When it comes to innovative phones, there are few who have as many new innovations in one package as the vivo NEX S. The NEX S does so many things right, and packs a design that eschews a number of design trends, including a truly bezel-less design, in-glass fingerprint scanner, huge battery and screen without a huge form-factor, and a unique pop-up front-facing camera. It’s also significantly cheaper than many flagships that have recently launched, despite its innovations and spec-sheet-busting stats. A Qualcomm Snapdragon 845, 8GB of RAM and either 128GB or 256GB of storage all for around £535, €589, or $679 USD.
The vivo NEX S has a virtually zero bezel design, which extends the screen to the edge of the device uniformly on 3 out of the 4 sides. An extremely small chin at the bottom is still smaller than most phones, even phones that try to reduce bezels with a notch. The display itself is a quality OLED panel with HDR support, 388 pixels-per-inch 1080p+ resolution and a super tall 19.5:9 aspect ratio. It’s a massive display at 6.6-inches, and despite having virtually no bezels, this phone is going to feel large in any hand. It’s a dream come true for people that enjoy huge displays, as it provides an absolutely massive screen with a similar footprint compared to previous generation phones that have larger bezels and smaller screens. For example the phone is physically smaller than the Samsung Galaxy Note 9, yet has a 0.2-inch larger screen.
Vivo was first to market with an in-glass fingerprint scanner, and it took that same technology from the vivo APEX and put it in this phone as well. A prominent fingerprint sits on the bottom of the screen when the display is off, letting you know where to unlock the phone, but will hide itself after resting a bit so as to prevent any long-term image retention issues. The phone can be unlocked without having to wake it first, so long as the fingerprint icon is visible, as this fingerprint scanner is an optical one and needs light in order to function. Sound too good to be true? Find out if it is in our review below, and don’t forget to enter to win your own vivo NEX S at this contest link!