Priced at P6,499 the vivo Y02S is an affordable phone
The Y02s is vivo’s latest entry-level smartphone. According to its marketing, a 5000 mAh battery. As well as premium-looking design and construction – all at an affordable price.
Design and construction
The vivo Y02s doesn’t look like a budget phone.
Everything from the boxy shape of the phone. It borrows from the design of more premium phones in its oversized flat side bezels. And the glossy and velvety – not shiny – rear plastic screams ‘premium’.
Looking around the edges of the phone, one finds the volume rocker and power buttons on the right. A single, bottom-firing speaker next to the USB-C charging port. A nice touch for a budget phone, mic hole, 3.5mm audio jack and SIM and SD card slots on top. Tray.
The camera system consists of a single 8MP camera. Which looks like a second lens, but is actually a flash disguised as a secondary camera. A bit of a gimmick on Vivo’s part, but the second camera ring adds a lot to the overall look of the phone.
The back of the phone is made of a soft-touch plastic, again lending to the phone’s very premium finish and feel. And while light in the hand, weighing under 200g. The Y02s feels solidly built, and there’s no noticeable creak during operation.
Display
Vivo Y02s has a 6.51in 720p IPS display. It has decent enough viewing angles, and gets bright enough for both indoor. And outdoor use — save for direct sunlight, maybe. But I find that colors are a bit washed out, making vibrance and saturation. A bit of an issue when using the phone to watch videos.
Software
Vivo Y02s comes pre-installed with Android 12 and Funtouch OS 12 overlay. A surprising addition, since other phones in this price range run some version of Android 10 or 11. Funtouch OS 12 has a nice clean and customizable overlay. This is an overlay that I prefer over others in the SEA market. Yet, it has the same problem that it comes with a pretty large amount of bloatware. That cannot be disabled or uninstalled. Resulting in some storage or performance loss by apps. Something especially noticeable on a budget phone.
Performance
Vivo Y02s comes with Mediatek Helio P35. Its variants have 2 or 3GB of RAM and 32 or 64GB of expandable internal storage. The model I tested was the 3GB-32GB RAM variant.
It has a decent amount of performance for a budget phone, handling basic tasks like social media. Watching videos and switching between a few apps.
Heavy apps, or excessive multitasking, but, will overwhelm the phone rather quickly. Leading to noticeable lag and sluggishness during operation. Even having too many notifications can cause some issues with the phone’s performance. although at this price. Such performance is expected.
Gaming on the Y02s is: heavy games like COD:M. Or Genshin Impact won’t be playable. And light games like Mobile Legends or Arknights, like my example. Can be played on low settings, but with long loading times. And Noticeable lag spikes during heavy moments.
Battery and Networking
The Y02s packs a 5000mAh battery – bigger than some slimmer flagship phones. It lasted me 5 days on standby with about 9 hours of screen-on time. Before I hit below 10 percent, even though I was using. It mostly for social media and watching videos at high brightness.
It’s worth noting that while the phone’s battery life is great. It takes quite a while to reach a full charge using the 10W charger bundled with it. Around three hours from almost empty.
The phone has dual-SIM standby and supports up to 4G LTE and Bluetooth 5.0.
The camera
The Vivo Y02s has a single 8MP rear camera with autofocus and a 5MP selfie camera. Images from the main camera have a surprising amount of detail for a phone at this price, but pale colors. And a lack of HDR result in blurry details in darker parts of images. It has issues with graininess, especially in low-light environments. And the default camera software doesn’t have a dedicated night mode.
The 5MP front camera is better. Producing sharp photos in good lighting and decent ones with internal lighting. Surprisingly, the front camera can sometimes look better than the rear camera. Both cameras are capable of recording 1080p video, but the app has it set to 720p by default.
Conclusion
Overall, the Vivo Y02s is a heavy-hitter in the battery and design department. It punches above its weight class (and price class!) with its design and battery life. It, unfortunately, yet, falls short in terms of performance. If you’re in the market for a cheap phone that will do social media and selfies for you; This could be it. Don’t expect much beyond that.
