A more durable phone with appealing design.

When experiencing the vivo S18 Pro at the end of last year, I was thinking that if the next generation of the vivo S series could provide stronger battery life or make a leap in imaging while maintaining a sleek body, it might capture the hearts of more consumers.

After six months, vivo finally brought the small iteration of the S series - the vivo S19 series. This generation consists of two models, the S19 and S19 Pro. I had the opportunity to experience these two new phones before the launch event. According to official claims, the S19 series not only made a significant breakthrough in battery life but also adopted the same flagship imaging algorithm, essentially making up for all the regrets of the previous generation.

(Image Source: Leitech Photography)

The vivo S19 starts at 2499 yuan, while the S19 Pro starts at 3299 yuan. With such pricing, what advantages does this generation of the S series offer? Don't worry, let me tell you slowly.

Design: The Trend of Straight Screens Has Reached vivo

The biggest change in the vivo S19 is the adoption of a straight-screen design, paired with a metal-textured right-angle frame, giving it a "small X100S" feel. The S19 Pro, on the other hand, retains the curved screen design. Thanks to the inwardly tapered frame design of the front and back glass, it offers a more comfortable grip.

The debate between straight screens and curved screens has existed for many years, and nowadays, brands tend to adopt a "I want both" approach. For example, the iQOO 12 series released at the end of last year and the recently launched vivo X100S series are similar solutions.

(Image Source: Leitech Photography)

Specifically, the vivo S19 series is equipped with a 6.78-inch 1.5K resolution OLED screen, supporting a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. The peak brightness has also increased by 60.7% compared to the previous generation, reaching 4500 nits. This increase in peak brightness can significantly improve outdoor visibility, and at the same time, vivo's newly introduced HDR photos can also benefit from the excellent visual experience brought by high brightness.

When experiencing the S18 Pro, I praised its overall design, with its unique "Water Mirror Cloud Window" Deco design, which is quite distinctive in the entire phone market. This generation has undergone a complete overhaul of the back design. A large lens Deco is placed in the upper left corner of the backplate, extending to another circular arc area outside the lens group, where a ring flash and ambient light sensor are designed.

Interestingly, the positions of the flash and ambient light sensor on the S19 and S19 Pro are exactly opposite, which is almost the only difference in the back design of the two models.

(Image Source: Leitech Photography)

In terms of color options, the two S19 series phones I experienced are both "Misty Green," a bright white color with an overall ceramic texture. On top of that, it is "carved" with ancient and elegant patterns resembling blue-and-white porcelain. vivo officially calls it "the endurable Jiangnan misty rain painting scroll," indeed embodying a touch of Eastern aesthetics.

Apart from Misty Green, the S19 exclusively comes in Peach Blossom Fan and Pine Smoke Ink, while the S19 Pro exclusively offers Thousand Mountain Jade and Sword Shadow Grey. It has to be said that the exclusive color options of the two models each have their unique charm, which may not be so friendly for those with choice difficulties.

The vivo S19 series continues the aesthetic design of previous generations, with elegant Eastern aesthetics adding a touch of uniqueness. As for the lens Deco design, although vivo calls it the "Sunrise Cloud Step" design and has attached a jewel-grade cutting process, compared to the previous generation's restrained style, this generation is slightly more flamboyant. While the recognition is high, whether it looks good or not is a matter of personal opinion.

Excellent Battery Life, Performance Remains Unchanged

There are two obvious trends in the mid-range phone market this year. One is the "enduring" user experience brought by a sleek body and a large-capacity battery, and the other is to strengthen the body structure and optimize the screen's impact resistance, making the phone sufficiently durable. Unexpectedly, the traditionally "idol-like" vivo S series also plans to compete in this field with other manufacturers.

The S19 is equipped with a 6000mAh ultra-large capacity battery and uses the same second-generation silicon-carbon anode battery as the vivo X Fold3, which offers higher energy density, a thinner and lighter battery, and more stable performance under extremely cold conditions. The S19 Pro is relatively more moderate, with a built-in 5500mAh battery. The entire S19 series supports 80W fast charging but does not support wireless charging.

Considering that the thickness of the S19 is only 7.19mm and its weight is only 193g, this design of a large-capacity battery and a sleek body is quite impressive.

(Image Source: Leitech Photography)

In actual testing, we chose a three-hour test model that is closer to users' daily usage habits, with one hour each of gaming, 4K video playback, and social platform browsing as the test benchmarks. The final results showed that the vivo S19 had a comprehensive remaining battery life of 71%, while the S19 Pro had a remaining battery life of 66%.

(Image Source: Leitech Graphics)

Due to the S19's built-in 6000mAh large-capacity battery, it performs quite well in high-power consumption scenarios such as gaming and video playback. In games like "Honor of Kings" and "League of Legends: Wild Rift," which are not too demanding and have balanced optimization, it can maintain appropriate power consumption. As for the S19 Pro, its battery life performance is more in line with the mainstream, and its power consumption performance is still good when browsing social platforms.

Of course, the S19 and S19 Pro are equipped with two different mobile platforms, the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 and the Dimensity 9200+, respectively. Therefore, the differences in battery life between the two are also affected by many different factors. In terms of gaming performance, the S19 Pro, equipped with the Dimensity 9200+ mobile platform, obviously has more advantages, even maintaining good smoothness in high-pressure mobile games like "Genshin Impact," although its heat control is relatively average.

(Image Source: Leitech Photography)

The Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 mobile platform chosen by the vivo S19 is also a familiar friend to us. Many mid-range models have chosen this chip this year. Although its extreme performance is still difficult to compare with high-performance chips like the Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3 and 8s Gen 3, its daily smoothness is still satisfactory. If you have higher performance requirements, then the S19 Pro may be more suitable.

The Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 adopts TSMC's 4nm process technology and consists of 4 large cores and 4 small cores. One of the large cores has a clock speed of 2.63GHz, and the overall performance is about 15% higher than the previous generation. The vivo S19 scored 946,756 points on AnTuTu, and 1227 on GeekBench 6 for single-core and 3516 for multi-core, which belongs to the mainstream level of mid-range models.

The Pro version continues to use the previous generation's Dimensity 9200+ mobile platform. As a previous flagship chip, there is no need to worry too much about its performance. In actual testing, the S19 Pro scored around 1.62 million points on AnTuTu, and 2127 on GeekBench 6 for single-core and 5595 for multi-core. In addition, due to the very sleek body of the S19 Pro, its thermal conductivity efficiency is still relatively high under extreme performance demands.

(Image Source: Leitech Graphics)

In terms of charging, the entire S19 series comes standard with 80W fast charging. For the S19 Pro with a not-too-large battery, this is manageable, but the S19 with its 6000mAh battery is a bit more troublesome. In actual testing, it takes about 1 hour for the S19 to charge from 0% to 100%, while the S19 Pro takes around 45 minutes, which is quite a significant difference.

From a usage experience perspective, the two models of the S19 series can only be described as having trade-offs. The Pro version has stronger performance but average battery life, while the standard version has moderate performance but excellent battery life. Even though there is no significant difference in daily usage smoothness, the Pro version excels in gaming smoothness and frame rate stability, which may be more suitable for the needs of most consumers. If gaming is not within your daily usage needs, then the ultra-long-lasting and sleek S19 would be a good choice.

Flagship-level Imaging Algorithm, Does It Equal the Same Experience?

The vivo S series has always been an "outsider" in mobile imaging. On the one hand, compared to flagship models, the S series places more emphasis on portrait and telephoto performance, with relatively weak long-range performance. On the other hand, since the inception of the S series, it has had a special fondness for flashlights, and light-sensitive portraits have become the main direction of the S series in mobile imaging.

(Image Source: Leitech Photography)

The previous generation S18 series' rear lens Deco with a large ring flash once surprised me, with its high illumination and concentrated light source, indeed able to create a unique portrait photography style. The S19 series, however, replaces the well-received large-size flash of the previous generation with a mainstream circular flash. So, is its performance in imaging a step forward or backward?

The vivo S19 series inherits the flagship-level imaging algorithm of the X series. In terms of hardware, the S19's main camera uses a Samsung GNJ sensor, with 50 megapixels, 1/1.56-inch size, and supports OIS optical image stabilization. The S19 Pro's main camera is the IMX921 sensor, jointly launched by vivo and Sony, also with 50 megapixels and 1/1.56-inch size. The most significant difference in hardware between the two models lies in the telephoto lens. The vivo S19 Pro features an IMX816 1/2.93-inch 2x lens that supports high-pixel cropping for 4x zoom.

(Image Source: Leitech Photography)

In high-light daytime scenes, there is almost no difference in the overall imaging of the vivo S19 and S19 Pro. However, perhaps due to the stronger performance of the latter, it does not need to wait for algorithm processing in most complex scenes and has a faster output speed. Of course, after the algorithm intervention, the photo styles presented by the two models are almost identical.

(Image Source: Leitech Photography)

At 50mm telephoto, the S19 relies solely on algorithm cropping, and its imaging quality is slightly inferior to the S19 Pro, which has an optical lens. However, there is no significant difference between the two in daytime scenes, and vivo's Blue Map imaging technology does have something to offer. Switching to higher magnification, such as 85mm, the S19 Pro can still rely on its 50mm optical lens for digital zoom, but the S19 struggles.

At night, the gap between the two models remains similar to that of daytime performance: the more powerful S19 Pro can quickly capture images in most casual shooting scenarios, while the S19 needs to wait a bit longer. Additionally, the S19 Pro's telephoto lens can also achieve decent clarity in low-light environments, which is surprising.

(Image Source: Leitech Photography)

As for the S19 series' biggest highlight - the studio-grade soft light ring, I believe it can indeed create better lighting conditions at night, assist in imaging, or capture "atmospheric portraits." However, using this soft light effectively is not an easy task, especially in terms of the angle, range, and position of the lighting.

(Image Source: Leitech Photography)

Thanks to inheriting the flagship-level algorithm from the X series, the comprehensive photography level of the S19 series is quite good. vivo's consistent "aggressive algorithm" also ensures high-quality images, regardless of the shooting conditions. The cropping algorithm of the S19 Pro is quite mature, and it is unnecessary to use a 2x physical lens to meet the 50mm telephoto needs. If a 75mm focal length telephoto lens could be directly used, it would likely be more practical.

What Kind of Phone Is the vivo S19 Series?

The S series has always been known as a "beautiful vase" to the general public. Although it has an attractive design and excellent hand feel, it is still inferior to the X series in terms of practicality. However, the S19 series can be seen as vivo's attempt to break this inherent impression and start to complement its peripheral configurations to make it more practical.

The vivo S19's advantages lie in its straight screen, large battery, and sleek body design. For straight-screen enthusiasts, it may be one of the few choices among current mainstream models. However, its shortcomings are also apparent, lacking dual speakers and a 2x optical lens, and the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3 struggles