A flagship phone is amazing; top of the line specs and all in all the best smartphones any company could offer. But sadly, flagships aren’t accessible to everyone unless and until you’re willing to survive on a single kidney for the rest of your lives. Jokes apart, it’s the mid-range segment of smartphones that hits the sweet spot between price and performance and is easily accessible to most of us.
And this happens to be one of the reasons why the mid-range smartphones are a cluttered mess that gives us one hell of a task to get the bang for our buck. Since motorized pop-up cameras have been trending lately, let’s dig deeper into this mess and help you pick up the right one between the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 and the Vivo V15.
Build and Display
A 6.59-inch IPS LCD panel on the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 versus a 6.53-inch IPS LCD panel on the Vivo V15 doesn’t seem like much of a difference and it’s true but what’s interesting is how these screens compare. Both displays are good with decent colors and ample brightness but when it comes to outdoor visibility, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 definitely takes the lead.
However, when it comes to build quality, sadly there are some corners cut with plastic backs on both phones but regardless both do feel sturdy and have a significant amount of weight to assure substantial grip with the Y9 Prime 2019 weighing in at 198.6 gram and the Vivo V15 at 189.4 gram. The buttons on both phones are clicky and tactile and with notch-less design ensuring no obstruction between your eyes and the display; both of them are phenomenal beauties to look at when it comes to content consumption.
In spite of being plastic back phones hosting fingerprint scanners, they offer some interesting color variants and both of them look gorgeous in person. With Emerald Green, Midnight Black and Sapphire Blue as color options on the Y9 Prime 2019 and Topaz Blue, Glamour Red, Frozen Black, Royal Blue on the Vivo V15 both are head turners for sure. But as mentioned earlier, Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 with its better outdoor visibility slightly has an edge over the former.
Software
Different manufacturers and different skins, it’s a subjective choice that depends on your personal taste. Personally, EMUI 9.1 on the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 is what I’d pick over the Funtouch 9 on the Vivo V15 any day, as not only the EMUI is cleaner looking and polished on the former but also brings some added functionalities on to the table. Regardless, both of these skins are built on top of Android 9.0 Pie and the UIs on both the phones are fast and responsive.
Performance
When it comes to performance, the differences are defined a little due to the processors that these devices run on. The Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 running on the HiSilicon Kirin 710F SoC wins the battle of performance over the Vivo V15 running on the MediaTek Helio P70 SoC. Don’t get me wrong, both handsets are pretty good performers, it’s just that the Y9 Prime 2019 manages to run lag-free for the most part even when pushed to the limits of its cores.
Similarly, gaming is not an issue and you can play highly demanding games and apps that are available on Play Store and both phones will have no problem running it whatsoever. But when it comes to holding the peak performance, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 never fails to deliver a better experience in general.
Camera
Gone are the days of a single camera and even notches it seems, as these futuristic-looking devices pack in some great camera lenses at this price point. Both phones have triple camera arrays to their backs with the Y9 Prime 2019 comprising of a 16MP, f/1.8, (wide) primary sensor coupled with 8MP ultrawide sensor and a 2MP, f/2.4 dedicated depth sensor compared to 24MP, f/1.8 primary (wide), 8MP, f/2.2, (ultrawide) and a dedicated 5MP depth sensor on that of the Vivo V15.
The results are shockingly similar when it comes to the daylight shots via primary sensors on both phones but the Vivo V15’s 24MP captures more details. And if pixel peeping is your thing, you’ll love it on this thing for sure. For ultrawide lenses as well, the story is similar and it’s safe to say that both of these cameras stack up quite well against each other with nice images but with a little less clarity and a halo effect every now and then which is more evident on the Vivo V15. When it comes to portrait shots, the Y9 Prime 2019 takes the cake with better edge detection by a very thin margin.
To the video front, the mid-range SoCs on both the phones are capped to record videos in 1080p at 30fps but clarity wise, the Y9 Prime 2019’s videos are little sharper and slightly more detailed.
When it comes to front cameras, the extra megapixels on the Vivo V15’s motorized pop-up camera popping up 32MP f/2.0 lens lose it to the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019’s 16MP f/2.0 sensor. The selfies on both the phones are well detailed but the beauty algorithm on the Huawei is better than the Vivo V15. Not only that, but the Y9 Prime 2019’s camera is wider than the field-of-view offered by the Vivo V15 which means, the Y9 Prime is capable enough for you to capture those fun moments with your pals together without any selfie sticks.
TL;DR, the Y9 Prime 2019 wins it for better manual mode, interesting camera modes, better selfies, and a better night mode. But the Vivo V15 gets it right on the clarity of images.
Battery
Both devices are powered by 4,000mAh batteries inside and will easily last you through an entire day of moderate to heavy usage. The charging mechanism is different though. Even though both devices support fast charging, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 charges via more futuristic USB-C version 2.0, while the Vivo V15 sticks to the traditional microUSB for charging. Not just that, the Y9 Prime 2019 takes less amount of time for charging than the Vivo V15. Hence, the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 wins yet again.
Verdict
The price is what makes the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 win this battle single-handedly. Not only the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 is priced lower at NRs. 29,900 over NRs. 41,990 price tag of Vivo V15 but it’s a well-rounded phone in general. It’s a significant margin but with brands getting more customer conscious, does the Vivo V15’s pricing seem viable to you?
Do let us know your opinion and your pick. And for better clarity on which phone is worth your organ, stay tuned to E-Nepsters.
