vivo V27 Pro review

Design, build quality, handling

The vivo V27 Pro is a great-looking smartphone with a neat hidden feature - a color shifting back panel. It's a dual-glass handset with a plastic frame, just like the V25 and V23 models, and has a notably thin and lightweight body.

Both sides of the V27 Pro a curved towards the longer edges, which makes for a premium-looking curved shape, but also ruins the grip of the phone. The frame is made of plastic with a glossy finish, flat around the top and bottom sides, and super thin across the left and right.

The rear glass appears to use a less saturated light blue (called Magic Blue) than on the V25 Pro, but it's still a color-shifting one and the whole thing is fingerprint-resistant thanks to the special matt finish. The V27 Pro is also available in Noble Black, which has no such effect.

If you are new to the series and the whole color-changing aspect, let us explain a bit. The paint reacts to UV light and the hue becomes darker. You can cast shadows with some objects and thus "paint" them on the back for a while.

The best way to play with this cool panel is under direct sunlight, otherwise you will need a UV flashlight to reach the deep blue color. It's a nice trick and this reviewer has played for a couple of days with the panel and its effects, but we have to admit - it wears off rather quickly.

We have no information on the protective glass on top of the screen - vivo usually uses Schott Xensation for its models, so it could be that one again.

We already talked about the back, but we want to praise the new camera housing. Sure, it's unnecessarily larger once again, but it's made of brushed metal and is rather no-nonsense - three cameras and a ring dual-LED flash.

There is no official ingress protection rating for the vivo V27 Pro and that's a pity. The phone seems to have seals where it's most vulnerable, but we would surely keep it away from water, just in case.

Now, let's take a closer look at the vivo V27 Pro.

The new 6.78-inch AMOLED panel occupies the entire front part and it has evenly thin bezels. The screen is of extended 1080p resolution, and it supports 120Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ content.

The 50MP selfie camera is responsible for the small perforation that's centered around the top. Vivo often offers good selfie quality and we are hopeful for the one on the V27 Pro, too.

Above the front camera, almost invisible, is the earpiece. It's so thin that we had to use a flashlight to make sure it's there. Unfortunately, it does not double as a speaker.

The vivo V27 Pro has an under-display optical fingerprint reader - it is quite fast and accurate, and you can use it even as quick access via some clever software UI.

The back is quite clean looking. The color-changing part has a lone vivo logo. The metal housing envelops the 50MP OIS primary, the 8MP ultrawide and the 2MP macro cameras. There is also a dual-LED flash with a ring shape.

The vivo V27 Pro wobbles a bit when used on a flat desk as its camera housing is jutting out of the back. But it's not as annoying as on some flagships and can be avoided if you decide on using the bundled case.

The left part of the phone has an incredibly thin frame and no controls or features.

The right of the vivo V27 Pro has the volume and power/lock keys.

There is a lonely microphone at the top.

The bottom of the vivo V27 Pro houses the dual-SIM slot, the primary microphone, the USB-C port and the only speaker behind a dotted grille.

The vivo V27 Pro measures 164.1 x 74.8 x 7.4 mm and weighs 182g - that's 5mm taller and 1mm thinner than the vivo V25 Pro and also 8g lighter.

The vivo V27 Pro is a beautiful smartphone with a likable design and shape. With or without the color-shifting effect, we are fond of the Magic Blue option and we think it is suitable for any occasion.

The phone is well-built, but the grip is non-existent, so a case is sort of a must. We would have liked some basic ingress protection and maybe a slightly thicker frame, but even as is, we still liked our time spent with the vivo V27 Pro. It's a bit of a tall phone, so some finger gymnastics do happen occasionally if you prefer using the phone with just one hand.