vivo V5 Plus review: iPhone impersonator, bokeh king

Synthetic benchmarks

The vivo V5 Plus is powered by none other than the Snapdragon 625 chipset - probably our favorite recent midrange SoC. The reason why we speak so highly of it is already clear - go back to the battery life section. Efficiency is the 14nm chip's greatest merit though, and we know not to expect miracles in the performance department.

Kicking off with a little GeekBench-ing it's peculiar to see almost the entire bunch of S625s post scores within 3 points of each other in the single-core test. Only the Moto Z Play is somewhat behind, to the tune of 6%, which is largely irrelevant. What is relevant is just how much more powerful one Cortex-A72 core is over its little Cortex-A53 bro - compare the scores of the Xiaomi Redmi Pro and Redmi Note 4 (both here in Mediatek Helio X20 flavor) to the S625s.

Of course, a Kryo core is even snappier - representing team Snapdragon 821 we have the Mi 5s Plus and the OnePlus 3T. It's unfair, you say? Not really - with a practically identical price tag to the V5 Plus, the 3T has every right to be here, and the Mi 5s Plus could even be had for less.

GeekBench 4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 3T
  1890
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  1815
• Xiaomi Redmi Pro
  1551
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  1546
• vivo V5 Plus
  846
• Oppo R9s
  845
• Huawei nova plus
  843
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  843
• Huawei Honor 6X
  801
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  795
• Lenovo Moto M
  771

What was a marginal difference in the single-core test for the Moto Z Play, gets more substantial in multi-core - it's now trailing the average Snapdragon 625 by more than 15%. The V5 Plus, Oppo R9s and Huawei nova plus are on par, but the Zenfone 3 ZE552KL goes way beyond expectations. The Helio X20 and Snapdragon 821 do have a comfortable advantage here as well, just not the 2:1 ratio we see in single-core.

GeekBench 4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  4456
• OnePlus 3T
  4364
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  4333
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  4053
• Xiaomi Redmi Pro
  3885
• Huawei Honor 6X
  3351
• vivo V5 Plus
  3136
• Oppo R9s
  3130
• Huawei nova plus
  3100
• Lenovo Moto M
  2921
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  2621

Throw RAM and storage performance in the mix, as well as some web browsing and graphics and you've got yourself Basemark OS II 2.0. This composite benchmark reveals more differences in the phones' fine tuning. The vivo V5 Plus and Oppo R9s perform similarly, slightly better than the Moto Z Play. Both of them, however, fail to keep up with the nova plus or the Galaxy C7. Even the Honor 6X with its Kirin 655 pulls ahead of the V5 Plus' S625. By now it's gotten clear that the Helio X20 and Snapdragon 821 will be topping these charts, this one included.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• OnePlus 3T
  2678
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  2434
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  1728
• Xiaomi Redmi Pro
  1696
• Huawei Honor 6X
  1309
• Samsung Galaxy C7
  1222
• Huawei nova plus
  1215
• vivo V5 Plus
  1107
• Oppo R9s
  1091
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  1031
• Oppo F1s
  269

No benchmark comparison would be complete without at least a handful of Antutu scores, and here's a dozen. It's not difficult to sum up the results - tightly spaced Snapdragon 625s, significantly higher-scoring Helio X20s, and Snapdragon 821s that are really in a different league.

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• OnePlus 3T
  165097
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  155185
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  85162
• Xiaomi Redmi Pro
  77442
• Oppo R9s
  66081
• Huawei nova plus
  64680
• vivo V5 Plus
  63812
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  63358
• Samsung Galaxy C7
  62818
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  62217
• Huawei Honor 6X
  57012
• Lenovo Moto M
  51831
• Oppo F1s
  30657

Moving on to graphics-only benchmarks, the Basemark X figures won't surprise you, if you've been reading along. There is zero meaningful difference between S625s (Adreno 506 GPU), the Helio X20's Mali-T880 MP4 graphics processor packs a little more punch, while the Adreno 530 sets the reference - it is the current Qualcomm flagship-grade GPU, after all. The Mali-T830MP2 that ticks inside the Honor 6X can only do so much, while the Moto M's Mali-T860MP2 performs even less impressively.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• OnePlus 3T
  36958
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  36062
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  13666
• Xiaomi Redmi Pro
  12190
• vivo V5 Plus
  10542
• Huawei nova plus
  10524
• Oppo R9s
  10519
• Samsung Galaxy C7
  10445
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  10401
• Huawei Honor 6X
  8458
• Lenovo Moto M
  6732
• Oppo F1s
  419

We're struggling to find new words to express the same thing once more, this time for the GFXBench fps scores. Here are the numbers and don't call us lazy, but do read the last paragraph for commentary (replace 'Basemark X' with 'GFXBench', of course).

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 3T
  49
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  44
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  15
• Xiaomi Redmi Pro
  15
• Oppo R9s
  10
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  9.9
• vivo V5 Plus
  9.9
• Huawei nova plus
  9.9
• Samsung Galaxy C7
  9.8
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  9.8
• Huawei Honor 6X
  8.4
• Lenovo Moto M
  7.1
• Oppo F1s
  5.1

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 3T
  48
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  47
• Xiaomi Redmi Pro
  15
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  15
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  10
• Huawei nova plus
  10
• Oppo F1s
  10
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  9.7
• Oppo R9s
  9.7
• vivo V5 Plus
  9.7
• Samsung Galaxy C7
  9.6
• Huawei Honor 6X
  7.9
• Lenovo Moto M
  7.6

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 3T
  33
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  30
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  9.5
• Xiaomi Redmi Pro
  9.5
• Oppo R9s
  6.2
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  6.2
• vivo V5 Plus
  6.2
• Samsung Galaxy C7
  6.2
• Huawei nova plus
  6.2
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  6.2
• Huawei Honor 6X
  4.8
• Lenovo Moto M
  4.7
• Oppo F1s
  2.4

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 3T
  33
• Xiaomi Mi 5s Plus
  32
• Xiaomi Redmi Pro
  9.5
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 4
  9.4
• Motorola Moto Z Play
  6.7
• Huawei nova plus
  6.6
• Asus Zenfone 3 ZE552KL
  6.1
• Samsung Galaxy C7
  6.1
• Oppo R9s
  6.1
• vivo V5 Plus
  6.1
• Oppo F1s
  6
• Lenovo Moto M
  5.2
• Huawei Honor 6X
  4.6

To wrap up the performance section, let's just say that you won't be getting the vivo V5 Plus for its oomph. That said, it delivers a balanced performance you'd expect from a midranger, and does so without killing your battery mid-day.