Vivo V11 vs Pocophone F1 – Comparison Review

Planning on getting a new midrange handset? We have here the Vivo V11 and the Pocophone F1 which are both under PHP 20,000 and are surely worthy of your money. But the question is: which is better and which midrange handset suits you the best? Let’s find out here.

Design

First is the design of the handsets. The Vivo V11 sports a glass back along with an aluminum frame and curved edges. It measures 157.9 x 75 x 7.9 mm and weighs 156 g. The device was really slim even but can easily be gripped. Similar to other recently released flagships, the smartphone has the infamous notch as well as thin bezels. In terms of its notch, it stood out due to its small size. The rear of the Vivo V11 that we have has the futuristic aesthetics because of its Starry Night design.

The body of the POCOPHONE F1 is a unibody polycarbonate design. The unit we have here is the Graphite Black. If you’re not feeling the black variant of the Poco, there’s also Steel Blue and Rosso Red options.  For some people (like me), a smartphone with a plastic body makes it feel less premium. Well, it may be one of the ways to keep it under PHP 20,000 with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset. As for ergonomics, the handset can be easily operated with one hand.

Overall, the design of the Vivo V11 looks elegant and modern. Unfortunately, some users might not be in favor of the glass rear back since it can be smudged with fingerprints. Going back to the Pocophone, similar to other recently released smartphones, the Poco has the infamous notch, as well as thin bezels. Though its notch is quite larger in size compared to the other newly released notched handsets, it surprisingly doesn’t look irritating at all. And if you’re looking for a more premium built Pocophone F1, you might wanna check the Armored Edition with a Kevlar back.

Display

The Vivo V11 features a 6.41″ Super AMOLED notched display with a resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels and an aspect ratio of 19.5:9. The device’s screen produced vibrant images thanks to its FuntouchOS 4.5. The color also doesn’t change when viewed from different angles. We also tried taking some shots outside and we didn’t have any issues with looking at the screen.

Meanwhile, the Pocophone F1 sports a 6.18-inch Full HD+ edge-to-edge screen with a resolution of 2160 x 1080 pixels and has an 18:8:9 aspect ratio. It has a Corning Gorilla Glass protecting the display. Going to its viewing experience, the device’s screen produced vibrant images. Also, the color doesn’t change when viewed from different angles. We also tried taking some shots outside and we didn’t have any issues with looking at the screen.

In regards to their notches, the one on the V11 can’t be hidden, but the one on the Pocophone can be. Just go to settings then head to full-screen display and choose “hide notch”.

Camera

The Vivo V11 sports a dual 12MP + 5MP rear camera along with a 25MP front snapper.  On the other hand, the Poco features a dual 12MP + 5MP rear camera with Sony IMX363 sensor, For the selfie snapper, it is built with 20MP with Super Pixel technology. In addition, both have AI capabilities.

First, we got here photos taken at our veranda. The shot produced by the Vivo handset looks warmer than it should be. Yes, the photos were taken on a sunny afternoon, but not too sunny like what the Vivo V11 portrayed. Going to the shot on the Poco, it looked more natural and color accurate.

Similar to the previous photos, the Vivo V11 photo leaned on to a warmer tone compared to the natural look of the Pocophone. The backlight hdr feature of the V11 made the photo looked brighter overall and more vibrant. Which photo do you like the most? The post-processed output from the V11 or the color accuracy of the Poco?

The first photo has a higher contrast and saturation level than the Poco’s. The AI technology of the Vivo V11 instantly adjusts the colors and brightness level of the photo and the adjustments made the photo Instagram-worthy without the need of manual post-processing. On the other hand, the shot produced by the Pocophone looks natural in color.

These photos were taken with the portrait mode and surprisingly, both look identical. The bokeh effect on both photos look great and doesn’t look artificial in any way. By focusing on the color differences though, the Pocophone has brighter result than the latter.

Our low-lit shots from the Vivo V11 and the Pocophone F1 differs in many ways. Thanks to the AI Backlight HDR feature on the Vivo, the phone made adjustments to the photo and made it brighter and more vibrant. As for the Poco shot, color accuracy is still on point and details are sharp.

Both handsets can take great selfies, it just depends which selfie camera suits your liking. The Vivo V11 has an AI beautification technology that can slim the subject’s face, has the feature to soften the face and get rid of blemishes, and make the subject’s complexion fair as well without making it look artificial. On the other hand, the selfies from the Poco looked lighter in color yet still looks natural.

Also, both front-facing snappers can take selfies with nice bokeh effect.

Features/User Experience

The key highlight of Pocophone F1 is that it offers a high-end chipset at an affordable price. This redefines the midrange game as it can compete to some of the flagships released this year. The Pocophone F1 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset clocked at 2.8GHz octa-core with Adreno 630 GPU. It has two storage options, you could go for the 64GB internal storage or the more expensive version which is the 128GB variant, both along with a 6GB of RAM.

Switching to the Vivo V11, it is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 along with an Adreno 512 GPU and an octa-core processor clocked up to 2.2 GHz. It came with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The smartphone runs on Android 8.1 Oreo.

We also made sure to test the phones’ gaming performance. The games we played were Asphalt 9, AOV, and PUBG. There weren’t any problems during the gameplays and no lags occurred. The graphics are clear and detailed even in games with heavy graphics. The Vivo V11, however, heated up a little while playing the Asphalt 9 for a long period of time, which didn’t happen on the Poco thanks to its cooling solution. Also, with its top-tier hardware, navigation and loading in-game is seamlessly faster.

Security

In regards to security, the V11 carries a special feature, the in-display fingerprint scanner. It works accurately and scans the finger futuristically when you tap on the fingerprint sensor. Both the Vivo V11 and Pocophone have accurately working face recognition and the Poco with a rear-mounted fingerprint scanner.

Benchmarks

We tested the Vivo V11 and the Pocophone F1 using the following benchmarking tools and here are the results:

Battery

One of the major concerns of the smartphone users is the battery. For the Poco F1, Xiaomi provided a large battery pack of 4000mAh with w/ Quick Charge Technology 3.0. Although charging time still isn’t fast enough even with the QC 3.0, we got about 50% in an hour and 20 minutes of charging.

On the other hand, the Vivo V11 is fueled by a slightly smaller battery pack of 3,400mAh supported by Dual-Engine Fast Charge. It’s not the best battery out there but it’s decent enough that it can last more than a day of light usage. The smartphone also features multiple battery saving modes. Moreover, the device took 1 hour and 22 minutes to charge it from 20% to 100%.

Jumping back to the Poco, despite the average charging time, the Pocophone did well in our battery endurance test. The battery juice lasted a day of web browsing, around 18h of media playback and light gaming.

Audio

The sound produced by Vivo V11 was loud enough even on medium volume. However, it sounded a bit scratchy due to the bass. Overall, as long as the volume is controlled, it provides a clear sound. The audio on its contender is great because of its stereo speakers. It’s one of the reasons why media playbacks and gaming are fun on the Poco. It gives loud and crisp sound but it kind of lacks in the bass department.

Price and Availability

The Vivo V11 is priced at PHP 19,999 and is available in two color variants – Starry Night and Nebula, whereas the Pocophone F1 retails for PHP 17,990 for its 6GB + 64GB variant.

After laying out the difference and similarities of both handsets, and with a PHP 2,000 difference in pricing, which midrange smartphone is for you? Comment down below!