vivo V40 review

Design, build quality, handling

The smartphone industry has been shifting away from aggressively curved designs lately, but the V40 is going against the current. It is a very curvy device, both from the front and back. This is consistent with vivo's styling for the V series. Even so, the V40 looks quite different from its V30 predecessor.

While the size and the shape of both phones are very similar, the styling isn't. Vivo's V-series devices have always had quite distinctive camera islands, and the V40 is no different. Passing the V40 around in the office proved that the particular design is quite polarizing. It's striking, nonetheless, which is arguably the most important thing.

The V40 is available in many colors: Stellar Silver (Titanium Grey), Nebula Purple (Lotus Purple), Ganges Blue, Moonlight White and Sunglow Peach. Not all of these are available in every market, though and some have alternative names, as mentioned.

It also seems that not all phones have the same texture to their finish. Our Nebula Purple unit walks the line between silky/velvety and sandstone for its back surface. It feels surprisingly good in the hand and doesn't get dirty easily. This is a lot more than can be said about the front of the phone. It has a pre-applied plastic screen protector, which seems to have very minimal if any, oleophobic properties. The actual glass surface underneath feels and looks much better.

Since we are on the topic of materials and protection, the V40 is a very well-constructed device. While many might immediately jump at that statement and point out that the frame is made of plastic, we will still defend plastic as a solid material. It is light-weight and doesn't scratch or dent quite like metal. The frame on the V40 feels solid and structurally sound, with practically no flex to the chassis.

The back of the V40 is made of glass. As far as we know, it is a Schott's hardened glass, though it isn't clear exactly what kind. The front is covered with Schott Xensation Alpha-hardened glass. In case you are unfamiliar with Schott's products, they are comparable to Corning's Gorilla Glass line to some extent but generally a bit less premium, offering lesser optical clarity and scratch resistance. It is still one of the big players in the field, and its products are well-regarded.

Most notably, the vivo V40 is advertised to use an improved version of the Schott glass compared to its V30 predecessor. There is a potentially even more important structural upgrade introduced on the V40, and that is IP68/IP69 ingress protection. That's definitely an upgrade over the IP54 rating of the V30.

The vivo V40 has a pretty standard control layout. The volume rocker and power button are on the right-hand side of the frame. Both feel great and are clicky and responsive. However, due to the aggressive curvature on both sides of the phone, the buttons are very thin, almost excessively so.

vivo V40

The left side of the frame is empty. The same is mostly true for the top frame, sans a couple of secondary microphone holes. The bottom side is pretty busy with the nano-SIM tray, Type-C port, main microphone and the bottom-firing speaker.

Another upgrade on the V40 over the V30, which fans have very eagerly anticipated, is the addition of a stereo speaker setup. It is a hybrid one with an amplified earpiece handling the second channel. You can read up on its quality in the speaker section.

The earpiece is nearly invisible above the display. It is very well hidden away. The same goes for all of the sensors, such as light and proximity. These are not visible either.

The V40 uses an in-display fingerprint reader. It is of the optical variety and is both speedy and very accurate. We have no complaints about it.