Gadgetory

the vehicle Excel appears to offer some very nice hardware at a very low price but with so many other affordable smartphones how well does it stand out this is Bailey Stein with Android authority and you're watching our for review of the blue vivo excel the vivo XL is certainly one of Blues flashier options to date with a patterned rear finish of which is gold on our unit well whether you like the look will depend largely on personal taste the glossy plastic rear and flat matte edges combined to create an excellent feel in the hand we did notice that the phone scratched quite easily during our week of use so you should probably consider using a case thankfully blue includes one in the box coming to the right side of the vivo XL you'll find the power and volume buttons both of which are reasonably tactile interestingly blue has switched the multitasking and back not illuminated capacitive keys away from the standard layout a change which seems a bit unnecessary what doesn't seem unnecessary however is the vive excels multicolored notification LED positioned on the top left of the device there's also a 5 megapixel front facing camera the vive excels 5.5 inch 720p AMOLED display looks surprisingly good despite the lower pixel density the average user will likely just focus on the panels quality rather than the displays resolution which boasts very good contrast and punchy saturated colors it's one of the best phone displays in its price category resolution aside right behind the meizu m2 note powered by a mediatek mt6752 octa-core processor the vive Excel offers good performance while also having great power management for the majority of the time the vive excels processor and 2 gigabytes of RAM were able to keep up with our usage with absolutely no trouble at all however there were also times when the phone which is generally feel sluggish most often when opening and switching between many apps at once coupled with the Mali T 7 xx the Vblock cell is able to play virtually all casual games and most graphically intensive games without more than a few framedrops although games will definitely drop frames more frequently than they would on more powerful devices this is still a very respectable GPU for mobile gamers on a tight budget with 802 11 and Wi-Fi GPS and Bluetooth 4.0 the blue vivo XL offers the set of connectivity options you'd expect from a budget smartphone what you may not have expected however is full 4G LTE support on t-mobile and nearly full 4G LTE support on AT&T we were able to test our unit on t-mobile's extended range LTE network aka band 12 an experienced excellent connectivity if you are on AT&T however you may be missing out on 4G LTE coverage in some areas most often far outside of larger cities since the phone lacks band 5 support on a positive note this device is fully unlocked out of the box with dual micro-sim support perhaps surprisingly blue has ditched microUSB for USB type-c with a vivo XL a change which we welcome with open arms although some users may view this as an inconvenience we feel that Blue has made a great decision to recognize the new type C standard the rear speaker on the vivo XL sounds alright although a slight bump in volume and reduction of distortion would have been great to see however it's still about average for the price and does do the job in most situations with a 3150 milliamp-hour swappable battery the vivo XL offers a fairly beefy battery to back it up as expected with the 720p AMOLED display and power efficient processor the via XL is able to offer exceptional battery life on average I was able to use the phone for about 20 hours at a time with 500 of screen on time when I started my day at 6:30 a.m. the other day the vivo XL kept up to me until a little after 4:00 a.m. the next day with nearly 6 hours of screen on time as an added bonus you can easily swap the battery if you'd like to extend that even further in ideal lighting conditions the vivo excels 13 megapixel rear camera with phase detection autofocus offered average picture quality for the price with noticeable aliasing in some images occasional color reproduction errors and poor low-light abilities the camera won't out do many of the cameras found on more expensive devices however images are generally very sharp and detailed offering a respectable amount of dynamic range the vivo excels camera app is easy to use and even offers a professional mode for those wishing to tweak settings like ISO and shutter speed there's also a variety of other modes available for use although the tried and tested normal will work well for most images running a skinned version of android 5.1 lollipop out of the box the vivo Excel software feels very polished and much improved from previous blue smartphones although it does lack some staple stock Android features like an app drawer and latch screen notifications for all apps not just emails and text messages and calls the software overall seems like an improvement in comparison to even devices like the pure XL interestingly the quick toggles have been completely removed from the notification shade in place within an Apple esque control center many of the system UI elements are strong deviations from stock Android which may be disappointing for some enthusiasts we also wanted to note that there are a few third-party pre-installed apps however virtually all of them can be installed as far as software support goes it's difficult to say whether an abbess will receive an update to Android 6.0 marshmallow if you are concerned about receiving software updates this may not be the best option for you you can now purchase the vive excel in either solid gold or midnight blue for 149 at Best Buy and if you're watching this video by January 31st you can take advantage of blues three-day $50 sale effectively making the phone just $99 at that price this phone is an amazing deal for those already considering it you will be limited to 16 gigabytes of internal storage but do keep in mind that you can expand that with a microSD card up to 64 gigabytes the blue vivo XL is an excellent option for US buyers looking for a cheap unlocked dual SIM device although it does have a lower resolution 720p display allowin processor and a mediocre camera the vivo XL is still an excellent option especially for the price with its AMOLED display 4G LTE support and excellent battery life there are definitely great reasons to buy this phone you may also want to consider the blue vivo 5 which will be slightly more expensive but with better specifications the vivo 5 won't be released until late February however so be sure to stay tuned to android authority for crystals full review of this device thank you for watching this video and please make sure to give it a thumbs up below if you did enjoy it also please make sure to subscribe to the channel if you'd like to see more content finally be sure to visit the Android Authority website for additional coverage is we are your source for all things Android