Vivo T3 Ultra in-depth review: A near perfect performance phone for budget buyer

Design:

Vivo T3 Ultra comes with a glass sandwich design and is available in two colourways: Frost Green and Lunar Grey. I received the latter variant with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage for my review period which delivers a minimalistic yet elegant finish. However, having had a look at both the colour variants in close quarters, I can certainly confirm that Frost Green colourway is definitely a better choice among the two.

The T3 Ulta looks almost identical to the Vivo V40 with a similar camera module, sleek design with plastic frame and even the similar placement for Vivo branding with one minor change there is no Zeiss branding for the rear cameras this time around.

With a thickness of 7.58mm and a weight of 192g, the T3 Ultra is easy on the hands and is definitely among the lightest phones out their to carry a 5,500mAh battery. What’s more impressive is that Vivo has also managed to pack in IP68 rating for the smartphone, meaning the phone can handle being submerged in up to 1.5-metre deep water for up to 30 minutes. However, the phone doesn’t come with NFC, which is pretty standard for this price range and in case you are wondering there is no support for wireless charging as well.

Display and Software:

The T3 Ultra comes with a 6.78-inch 120Hz AMOLED display with 4,500 nits of peak brightness and 1200 nits in high brightness mode. It comes with Schott Xensation Alpha protection for both the front and back glasses.

The display offers punchy and vibrant colour with deep blacks which makes for a pleasant viewing experience. The screen remains highly readable even under direct sunlight, thanks to the high peak brightness number. However, I did notice that the T3 Ultra struggles with flickering issues during night and there is no anti-flicker mode in settings to help with that, meaning in case you are night owl like me there is some reason to look beyond this phone.

The dual speakers while not coming with any branding, deliver crisp and distortion free audio even at high volume levels, making the phone ideal for streaming sessions or even for some light music sessions.

On to the software side20, the T3 Ultra runs on Vivo’s FunTouch OS14 based on Android 14 and it is confirmed to get Android 15 update sometime next month. Apart from that, there is one more year of promised update and 3 years of security patches for the device.

In case this is the first time you are hearing about Funtouch OS or you aren’t just aware about what the user interface (UI) offers, let me simplify things for you. In short, FunTouchOS comes with tons of ads thoroghout the interface along with many bloatware apps. It is also extremely feature rich and very light weight and fast in my opinon.

Performance and battery:

The T3 Ultra runs on MediaTek Dimensity 9200+ processor, which is on par with (if not better) than phones available around the ₹30k price bracket. In terms of competition, the OnePlus Nord 4 (Snapdragon 7+ Gen 3) garnered a score of around 1.1 million on Antutu in my tests while the Poco F6 (Snapdragon 8s Gen 3) scored around 1.4 million.

On Geekbench 6, the T3 Ultra scored 2,064 on single core score and 5,621 on the multi core score. Meanwhile, it garnered a best loop score of 12,196 with stability of 52% on 3D Mark’s Wild Life Stess Test. The phone did heat up quite a bit during 3D Mark test but the good thing is that I did not notice similar heating issues during day to day usage.

While I am not a big gamer but I did play a few popular games like BGMI and Call of Duty Mobile at highest settings and there were no issues to report here.The fast app loading speeds of apps and the general fluidity of the UI did win me over with the T3 Ultra.

One thing that definitely hampers the day to day usage is the the hapitcs performance of the phone, with the vibrations being too harsh and resembling that of a budget device. Moreover, Vivo does not provide any customization option which only leaves the option of turning off the vibration feedback altogether.

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The 5,500mAh battery on the T3 Ultra can be fully charged from 0-100% in around an hour. This is probably the best battery life I have got in a phone this year, with a consistent screen on time (SoT) of around 8-9 hours.

Camera:

I was skeptical about the camera performance of the T3 Ultra, given my previous experience with the performance phones in this range. As it turns out, I was pleasantly surprised with the 50MP primary sensor with support for Aura lighting.

The primary shooter can take some good looking shots in day time with close to natural looking colours and excellent dynamic range. It does struggle in night time shots, but more often that not you will get a decent looking shot albeit with high noise levels. The 8MP Ultrawide angle lens works like most ultra-wides in this price range, its there in case you need it, but the colour shift from the primary sensor and lack of detail will be immediately noticeable.

The star of the show, however, is the 50MP front shooter which takes sharp and detailed selfies with accurate skin tones. There is a bit of beautification going on with the selfies but it isn’t a deal breaker for me.

As always, you don’t have to take my word on the camera performance there is a Google Drive link attached with this article to help the readers take their own call after seeing the raw images.

Verdict:

With its massive 5,500mAh battery, vibrant 6.67-inch AMOLED display, flagship-level MediaTek Dimensity 9200+ processor, and a decent camera setup, the T3 Ultra truly delivers on its promise. Add to that an IP68 rating, and it’s an easy recommendation for anyone with a budget around ₹30,000.

However, there are a few compromises to keep in mind—most notably, the lack of wireless charging and NFC, which I find to be a significant miss. The haptic feedback also leaves much to be desired. But if you can overlook these minor drawbacks, the T3 Ultra remains an outstanding choice that outperforms its competition in this range.

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Published: 21 Nov 2024, 11:10 PM IST