When talking about Android smartphones, one could say that budget phones are a “dime-a-dozen.” There’s no shortage of affordable smartphones on the market since time immemorial, but it’s arguably where a lot of brands and manufacturers make big bucks.
That being said, Vivo recently took the wraps off the Vivo Y29, a wallet-friendly Android phone that comes with the basics, and arguably a bit more. Priced at just around 180 quid when converted, Vivo is hoping that the Y29 will be enough to sway would-be buyers who are after a decent-enough smartphone, and while it’s no flagship-tier handset, the low price is certainly eye-catching. What exactly does it come with though? Let’s take a look.
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As with most budget smartphones, the Vivo Y29 comes with a plastic chassis – this means no glass rear panel and no aluminium sides, and with the exception of the display and camera lens the phone is entirely made out of polycarbonate. It’s understandable given the price, and this compromise in materials likewise extends to the display, which features a 6.68-inch IPS LCD panel (no OLED, of course) with a basic 720×1608 pixel resolution. It’s not too impressive, but again this is a device that’s meant for the basics.
One highlight of the Y29 is that it comes with a MediaTek Dimensity-series chipset in the form of the 6300, a 6nm SoC. Sure it’s not as impressive as the recently-announced Dimensity 8400, but it doesn’t have to be – all the Y29 needs is a decent and reliable chipset, and more importantly something that’s not the Helio G99, which has been the go-to chip for most budget phones. Disappointingly though, it only comes with 4GB of RAM for the base model, so we’d recommend spending a bit more for the 8GB RAM variant, which should no doubt provide a much better user experience.
For software, there’s Android 14 pre-installed, and we’re hoping that the Y29 gets a much-needed upgrade to Android 15. Powering the phone is a large 5,500 mAh battery, a decent size which means you won’t be reaching for that power cable very often. If you do need to charge it though, it supports 44W charging so it will be able to charge at a relatively faster rate.
The Vivo Y29 features a single 50MP main camera with an f/1.8 aperture, a wide-angle lens, a 1/1.95″ sensor size, 0.8µm pixel size with phase detection autofocus (PDAF). The rear camera setup also includes a ring-LED flash and supports panorama mode, and video recording maxes out at 1080p resolution at 30 frames per second. For selfies, the Y29 has an 8MP front-facing camera with an f/2.0 aperture and wide-angle lens. It also supports 1080p video recording at 30 fps.
With all that being said, the Vivo Y29 is certainly no flagship device especially when you look at the specs sheet, but it doesn’t have to be. Instead, it perfectly slots into an affordable market segment in Vivo’s selection of Android devices, and while there are some compromises, this means that buyers get access to Android apps and features for not a lot of money.
