Vivo X6 Plus hands-on

You have to give Apple credit for its iPhone designs, it’s just renowned and acclaimed, so it should be no surprise that others will continue to try and replicate it. That plainly comes to life as we managed to get a quick hands-on look at the Vivo X6 Plus at Qualcomm’s booth during our run through the CES 2016 showroom floor. As its name implies, it’s the larger sized option in Vivo’s portfolio, seeing that it complements the Vivo X6, which has similar specs for the most part, but in a smaller package

Design

Right off the bat, the Vivo X6 Plus’ design instantly reminds us of the iPhone 6s Plus’ design – the similarities are uncanny. It almost looks like an exact facsimile, due to its metal body and the same antenna bandings on the back, but we do have to point out that it sports subtle chamfered beveled edges instead of the same completely round edges in Apple’s design. Of course, its larger size makes it a handful to operate comfortably with a single hand, however, its solid feel definitely takes more precedence when we think about its overall design.

Display

Endowed with a 5.7-inch 1080 x 1920 AMOLED screen, it delivers all the qualities of the technology that attract us to it – like its sharpness, vibrant color reproduction, perfect deep black color, and exceptionally wide viewing angles. Under the artificial lighting of the showroom floor, the display appears to have enough of a potent brightness to command attention, but we’re still a bit skeptical about its visibility under direct, natural lighting outdoors. For what we can gather, however, we can’t complain much about it.

Interface

Similar to other Chinese-based phones we came across during the show, the Vivo X6 Plus is running a customized Android 5.0.2 Lollipop experience that’s notable for eliminating the traditional apps panel, and instead, places everything on the homescreen. Naturally, we’re not fans of this particular practice, just because it can make for some clutter if you’re not constantly organizing and rearranging things, but it is what it is. The basics of Android are all present here, so from that point of view, the experience suffices.

Processor and Memory

The reason why it’s featured at Qualcomm’s booth is because it’s powered by the Snapdragon 616 SoC coupled with a beefy 4GB of RAM. Come to think of it, that combination is a bit strange given that 4GB of RAM is rather uncommon for a chipset of that caliber. Nonetheless, the phone manages to move in a responsive manner with basic things, but who knows if it has the guts that’s necessary to run today’s demanding 3D gaming titles.

Being the “Plus,” it’s blessed with an ample 64GB of internal storage, which is greeted with the option for expansion thanks to the microSD card slot it’s packing along for the ride.

Camera

Also, it’s looking to be the kind of thing that’ll come in handy when it comes to snapping all sorts of photos on the fly, since it’s fashioned with a 13-megapixel rear and 8-megapixel front camera combination. Those are some serious numbers, especially from the front-facing snapper, so we have this inkling that selfies are going to be high priority with this one.

Expectations

The Vivo X6 Plus, as well as the standard Vivo X6, are currently available overseas where they can be be fetched for roughly around $410 and $380, respectively. Factoring in the specs, it’s not bad of an offering given that it’s complemented by its premium design, but of course, it’s not really an original one because it looks remarkably similar to the iPhone 6s Plus. This is a trend that’s not necessarily new, but we suppose that it’s something worth looking into if you really desire that iPhone inspired design in an Android smartphone.