Vivo T4 5G: In the increasingly competitive mid-range smartphone segment, manufacturers face the challenge of delivering devices that provide a premium-like experience without the flagship price tag.

The Vivo T4 5G represents the Chinese manufacturer’s latest attempt to strike this delicate balance, positioning itself as a performance-oriented option for discerning users unwilling or unable to stretch to premium price points.

After spending three weeks with this device as my daily driver, I’ve developed nuanced insights into its real-world capabilities that go beyond marketing claims and specification sheets.

Vivo T4 5G: Design: Functional Elegance with Practical Touches

The first thing that struck me upon unboxing the Vivo T4 5G was its refined aesthetic that avoids both the flashy excesses and budget compromises common in this segment.

My review unit came in the “Lunar Blue” colorway, which features a subtle gradient that shifts between deeper and lighter blue tones depending on how light catches it.

The effect is sophisticated rather than ostentatious, creating visual interest without screaming for attention.

The back panel employs what Vivo calls “AG Matte Glass” – essentially a chemically etched glass that provides a frosted finish resistant to fingerprints and smudges.

This practical choice proved its worth during my testing period, requiring far fewer cleaning wipes than the glossy alternatives that dominate this price bracket.

The material also offers a pleasant tactile feel that enhances grip without feeling rough.

The frame maintains an aluminum construction that contributes to the phone’s solid in-hand feel. At 7.9mm thick and weighing 190 grams, the T4 5G strikes a comfortable balance – substantial enough to feel premium without becoming unwieldy during extended use.

The weight distribution deserves specific mention, with the phone feeling balanced rather than top-heavy as some camera-focused devices tend to be.

Button placement follows conventional wisdom with the power button and volume rocker on the right edge, positioned perfectly for thumb access.

The haptic feedback from these buttons deserves praise – they provide a satisfying click without excessive travel, a small detail that enhances the premium feel of daily interactions.

The bottom edge houses the USB-C port flanked by a speaker grille and SIM tray, while the top edge contains only a microphone hole.

The lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack might disappoint some potential buyers, though this omission has become increasingly common even in mid-range offerings.

The camera island deserves specific mention for its thoughtful integration. Rather than the massive, protruding modules seen on many competitors, Vivo has opted for a more restrained approach with a slightly raised rectangular housing that contains the three lenses and flash.

This design choice reduces wobble when the phone is placed on flat surfaces – a practical benefit I came to appreciate during my testing period.

Display: Vibrant Visuals with Meaningful Enhancements

The centerpiece of the T4 5G is its 6.67-inch AMOLED display with FHD+ resolution (2400 x 1080 pixels). While these basic specifications have become somewhat standard in this segment, Vivo has included several enhancements that elevate the viewing experience.

Color reproduction impressed me with its accuracy in the “Standard” mode, while the “Professional” setting offers even better color fidelity for those who prioritize it.

Alternatively, the “Bright” mode provides more saturated colors that make content pop, though at the expense of strict accuracy.

This flexibility allows users to tailor the display characteristics to their preferences or specific content types.

The 120Hz refresh rate provides smooth scrolling and animations that make the interface feel responsive and premium.

Vivo’s implementation includes an intelligent switching mechanism that adjusts between 60Hz, 90Hz, and 120Hz depending on the content displayed and remaining battery life. This adaptive approach balances visual fluidity with power efficiency better than fixed high refresh rates.

Brightness capabilities stand out as particularly noteworthy. The standard brightness reaches 500 nits – comfortable for indoor use – while the high brightness mode pushes this to 1200 nits for sunlight legibility.

During my testing period, which included several outdoor photography sessions on bright days, the screen remained perfectly viewable even under direct sunlight.

The display incorporates HDR10+ support, enabling enhanced dynamic range when viewing compatible content on platforms like Netflix and YouTube.

The difference is most noticeable in scenes with both bright highlights and dark shadows, where the HDR implementation preserves detail across this challenging range.

Perhaps most impressive is the implementation of DC dimming at low brightness levels, which reduces the PWM (pulse-width modulation) flickering that can cause eye strain and headaches for sensitive users.

This thoughtful inclusion demonstrates attention to user comfort beyond merely impressive specifications.

Performance: Exceeding Expectations

Under the hood, the T4 5G is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 7300 chipset – a 4nm octa-core processor featuring four Cortex-A78 performance cores at 2.5GHz and four Cortex-A55 efficiency cores at 2.0GHz.

This is paired with the Mali-G615 MC2 GPU, 8GB or 12GB of LPDDR4X RAM, and 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage.

In practical terms, this hardware configuration delivers exceptional performance for a mid-range device. Throughout my testing period, which included everything from basic communication apps to resource-intensive gaming, the T4 5G maintained consistent responsiveness without noticeable lag or stuttering.

App launches occur almost instantaneously, and switching between multiple applications feels smooth even with 15+ apps open in the background.

Gaming performance impressed me particularly. Titles like Call of Duty Mobile and PUBG Mobile run flawlessly at high settings with stable frame rates of 60fps.

More demanding games like Genshin Impact perform admirably at medium settings, maintaining approximately 45-55fps with only occasional dips during the most graphically intensive scenes.

After 30-minute gaming sessions, the phone becomes warm but never uncomfortably hot, suggesting effective thermal management.

Benchmarks provide additional context, with the T4 5G scoring approximately:

• AnTuTu: 720,000 points

• Geekbench 6: 960 (single-core) and 2,450 (multi-core)

• 3DMark Wild Life: 3,200 points

While these numbers won’t challenge flagship devices, they represent excellent value in the mid-range segment and translate to a real-world experience that feels premium rather than compromised.

Memory management on my 8GB review unit proved particularly impressive. The extended RAM feature, which allocates up to 8GB of storage as virtual RAM, seems to genuinely enhance multitasking capabilities rather than serving as a mere marketing gimmick.

Even when deliberately loading resource-hungry applications simultaneously, I rarely encountered app reloads or lost states.

Camera System: Versatile Photography with Few Compromises

The T4 5G features a triple camera system consisting of:

• A 50MP Sony IMX882 primary sensor with optical image stabilization (OIS)

• An 8MP ultrawide lens with a 120-degree field of view

• A 2MP macro camera

• A 16MP front-facing camera for selfies

The main camera delivers impressive results in various lighting conditions. Daylight photos show excellent dynamic range, accurate colors, and remarkable detail preservation.

The OIS helps maintain sharpness even with slight hand movement, reducing the frequency of blurry shots.

Night photography benefits significantly from both the sensor’s light-gathering capabilities and Vivo’s computational photography algorithms, producing bright, detailed images with well-controlled noise levels.

The ultrawide camera performs better than many competitors in this price segment. While there’s an inevitable quality drop compared to the main sensor, images remain highly usable with good detail and relatively minimal distortion around the edges.

Color consistency between the main and ultrawide lenses deserves specific praise – a detail often overlooked in multi-camera systems.

The 2MP macro lens feels like an afterthought, included primarily to pad the camera count. The low resolution and lack of autofocus limit its practical utility, though it can occasionally capture interesting close-up details in perfect lighting.

Portrait mode works effectively across both front and rear cameras, with particularly impressive edge detection around challenging subjects like hair and glasses.

The level of background blur can be adjusted both before and after capturing, adding creative flexibility to portrait photography.

Video capabilities include 4K recording at 30fps or 1080p at up to 60fps, with electronic stabilization providing smooth footage during movement.

The “Ultra Stable” mode, which combines electronic and optical stabilization, produces remarkably steady videos even when walking or in moving vehicles, though it crops the frame slightly and limits resolution to 1080p/30fps.

Battery Life and Charging: All-Day Reliability with Rapid Refueling

The T4 5G houses a 5,000mAh battery that consistently delivered exceptional endurance during my testing period.

With typical mixed usage including social media, messaging, photography, some gaming, and media streaming, the phone routinely lasted through full days with 25-35% charge remaining by bedtime.

Screen-on time regularly exceeded 6.5 hours, occasionally approaching 8 hours with lighter usage patterns.

This endurance pairs with 44W FlashCharge technology that refuels the device at impressive speeds:

• 15 minutes: approximately 35% charge

• 30 minutes: approximately 68% charge

• Full charge (0-100%): about 65 minutes

These charging speeds transform the occasional low-battery anxiety into a minor inconvenience rather than a significant disruption.

A quick 15-minute charge during morning preparation provides enough power for several hours of usage, while the full 65-minute charging cycle easily fits into short breaks or meal times.

Battery health features deserve mention as well. The “Battery Protection” mode optimizes overnight charging to avoid maintaining the battery at 100% for extended periods, while the “Low Battery Mode” intelligently adjusts background processes and display settings to extend runtime when power is running low.

Software Experience: Matured but Room for Improvement

The T4 5G runs Funtouch OS 14 based on Android 14, with Vivo promising two years of major Android updates and three years of security patches.

This represents reasonable if not industry-leading software support for a mid-range device.

Funtouch OS has matured significantly in recent years, moving away from its earlier iOS-inspired design toward a more distinctive and cohesive identity.

The interface feels polished with smooth animations that take full advantage of the 120Hz display, while the overall aesthetic maintains clean lines and logical organization.

Customization options abound, allowing users to adjust everything from icon shapes and system colors to animation effects and gesture controls.

The “Dynamic Effects” menu provides particularly granular control over visual feedback throughout the system, enabling a personalized experience without third-party launchers.

Pre-installed applications remain a consideration, with my review unit containing several third-party apps and games alongside Vivo’s suite of utilities.

Most can be uninstalled rather than merely disabled, though some of Vivo’s core applications remain permanent fixtures.

After my initial setup and cleaning process, the system occupied approximately 22GB of the 128GB storage.

The notification management system offers granular control over which apps can send alerts and how they appear, addressing a common pain point in earlier Funtouch versions.

Similarly, the permission management system provides clear visibility into which apps access sensitive features like location, camera, and microphone.

Comparative Analysis: T4 5G vs. Key Competitors

This comparison highlights the T4 5G’s competitive positioning. While competitors offer specific advantages—faster charging in the OnePlus, higher resolution camera in the Redmi, or better raw performance in the POCO—the Vivo T4 5G delivers a well-balanced experience with particular strengths in display quality and everyday performance.

Key Strengths of the Vivo T4 5G

1. Refined Design: The combination of premium materials, thoughtful ergonomics, and subtle aesthetics creates a device that looks and feels more expensive than its price suggests.

2. Display Excellence: The bright, color-accurate AMOLED panel with 120Hz refresh rate and DC dimming delivers an exceptional visual experience for everything from text reading to media consumption.

3. Balanced Performance: The Dimensity 7300 provides flagship-like responsiveness for everyday tasks while handling demanding games with aplomb.

4. Camera Versatility: The capable main and ultrawide cameras deliver consistent results across various lighting conditions, supported by effective computational photography.

5. Battery Endurance: The combination of large battery capacity and efficient hardware provides genuine all-day reliability even with heavy usage.

6. Charging Speed: The 44W FlashCharge technology offers practical refueling times that minimize downtime without requiring access to proprietary chargers.

7. Thoughtful Features: Small touches like the effective OIS implementation, Ultra Stable video mode, and extended RAM functionality add meaningful value to the overall package.

Vivo T4 5G: Balanced Excellence in the Mid-Range

After three weeks of daily use, what impresses most about the Vivo T4 5G isn’t any single standout feature but rather how thoughtfully it balances various aspects of the smartphone experience.

Instead of pushing one or two headline specifications to extremes while compromising elsewhere (a common approach in this segment), Vivo has created a harmonious device where each element complements the others.

The camera system exemplifies this approach. Rather than focusing solely on a high-megapixel main sensor while neglecting secondary lenses, Vivo has invested in a capable main camera with OIS and a respectable ultrawide that work together to provide genuine versatility.

Similarly, the combination of substantial battery capacity and reasonably fast charging addresses both sides of the power equation rather than prioritizing one at the expense of the other.

For consumers seeking a device that excels across multiple facets of the smartphone experience without stretching to flagship prices, the T4 5G presents a compelling proposition.

It doesn’t match specialized devices in their areas of focus—gaming phones offer more raw performance, camera-focused flagships deliver better photographic results, and battery champions provide longer endurance—but it comes remarkably close on all fronts while maintaining a more accessible price point.

The few compromises it does make—the underwhelming macro camera, the absence of wireless charging, and Funtouch OS’s occasional complexity—feel thoughtfully chosen to maintain value while preserving the core experience.

For most users, these limitations will rarely impact daily satisfaction with the device.

In a market segment often defined by compromise, the Vivo T4 5G stands out by minimizing those compromises and delivering a remarkably complete smartphone experience.

It represents not just good value for money but a genuinely excellent device regardless of price considerations—the highest praise possible for a mid-range smartphone.