vivo V40 Pro review

Funtouch OS 14 and Android 14

Even though Android 15 is the most recent version of the OS, most phones have not been migrated to Android 15 just yet, and the vivo V40 series arrives with Android 14 and vivo's Funtouch OS 14 overlay on top.

vivo hasn't revealed any specific plans for the V40 Pro's software support, but we can assume it's the same as on the V30 Pro, which would mean two major OS updates and three years of security patches.

The company also promises 50 months of smooth operation without major slowdowns due to the system's intelligent control over background tasks.

Funtouch OS takes a different approach from stock Android when it comes to design, though Vivo has integrated some of Google's large quick toggle bubbles-just limited to a single row.

The UI is filled with custom touches throughout, including the recent apps menu, which can be toggled between a standard carousel or a two-row tile layout. Both the lock screen and home screen come with plenty of customization options, like various animation effects. On the lock screen, you can choose between three different clock styles and eight font options.

The app drawer includes an expandable section at the top that recommends commonly used apps, while a vertical scroller on the right highlights apps by the selected letter.

Funtouch OS 14

Funtouch OS also offers a variety of quick shortcuts and customizable actions. For example, holding the volume down key can trigger an app launch or perform a specific task. There's also an optional Smart Sidebar for quick access to shortcuts.

Funtouch OS 14

Vivo includes several of its own apps within Funtouch OS as well, such as Ultra Game Mode, Albums, Music, Themes, and iManager.

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 V40 Pro.

Benchmark performance

Even though the Dimensity 9200+ chipset is not entirely new, we've only tested one phone with the SoC in the past - the Xiaomi 13T Pro, so there is not that much context. The chip is almost identical to the Dimensity 9200, but offers higher CPU and GPU clock frequencies. It is fabbed on the 2nd Gen TSMC 4nm process (N4P) and brings plenty of improvements.

The Dimensity 9200+ chipset features an octa-core processor with a prime Cortex-X3 core @ 3.35Hz, 3x Cortex-A715 cores @ 3.0GHz and 4x Cortex-A510 @ 2.0GHz.

The SoC utilizes the ARM Immortalis-G715 MC11 GPU (@1164MHz, vs. 995MHz in 9200) with hardware-based ray tracing engine. The new flagship graphics unit brings Variable Rate Shading (VRS), double machine learning performance compared to the predecessor and ARM Fixed Rate Compression (AFRC) for reduced bandwidth usage.

MediaTek is also bringing a sixth-generation AI Processing Unit - the APU 690, which brings a 35% improvement over its predecessor. The chipset also enables support for speedy LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage.

The V40 Pro, however, comes with only UFS 3.1 storage and the available configurations are 8GB/256GB, 12GB/256GB and 12GB/512GB.

Now off to the benchmarks.

As you can see, last year's Dimensity 9200+ holds up pretty well in our benchmarks and trades blows with this year's Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chip and even beats it in some GPU-heavy workloads, like 3DMark's benchmarks. It's also very competitive against the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, running inside the OnePlus 12R.

Sustained performance

The Dimensity 9200+, although powerful, is not the most demanding chip out there when it comes to cooling. The V40 Pro managed to maintain about 80% of the CPU's max performance for the first 20 minutes but then toned down to around 60%.

CPU and GPU throttling tests

The handset didn't handle the GPU throttling test very well, posting 57% stability in 3DMark Wild Life Stress Test after a 20-minute run.