Vivo pushes out X51 5G: Chipper whippersnapper, quite a battery-sapper, but at least the wrapper's dapper First impressions are important, and the X51 5G is Vivo's inaugural device for the crowded European smartphone market. It's a solid early effort, winning points on differentiation alone. The headline feature of this phone is a camera apparatus that includes gimbal-like stabilisation, allowing the user to capture shake-free …
It's a good idea for a review to mention whether the device has a headphone socket or not.
Whether the viewer has a positive, neutral or negative view is of secondary importance after he's given us the information.
Bluetooth isn't the only alternative to a 3.5 mm socket... USB C DACs can offer superior audio quality over most phones, Chromecast Audio offers convenience and better sound quality than Bluetooth.
The main reason the press comments about the traditional headphone jack is that many consumers continue to want a goddamn headphone jack. With regular wired headphones, you don't have to worry about dead batteries or whether the suspiciously-merry Bluetooth fairies have come in the night and decided that (ha-ha!) your Bluetooth headphones will suddenly choose today of all days to refuse to pair, no matter how you threaten or beg, whereas regular headphones are a) cheap, b) ubiquitous, and c) just fucking work, which of course meant the tech industry had to dispense with them so they could jam like fifteen goddamn cameras, facial recognition, and a USB-powered anal probe into your cell phone.
Go on, ask about replaceable batteries next.
Upvote for that. I honestly don't understand why Bluetooth is so unreliable. Different phones, different cars and devices, and there's just no way of predicting whether the thing will pair or need mucking about.
The current favorite is our Fiat 500 which, seven times out of ten, needs NINE keypresses to pair.
That's after leaving the paired phone IN THE PARKED CAR while shopping.
This isn't about moving on, it's about inconvenience. BT earpieces are simply a hassle and the sound quality is always worse than a comparable wired headphone.
Sometimes companies just don't get it. The idea is to make a product that people WANT, not force-feeding customers something they DON'T want.
headphone jack is low battery usage, bog standard headphones are cheap as chips (BT ones, not so much). Partner has insomnia & wears headphones to help get to sleep & stay asleep, playing relaxing music at low volume, Obviously, moving around in bed (asleep is not still!) , takes its toll on headphones as they can get damaged - but at least replacement is cheap. Other key advantage is phone battery easily manages the whole night.
An odd use case - but don't assume there's not lots of people with other "odd\" reasons (e.g. cheap headphones good if you run a lot in UK & music listen as you jog, as rainy climate means headphones tend to get water damage eventually & jack based headphones again cheap to replace & don't kill your battery.
Looking at the X51 specs.... it seems not much has improved from the X50 lite/pro, except for 5G, which I can't get at work or home for the forseeable future. Sounds like the battery life got worse too. Disclaimer: I have the X50 lite and use the headphone jack all the time, for reasons basement dwellers might not be able to comprehend.
I am surprised it doesn't come with Android 11 since Vivo were the first to get a phone out with the newest OS version last month with the V20.
Having newer owned a Vivo phone I don't know what they are like at providing support for a handset after its being released, are they likely to provide an Android 11 update and continue to offer security patches? Or will you be on your own once the phone is replaced by a newer model?
Vivo tries to make up for this by instilling the phone with a relatively generous amount of RAM.
Except the Nord also comes with 8Gb in it's base version, or 12Gb in the pricier one. Ok, only 128Gb of storage on the base object but, if that's not enough, you could buy a large memory card to pad the Nord out (hey, expandable storage!) and still have enough left in the kitty for a meal and drinks for four at a decent restaurant.
OH has a Nord and despite some teething issues solved by firmware updates, it's a great value phone. Easily doing everything a normal phone user needs. It will also take some brilliant photos - in particular she's been very pleased by the colour on some recent pictures of autumn trees.
Honestly I would expect better from the reg. What’s the point of an unqualified statement like “camera is good at videos and low-light images” on a review of an £800 phone? Seriously WTF is the point of that statement without actually testing DXO/lux rating (or at least referring to it), sample low light images, or comparing competitors pics eg Samsung/Huawei/iPhone. Doesn’t even mention the sensor or pixel size. I think a smart 14-year-old could do a better review, and there are many that do. Just go onto YouTube and look at low light camera comparisons between Samsung and iPhone. There are 14-year-olds who scientifically compare Low light images, video, resolution, and discuss sensor and pixel sizes, video stabilization etc. this literally reads like a PR stunt. Matthew Hughes? Come on dude you have a computer science degree! Use it! You code in python for fun! You’re the kind of guy I would have a beer with invite invite to my house. I know you can do better than this. On the plus side “ would be well-suited to producing the kind of career ending Instagram snaps made during a debauched night on the town.” was actually quite funny.
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