Vivo X21: Future of Smartphones or Overpriced Gimmick?

Vivo X21 comes with a fingerprint sensor under the display, which makes it unique in the smartphone market. Reviewer Aditya Shenoy joins host Pranay Parab to talk about the smartphone and how it fares against the likes of the OnePlus 6 and similarly priced smartphones. We start this episode by talking about the pricing of the Vivo X21 and its immediate competition. We discuss whether Vivo is cannibalising the sales of its smartphones by pricing it close to other phones from its sister brands Oppo and OnePlus. Here we talk about the pricing of Oppo and OnePlus smartphones and whether it makes sense to buy the X21 over other competitors. Then we talk about the X21’s pricing and what would be the sweet spot for the smartphone to sell in large numbers.

Then we move on to discussing Vivo’s habit of shipping hardware with relatively untested technology and wonder whether the company is shipping beta hardware. Here we talk about the in-display fingerprint scanner and whether it works as advertised. We mention the various pros and cons of this technology and then we talk about the alternative methods of unlocking the smartphone. A debate about security versus convenience follows, where we talk about how OnePlus 6’s face unlock feature was fooled by a photograph. Next we talk about the notch design on the Vivo X21 and other design elements of the smartphone. There is another debate here about the chin on notch phones on Android and when it’s expected to go away. Finally, we talk about all the cons of the Vivo X21 and whether you should buy the smartphone.

That’s all for this week’s episode of Orbital, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.