Images have now cropped up online of what appears to be a “Youth” edition of Vivo’s recently released Vivo V9. Shared to SlashLeaks, the images themselves are labeled as showing a “dummy” device, which means that they are of a non-functioning prototype, meant only to show off the design. Oddly enough, however, there hasn’t previously been any mention that such a device was even in the works. Bearing that in mind, it’s probably a good idea to take the news with a bit of skepticism – at least until Vivo announces something or further leaks happen.
Looking beyond that, there’s not much that could be determined about the device itself from the images. They show a handset that has an edge-to-edge display with a prominent notch along the top housing the forward facing camera, speaker, and sensors. The bezels surrounding that are nearly non-existent and it appears to have a slight curve toward the edges. The dummy display shows that this is a FullView display, so it’s likely configured in the now common 18:9 screen ratio. There are no visible buttons or volume rockers along either edge of the device. Rolling to the rear of the device, that panel seems to be made of an easily smudged glass or plastic. Since the Vivo V9 features a metal unibody design and this is presumably a more affordable variation, that’s most likely some form of polycarbonate. In the center, the company branding is visible below a fingerprint scanner. The top left-hand corner features a vertically aligned dual-camera array with a single LED flash below.
The overall design here is, in fact, very similar to the original Vivo V9. However, there isn’t much chance that it would ship with the same internals as that flagship-like handset. What’s more, it’s really impossible to guess at what this smartphone might ship with even if Vivo is working on such a device. That other mobile is driven by an octa-core Snapdragon 626, backed up by 4GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable storage. Power is provided by a 3,260mAh battery pack. It wouldn’t be unusual for the specs found in the Youth variation to drop further toward the affordable end of the Android phone spectrum from there.
