Priced at P6,499 the vivo Y02S is an affordable phone
that feels thrice its price
The Y02s is the latest entry-level smartphone from vivo. It boasts, according to its marketing, a 5000 mAh battery, as well as premium-looking design and construction — all at an affordable price.
Design and construction
The vivo Y02s doesn’t look like a budget phone.
Everything from the phone’s boxy shape; which it borrowed from the designs of more premium phones to its largely flat side bezels, and the glittery and velvety — not glossy — plastic on the back screams ‘premium’.
Looking around the edges of the phone, one would find the volume rocker and power buttons on the right-hand side, a single, bottom-firing speaker next to the USB-C charging port — a nice touch for a budget phone, the mic hole, the 3.5mm audio jack, and the sim and SD card tray atop.
The camera system consists of a single 8MP camera, next to what looks like a second lens, but is actually the flash disguised as a secondary camera. A little trickery on Vivo’s part, but the second camera ring adds a lot to the overall look of the phone.
The back of the phone is made of a soft-touch plastic, lending once again to the very premium finish and feel of the phone, and while light in the hand, weighing in at a little under 200g, the Y02s feels sturdily-built, and doesn’t have any noticeable creaks during operation.
Display
The Vivo Y02s has a 6.51in 720p IPS display. It has decent enough viewing angles, and gets bright enough for usage both indoors and outdoors — save for under direct sunlight, maybe. But I find that the colors are a bit washed out, making vibrance and saturation a bit of an issue when it comes to using the phone to watch videos.
Software
The Vivo Y02s comes preinstalled with Android 12 and the Funtouch OS 12 overlay. A surprising addition, as other phones within this price range tend to run some version of Android 10 or 11. Funtouch OS 12 is a pretty clean and customizable overlay; it’s an overlay that I prefer over others in the SEA market. It does, however, have the same pitfall in that it comes with a pretty sizable amount of bloatware that can’t be disabled or uninstalled, leading to some storage or performance being eaten up by the apps. Something especially noticeable on a budget phone.
WATCH OUR VERY FIRST TECH REVIEW ON YOUTUBE
Performance
The Vivo Y02s comes with the Mediatek Helio P35, with variants having 2 or 3GB of RAM and 32 or 64GB of expandable internal storage. The model I tested was the 3GB-32GB RAM variant.
It has a decent amount of performance for a budget phone, handling basic tasks like social media, watching videos, and switching between a few apps fine.
Heavier apps, or too much multitasking, however, will overwhelm the phone rather quickly, leading to noticeable lag and slowdowns during operation. Even having too many notifications could cause a few hiccups with the performance of the phone, although, at this price, this sort of performance is to be expected.
Gaming on the Y02s is what it is: heavy games such as COD:M, or Genshin Impact won’t be playable, and lighter games such as Mobile Legends or Arknights, as my example are playable at lower settings, but with long loading times, and noticeable lag spikes during heavy moments.
Battery and networking
The Y02s packs 5000mAh battery — that’s larger than some slimmer flagship phones. It lasted me a whopping 5 days of standby, with almost 9 hours of screen-on time before I hit below 10 percent, though I was using it mostly for social media and watching videos at high brightness.
It’s worth noting that while the phone has a pretty sizable battery life, it does take a considerable amount of time — almost three hours from near empty — to reach full charge using the 10W charger it comes bundled with.
The phone has dual-SIM standby and supports up to 4G LTE, and Bluetooth 5.0.
Camera
The Vivo Y02s has a single 8MP rear camera with autofocus, and a 5MP selfie camera. Pictures from the main camera have a surprising amount of detail for a phone at this price, but suffer from pale colors and lack of HDR, leading to murky details in darker parts of images. It has issues with graininess, as well, especially in low light environments, and the default camera software doesn’t have a dedicated night mode.
The 5MP front camera fairs better, producing sharp photos in good lighting, and respectable ones with indoor lighting. Surprisingly, the front camera can sometimes end up looking better than the rear camera. Both cameras are capable of recording 1080p video, but the app has it set to 720p by default.
Conclusion
Overall, the Vivo Y02s is a heavy-hitter in the battery and design departments. It punches well above its weight class (and price class!) with its design and battery life. It does, unfortunately, however, fall short on the performance aspect. If you’re in the market for a cheap phone that’ll get social media and selfies done for you; this may be it. Just don’t expect too much more outside of that.
