When I bought a Vivo Y11s I didn't find any reviews at all which made it a leap into the unknown. I thought I should write up my experience so far in case it helps others.
What I was looking for when I bought it: I used to buy flagship phones but I got fed up with paying for the broken promises of unproven new features that didn't turn out to actually work properly. So I downgraded to a well-reviewed but boring midrange device with a Snapdragon 630 that cost only a third of what I had paid in the past. But over time as I gradually used my midrange for ever bigger workloads, I hit a point where it was sometimes struggling to keep up. Then a junior family member's phone failed and they needed a replacement, and I took the opportunity to give my current phone to them and find something more powerful. However I have my eye on a sexy new upcoming flagship so I only wanted a stopgap device to tide me over in the meantime (yes I know, will I ever learn...).
The Y11s leapt out at me because it has a Snapdragon 460 - by far the highest benchmarking cpu in
its price range. It's a significant jump from the older Y11 which only had the much slower Snapdragon 439. Also there was a 10% off deal at the time which left it completely unchallenged. If I wanted to take a further step up in benchmark, I would have had to spend 30% more (on an Oppo A5). The similarly-priced also-rans were the Samsung A02s,
Xiaomi Redmi 9A, Moto E6s and Moto G8 Power Lite. They could compete with a Y11, but not the new Y11s. The mysterious Vodafone Smart V11 is in the same price bracket but I have
not been able to confirm its cpu anywhere online; to me this is a bad sign and a reason to avoid.
Unboxing photos
I think these are self-explanatory.
My impressions
Hardware
I hate filler in reviews. You can look up full details such as form factor, weight, materials etc easily enough.
The Y11s looks ok and not too cheap in glacier blue. Some people went "oooh" when they saw the iridescent back. The whole device is glossy surfaces, so fingerprints show up everywhere. It doesn't feel plasticky to hold - partly due to the weight - but I'm
probably going to put a reasonably hefty case on it because I doubt it's going to be all that robust in a drop.
The fingerprint sensor on the power button is a much better placement than on the back on my previous phone which was annoying to reach in many situations - sitting on the desk, in a car holder, etc.
Micro-usb is a backward step for me and charging is definitely slower than Usb-c. However this hasn't bothered me so far because the combination of battery size and power consumption hasn't produced any battery life anxiety at all as yet. I had a day where I only used the phone for maybe half an hour all up and by the end it was still on 96%.
The Y11s is also listed as supporting reverse charging to charge smaller devices. This could be good for my wireless earbuds but I'll need to get an OTG cable to try it out.
Headphone jack on the bottom is not what I'm used to. I use wired earbuds occasionally on public transport when my wireless earbuds have gone flat. It's a little strange to put the phone upside down in my pants or shirt pocket, but not anywhere close to being a dealbreaker.
The bare minimum accessories are included - power adaptor and micro-usb cable. I have no complaints at this price point.
The Y11s supports dual sims. I don't use the second slot. I assume it works the same way most dual sims do.
Software
Even though FuntouchOS11 is supposed to be built on Android 11, it feels more like going 2 versions back. I don't really mind - the Q buttons and gestures didn't feel like a meaningful improvement to me. I'm thrilled to be able to remove the Google search bar from the home screen again.
I was worried there would be a lot of bloatware to deal with, but it's not too bad. And from reading online it appears Vivos used to be a lot worse. I haven't delved into the full list of executables, but on the app menu I see iManager, Vivo and own-brand Clock, Calculator & Compass apps. The official site says there should be a Weather app too but I don't have it.
Some FuntouchOS features aren't available on the Y11s:
- Always On Display and Live Always On Halo. Vivo only supports these for Super AMOLED, and this device only has an IPS LCD screen.
- Jovi smart assistant
Features I have confirmed are there:
- S-capture. I don't see what's so amazing to deserve a big mention on the website.
- Ultra Game Mode. I haven't tried it. I have no games installed.
Someone asked me if the Google Play Store is accessible with these phones or if it's subject to the same restrictions as Huawei. I have experienced no such restrictions.
Speedwise the SD460 lives up to my expectations. 3GB RAM appears to be sufficient. The specific thing I want is for MS Outlook and Teams to run smoothly with multiple accounts, most of which are subject to MDM. This seems to be hard as people I know with similar needs have similar performance problems even with flagship phones. From time to time a message list or body takes a little while to load, but it's much better than my previous phone.
The phone also supports face wake but I'm not a fan so I haven't tried it out.
Camera and Audio
I find it hard to get excited about either of these categories. If I can take a photo or video quickly in a range of light conditions and it isn't fuzzy and I can make out what's being shot then I'm satisfied. If I can hear audio clearly, the speaker phone works and the person at the other end can hear me then that's great. If I can make out the lyrics that are supposed to be made out on Spotify then that's plenty good enough for me. By these criteria I have had nothing to complain about with the Y11s.
I couldn't find the AI Image Matting feature for photos in the Y11s camera app, but the other AI features listed for FuntouchOS appear to be there - AI Editor for video, photo object eraser, etc.
When I get round to it I might put some photos up here.
Overall
+ Extremely affordable
+ Fast for its price point
+ Fingerprint sensor on power button is handy
- No Usb-c might be a problem for some
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