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Vivo V11 is unique: Low cost, hype features

By Chris Burns/

The Vivo V11 was revealed this week with a new sort of notch on its face and an in-display fingerprint sensor. It has a full-screen display and looks, by all accounts, to be a high-priced piece of hardware. But it's not. It's released by Vivo, a company that's a very close relative to two other companies with the same parent: OPPO and OnePlus.*

Vivo V11

The Vivo V11 is set to be available for $366 to $440 (or thereabouts) depending on your region. For that amount of cash, the phone delivers a 6.41-inch super AMOLED display at 2340 x 1080 pixel resolution (Full HD+) Super AMOLED with the same sort of notch as comes correct in the Oppo F9. Almost as if they were made by the same company.*

There's also a Vivo V11 Pro set to come to India with one very strange difference. The "Pro" version of the V11 has less internal storage than the V11 non-pro. But, you know, Pro doesn't really mean what it used to mean. Remember when "Pro" used to mean more powerful and "comes with all the ports you could want?"



This phone comes with a micro-USB port for power and data transfer, and there's no NFC onboard. There's an in-display fingerprint scanner here, though, just in case you were tired of scanning your finger on the backs of smartphones. There's a 25-MP front-facing camera on this machine, too.



The Vivo V11 also has dual-engine fast charging, which means it's running with two separate lithium ion batteries. Each of the two batteries charges up on its own, which apparently makes charging go faster. Cross your fingers it's true. Also, Oppo R17 Pro has the same technology under the hood. The V11 comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660AIE SoC, as well.

BBK is who?

*India is essentially being inundated by phones from the hardware company BBK Electronics. This company's used Android like a knife, carving up India's burgeoning smartphone market like a newly risen loaf of bread. In this analogy it actually makes more sense for BBK to be the hand that holds the knife, while the knife is actually multiple knives, namely OPPO, OnePlus, and Vivo.

All three companies are owned by BBK Electronics, a company who, in the first quarter of 2017, became the 2nd-largest shipper of smartphones in the world, just behind Samsung, according to a Gartner study. They beat Huawei, they beat Apple, they beat everyone else except Samsung.

In September of 2017, BBK Electronics took over the first-place spot in smartphone sales in India. Cyber Media Research reported on the 2nd quarter of the year, suggesting that the combined strength of sales of Oppo and Vivo dislodged the sales power of Samsung, Xiaomi, and Lenovo in the country.

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