vivo V40 review
Funtouch OS 14 on top of Android 14
Both the vivo V40 and V40 Pro ship with Android 14 and Funtouch OS 14, just like their predecessors. It's a heavily customized UI with plenty of features to go through.
Vivo is a bit stingy regarding official information on software support for the V40 series. As far as we can tell, the V40 Pro promises three years of software updates and four years of security patches. The V40, however, is signed up, again, as far as we know, for two years of software updates and three years of security patches.
Vivo does promise 50 months of smooth operation without major slowdowns due to the system's intelligent control over background tasks.
Since we covered the Funtouch OS 14 extensively in the vivo X100 Pro review, we suggest giving the software section a read. Most features listed there are available on the V30.
Benchmarks and performance
Vivo decided not to upgrade the chipset on the V40. It borrows the same Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 from the V30. It's a modern mid-range SoC based on TSMC's 4nm manufacturing process and promises performance and efficiency improvements over its predecessor (technically the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2).
The Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 relies on an octa-core CPU with 1x2.63 GHz Cortex-A715 & 3x2.4 GHz Cortex-A715 & 4x1.8 GHz Cortex-A510 cores and an Adreno 720 GPU. The system also supports up to LPDDR5 RAM.
The V30 ships in four variants - 8GB/128GB, 8GB/256GB, 12GB/256GB and 12GB/512GB. We have the beefiest 12GB/512GB version in our office. All storage options are listed as UFS 2.2.
GeekBench 6
- Multi-core
- Single-core
Galaxy S24
Xiaomi 14T
Galaxy S23 FE
vivo V30 Pro
Galaxy A55
vivo V40
vivo V30
AnTuTu 10
Galaxy S24
Galaxy S23 FE
vivo V30 Pro
Motorola Edge 50 Pro
vivo V30
vivo V40
Redmi Note 13 Pro+ 5G
3DMark (offscreen)
- Wild Life (1440p)
- Wild Life Extreme (2160p)
Galaxy S24
Galaxy S23 FE
Poco X6 Pro
Poco F5
vivo V30 Pro
vivo V40
Motorola Edge 50 Pro
As you can see, the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 inside the vivo V40 performs just as expected - it slots in between the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 and the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2. The Dimensity 8200 and the Exynos 1480 and 2200 are somewhere in the rough ballpark performance-wise. While the V40 definitely holds its own, you can get much more powerful chipsets in the same price range. You just have to make some compromises, like going for a slightly older device and something like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 or a smaller device like the Samsung Galaxy S24 and its Exynos 2400 chip.
AnTuTu is a much more compound benchmark that includes graphical and memory tests. It paints a pretty similar picture. The vivo V40 holds its own but is nowhere near the top of the performance charts.
The Adreno 720 inside the vivo V40 remains a solid GPU, but it is nowhere near top-tier in the price bracket.
In more practical terms, the vivo V40 performs pretty smoothly with no noticeable stutters, hiccups or slowdowns. It chewed through anything we threw at it, including demanding games.
Regarding sustained performance, the vivo V40 passed our tests with flying colors. In the CPU throttle test, the handset maintained almost 100% of the CPU's theoretical performance and also kept the clock speeds steady, which is crucial for a smooth gaming experience.
Thermal-throttling
The surface of the V40 never got particularly hot either, just lukewarm, which is impressive.
Reader comments
- Jab
- 14 Oct 2024
- 6sP
So I bought the Motorola Edge 50 Pro instead. Same price, more memory, telephoto, wireless charging, aptx wireless, and hopefully a bit better display. Main camera will be a bit worse though and Motorola is terrible with system updates.
- Anonymous
- 14 Oct 2024
- LfV
Even unisoc tangula chipsets support ufs 3.1 storage from t750 upwards and some zte phones with those chipsets use ufs 3.1