASS (G1), BDS (B1I), GALILEO (E1), QZSS (L1) and NavIC.

We already noted the lack of expandable storage. The V29 Pro also lacks NFC and a 3.5mm audio jack. The Type-C port on the V29 Pro is backed up by a basic USB 2.0 connection, which means a theoretical maximum transfer rate of 480 Mbps. It has USB Host/OTG support but nothing fancy beyond that, like video output.

In case you were wondering, the phone has no notification LED.

In terms of sensors, the V29 Pro has an Ism6dso accelerometer and gyroscope combo, a sensorTek stk33737 light and hardware proximity combo and a memsic mmc5603 magnetometer and compass combo. There is no barometer onboard.