vivo V23 review

Funtouch OS 12 now on top of Android 12

Vivo has been making strides in the software department latterly. As things currently stand, the company already has its "next-gen" OriginOS out and about, but only limited to the Chinese market. Meanwhile, international units still get Funtouch OS, which is now up to version 12. Just because vivo's focus is split between the two custom OS flavors doesn't mean Funtouch is being neglected, though. On the contrary, just recently, Funtouch OS 12 started shipping with the latest Android 12 core underneath. This is what the vanilla V23 and the V23 Pro, and the X70 flagship family of devices are all running.

Generally speaking, you can see some new Android 12 features poke through here and there, like Google's new privacy-focused green notification dot that indicates when the camera or microphone are being used or the increased "bounce back" animations on most UI components. Overall, however, the UI and UX are distinctly custom, which comes courtesy of Funtouch OS 12.

If you had some past experience with Funtouch OS 11 or older, many of its stock-ish-looking UI elements, which were kind of the norm, are gone and have been substituted with a highly customized and customizable UI. Some of the changes are pretty nifty, too, including the system menus being tailored towards a single-handed use. Some of the menus' content moves to the lower half of the screen when you swipe down, but not all, which is odd. Vivo has revamped its default selection of widgets to make them more intuitive and easier to use as well.

Lockscreen • Homescreen • Folder view • Settings menu

The recent apps menu, for example, has one of those useful proprietary features. You can choose between the standard carousel formation and a horizontal tiles layout - sort of like MIUI, only scrollable horizontally.

The app drawer, although stock-ish looking, has an expandable recommended apps category on the top (most commonly used ones), whereas using the vertical scroller on the right would highlight the apps beginning with the selected letter.

Recent apps • Recent apps • Notification shade • Quick toggles • App drawer

The notification shade has been revamped too, in terms of looks mostly - the quick toggles are now square-shaped, and the accent color around the menus (including the quick toggles icons) is blue, and there's no way to change either. Applying different themes would only change the icon pack and wallpaper. At least the theme store is quite rich.

Themes

The rest of the UI gets plenty of love too. In the Dynamic effects sub-menu, vivo has grouped quite a few customizable aspects of the home screen, lock screen, animation effects, etc. There are even various charging and facial recognition animations.

The Ambient light effect gets more granular control with the option to enable it only during a limited time period, or you can choose which apps to trigger it.

Dynamic effects • Ambient light effect

The always-on display settings are in a different sub-menu, however, but the phone still gives you plenty of options to tinker with - a wide selection of animations, clock styles, colors, backgrounds, the lot.

Always-on display

The vivo X70 Pro had a rather annoying issue with its fingerprint reader. There used to be no way to summon the icon on a locked screen unless you triggered the motion sensor. This thankfully appears to be fixed on the V23 pair. Now, waking the display simply brings up the fingerprint reader as well. However, we are still not particularly happy that the double-tap-to-wake function is buried in the Smart motion menu.

The Sound menu holds a few pleasant surprises. Just like Samsung, vivo is paying attention to people with hearing problems, and you can calibrate the sound to be heard by elderly people or those with impaired hearing. Additionally, notifications and calls get separate volume sliders. The vibration intensity can be adjusted for calls and notifications independently. No system-wide eq is available for the loudspeaker, though, which could be both a negative and a positive depending on how you look at it.

Sound options

The previously mentioned Smart motion menu holds a handful of familiar screen-on and screen-off gestures along with some new additions. One of those requires you to wave in front of the screen during an incoming call to answer hands-free - useful if you're cooking, for example.

Smart motion menu

Holding the volume down key can be used to launch an app or do a certain task, although the list of the latter is limited to launching the camera app, turning on/off the torch or starting recording audio. The so-called Quick action feature doesn't work when playing music for obvious reasons. Why isn't there a double-press option for Quick action, though?

Shortcuts and accessibility • Quick action • S-capture • Screen-split • Easy Touch

All of these customizable gestures, actions and additional features are great to have around, but we feel like vivo could have organized them a bit better. As things currently stand, it is hard to find certain options, even when you know for a fact that they exist and consequently, discovering new things is even harder.

Lastly, there's a little something for the gamers. A dedicated Ultra Game Mode is available, and it has it all. Most of the features mitigate disturbance during gameplay or let certain apps display heads-up notifications. One of the most intriguing features that have been around on vivo phones for a while is the ability to turn off the screen and keep the game running in the background. Especially useful for turn-based games or those requiring some sort of "farming" and "grinding".

Ultra Game mode

Interestingly enough, the "Eagle eye" option from the V23 Pro is missing on the regular V23. Since it works by hooking into the graphical pipeline and applying some tweaks to things like contrast and memory handling, we can only assure that it is hardware-dependent, at least to some degree. Vivo probably couldn't or didn't want to spend the effort to make it work on the MediaTek Dimensity 920 chipset.

All things considered, Funtouch OS 12 offers a modern and highly-customizable experience. It also works well and feels snappy on the Dimensity 920 chipset. Vivo even gives you the option the speed up transitions further, which is just another option to add to the myriad of customization available here. If you can appreciate a custom Android experience with all of its specifics and particulars, then you should definitely enjoy this one. However, those who want to use Android as Google intended might not be okay with the colorful iconography and the highly customized system menus and animations.

Synthetic benchmarks

The regular V23 is running a very recent Dimensity 920 chipset. In contrast, the V23 Pro uses the well-established and proven Dimensity 1200 chip.

As we mentioned, this is the first time we are seeing a Dimensity 920 phone at the office. The 6nm chip already managed to impress us nicely in terms of battery efficiency, and we have experienced excellent responsiveness with everyday tasks while using the V23. We are still quite interested in putting the Dimensity 920 through its benchmark paces just to see how well it holds up in raw numbers.

Before we get to that, however, a few words on the specs of the Dimensity 920 are in order. The Dimensity 920 is pretty similar to the Dimensity 1200 and 1100. It is based on the same TSMC N6 process and also uses the same "big" ARM Cortex-A78 cores and "LITTLE" Cortex-A55 ones. The Dimensity 920 has a total of two big CPU cores, clocked at up to 2.5 GHz and six more Cortex-A55 ones, working at up to 2.0 GHz. Compared to the Dimensity 1100 and 1200, which both have four Cortex-A78 performance cores each. That's one difference to consider.

Another major difference is the Mali-G68 GPU cores used inside the Dimensity 920. This is the first time we are encountering these as well. The Dimensity 920 has a total of four GPU cores, clocked at 950 MHz. Our vivo V23 review unit is the higher-tier variant that pairs the chipset with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

Let's kick things off with GeekBench and some pure CPU tests. Rather expectedly, the Dimensity 920 sits around the middle of the pack of diverse devices with varying chipsets we chose out to compare against. Having two instead of four beefy cores understandably puts the Dimensity 920 at a disadvantage compared to the Dimensity 1200, as seen inside the vivo V23 Pro. Particularly in multi-threaded workloads.

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• vivo X60 Pro
  3490
• vivo X70 Pro+
  3469
• vivo V23 Pro
  3021
• vivo X70 Pro
  2956
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  2801
• OnePlus Nord 2
  2792
• Poco X3 Pro
  2574
• vivo V23 5g
  2140
• Realme 8i
  1886
• Realme 8s 5G
  1842
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  1820
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  1797
• Realme 8 5G
  1784
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  1780
• Realme 8
  1690
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  1599
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  1577
• Poco M3
  1398
• Xiaomi Redmi 10
  1294
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1277

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• vivo X70 Pro+
  1106
• vivo X60 Pro
  1034
• vivo X70 Pro
  875
• vivo V23 Pro
  850
• OnePlus Nord 2
  814
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  771
• vivo V23 5g
  739
• Poco X3 Pro
  735
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  636
• Realme 8s 5G
  616
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  597
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  569
• Realme 8 5G
  569
• Realme 8i
  539
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  534
• Realme 8
  533
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  525
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  361
• Xiaomi Redmi 10
  361
• Poco M3
  308

The same logic applies to other chipsets like the Snapdragon 860, 778G and 870, all of which have the Dimensity 920 beat in raw performance. Out of these, the Snapdragon 860 seems to be the closest Snapdragon competitor in terms of overall CPU performance. While the Snapdragon 778G has a clear edge in multi-threaded loads, when it comes to single-threaded tasks, it is also quite close to the Dimensity 920. All the while, the newer MediaTek chip handily beats out the Dimensity 810 and, naturally, the Dimensity 700 series silicon, as well as all the lower-end MediaTek G models. That's a pretty great place to be in if you ask us.

AnTuTu and its more compound benchmarking suite paint a very similar overall picture, this time for the vivo V23 as a whole. That includes testing things like RAM and storage, as well as the GPU. The V23 is clearly holding its own as an excellent mid-range performer.

AnTuTu 8

Higher is better

• vivo X60 Pro
  639612
• vivo V23 Pro
  635060
• Poco F3
  631850
• OnePlus Nord 2
  512164
• Poco X3 Pro
  453223
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  429675
• vivo V23 5g
  406498
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  334981
• Realme 8s 5G
  329661
• Realme 8 5G
  302059
• Realme 8
  298328
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  296721
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  295442
• Realme 8i
  293507
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  261282
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  218788
• Poco M3
  177904
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  174332

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• vivo X70 Pro+
  837833
• vivo X60 Pro
  720352
• vivo V23 Pro
  716766
• vivo X70 Pro
  694499
• OnePlus Nord 2
  598022
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  506432
• vivo V23 5g
  476058
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  386474
• Realme 8s 5G
  383409
• Realme 8 5G
  361505
• Realme 8
  357488
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  353663
• Realme 8i
  308544

The Mali-G68 MC4 GPU is a bit less impressive than the CPU part of the Dimensity 920, but still holds its own. Looking at some off-screen GFXBench runs, since those are not influenced by the device display resolution, it is clear that the Snapdragon 778G with its Adreno 642L and even more so the Snapdragon 860 and its Adreno 640 have the Dimensity 920 handily beat.

GFX Manhattan ES 3.0 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• vivo X70 Pro
  108
• vivo X70 Pro+
  94
• Poco X3 Pro
  93
• vivo V23 Pro
  89
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  69
• vivo V23 5g
  63
• OnePlus Nord 2
  59
• Realme 8
  48
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  39
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  37
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  35
• Realme 8 5G
  35
• Realme 8i
  33
• Realme 8s 5G
  28
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  21
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  21
• Poco M3
  17

GFX Manhattan ES 3.0 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• vivo X70 Pro+
  147
• vivo V23 Pro
  140
• vivo X70 Pro
  129
• OnePlus Nord 2
  123
• Poco X3 Pro
  102
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  77
• vivo V23 5g
  68
• Realme 8
  53
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  43
• Realme 8s 5G
  41
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  40
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  39
• Realme 8 5G
  38
• Realme 8i
  37
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  24
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  24
• Poco M3
  19

To be fair, the delta between these chips shrinks quite a bit as test difficulty ramps up and we move on to the newer OpenGL ES 3.1. This definitely makes sense, since we expect newer chips to get more optimized drivers and consequently make better use of newer renderers.

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• vivo V23 Pro
  45
• vivo X70 Pro
  40
• Poco X3 Pro
  38
• OnePlus Nord 2
  38
• vivo X70 Pro+
  33
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  28
• vivo V23 5g
  22
• Realme 8
  18
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  16
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  16
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  15
• Realme 8s 5G
  14
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  13
• Realme 8 5G
  13
• Realme 8i
  11
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  8.1
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  7.9
• Poco M3
  5.9

GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• vivo X70 Pro+
  66
• vivo V23 Pro
  53
• OnePlus Nord 2
  46
• vivo X70 Pro
  45
• Poco X3 Pro
  45
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  33
• vivo V23 5g
  27
• Realme 8
  20
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  19
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
  19
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  17
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  16
• Realme 8s 5G
  16
• Realme 8 5G
  15
• Realme 8i
  14
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  9.3
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  9.3
• Poco M3
  7.2

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (onscreen)

Higher is better

• vivo V23 Pro
  79
• vivo X70 Pro
  77
• Poco X3 Pro
  67
• vivo X70 Pro+
  58
• OnePlus Nord 2
  57
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  49
• vivo V23 5g
  40
• Realme 8
  29
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  28
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  26
• Realme 8s 5G
  24
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  23
• Realme 8 5G
  22
• Realme 8i
  22
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  15
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  13
• Poco M3
  11

GFX Manhattan ES 3.1 (offscreen 1080p)

Higher is better

• vivo X70 Pro+
  105
• vivo V23 Pro
  91
• vivo X70 Pro
  85
• Poco X3 Pro
  75
• OnePlus Nord 2
  75
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  56
• vivo V23 5g
  45
• Realme 8
  33
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  32
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  29
• Realme 8s 5G
  27
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  26
• Realme 8 5G
  25
• Realme 8i
  24
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  17
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  15
• Poco M3
  13

With mostly the same logic in mind, it is also worth mentioning once again that the V23 is running Android 12, as opposed to some of the other devices on these charts, at the time of their respective reviews. The newer Android in itself likely offers some performance benefit as well.

Speaking of which, with Vulkan as the renderer, the Dimensity 920 can, at times, outpace the Snapdragon 778G, at least as found inside the Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G at the time of its review.

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• vivo V23 Pro
  34
• vivo X70 Pro
  31
• OnePlus Nord 2
  30
• Poco X3 Pro
  26
• vivo X70 Pro+
  25
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  19
• Realme 8
  12
• vivo V23 5g
  11
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  11
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  10
• Realme 8s 5G
  9.7
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  5.6
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  5
• Poco M3
  2.8

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• vivo X70 Pro+
  27
• vivo V23 Pro
  23
• vivo X70 Pro
  21
• OnePlus Nord 2
  21
• Poco X3 Pro
  17
• vivo V23 5g
  16
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  13
• Realme 8
  7.7
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  7.2
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  7
• Realme 8s 5G
  6.2
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  3.7
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  3.3
• Poco M3
  2.8

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• vivo V23 Pro
  32
• vivo X70 Pro
  29
• Poco X3 Pro
  27
• vivo X70 Pro+
  26
• OnePlus Nord 2
  26
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  20
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  11
• Realme 8
  11
• vivo V23 5g
  10
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  10
• Realme 8s 5G
  8.9
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  5.3
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  4.4
• Poco M3
  4.1

GFX Aztek Vulkan High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• vivo X70 Pro+
  29
• vivo V23 Pro
  21
• vivo X70 Pro
  20
• OnePlus Nord 2
  20
• Poco X3 Pro
  18
• vivo V23 5g
  15
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  14
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  7.5
• Realme 8
  7.5
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  7
• Realme 8s 5G
  5.8
• Poco M3
  4.2
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  3.5
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  2.9

3DMark and its Slingshot Extreme test shows mostly the same trend with the vivo V23 scoring quite close to the Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G with Vulkan doing the rendering instead of OpenGL ES.

3DMark SSE ES 3.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  5010
• vivo V23 5g
  4170
• Realme 8
  2610
• Realme 8s 5G
  2567
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  2529
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  1471
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1323
• Poco M3
  1175

3DMark SSE Vulkan 1.0 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  4231
• vivo V23 5g
  4040
• Realme 8
  2639
• Realme 8s 5G
  2439
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  2406
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  1372
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  1371
• Poco M3
  1106

3DMark Wild Life Vulkan 1.1 (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• vivo X70 Pro+
  5332
• vivo V23 Pro
  4713
• OnePlus Nord 2
  4224
• vivo X70 Pro
  4148
• Poco X3 Pro
  3401
• Samsung Galaxy A52s 5G
  2491
• vivo V23 5g
  2315
• Realme 8
  1486
• Poco M4 Pro 5G
  1232
• Realme 8s 5G
  1231
• Samsung Galaxy A52 5G
  1107
• Realme 8 5G
  1104
• Realme 8i
  1102
• Samsung Galaxy A52
  1040
• Samsung Galaxy A32
  686
• Xiaomi Redmi Note 10
  482
• Poco M3
  368

In any case, the Dimensity 920 and its Mali-G68 MC4 GPU offer solid graphical performance better than that on Dimensity 800 and 700 series of chips, as well as the G ones, plus most of the Snapdragon 700 ones and lower.

Since the Dimensity 920 is making its first appearance at the office, we also made sure to run a thermal-throttling test on the vivo V23. The phone itself never got too hot, not even with torture testing. Its big metal frame, naturally, soaked up most of the heat from the internals and did get noticeably warm but never uncomfortable to hold. That speaks well of the thermal design vivo has in place here, as well as the reasonable amount of heat that the Dimensity 920 puts out in general. After a full hour of CPU testing, it still managed to maintain most of its performance with no jarring stutters or sudden drops. Perfect behavior overall!

CPU throttling test

Looking at the overall performance picture of the Dimensity 920 and the vivo V23 it powers, we see a solid, all-around performer. The Dimensity 920 looks like a solid addition to MediaTek's mid-range lineup. It offers a reasonable step down in performance compared to the popular Dimensity 1200 without sacrificing some obvious features like connectivity or DSP. As for the V23 itself, vivo did an excellent job with its latest Funtouch OS 12 and Android 12 combo. It runs well with practically no hiccups.