At the time of its launch last December 2021, the vivo Y76 5G was being pegged as a gaming-centric mid-range smartphone, which can clearly be seen with its Mobile Legends-themed packaging.
On paper, it did seem to have most of the boxes checked. It’s got a nice large screen, a capable mid-range processor, and a
Fast forward to 2022, and the brand has recently announced a price drop for the phone, bringing its cost to only PhP14,999. Surely, the question will be asked – is the vivo Y76 5G still a good buy?
What makes things interesting is that, over the course of using this phone, I found out that it’s not only good for gaming, but it’s also one of the best devices that vloggers and in general, content creators can use. In short, a great all-around smartphone. Here are 5 reasons why.
Slim Design, Premium Look
While a lot of people buy smartphones for performance, camera, battery, and so on, I also think that how a smartphone looks and feels is also an important contributor to the overall user experience.
In the case of the vivo Y76 5G, you get a device that’s only 7.79mm thin, making it one of the thinnest smartphones in its price range. At 175g, it also weighs just about right – not too light that it feels flimsy, but not too heavy that one-handed use becomes a burden.
The phone comes in two variants – Midnight Space and this Cosmic Aurora. The latter’s back panel is finished in a coating that reacts beautifully and differently depending on where the light is coming from. This metallic surface also makes the phone look more premium.
Its camera module is inspired by Rolleiflex, a long-running and diverse lineup of high-end cameras made by a German company, depicting symmetry and balance that jives nicely with the rest of the phone.
A Beautiful Display
With today’s on-the-go a lot of people end up using their smartphones as a primary tool for media consumption, whether that’s a local file or streaming on platforms like Netflix or YouTube. Oh, and don’t forget gaming as well.
vivo Y76 5G has a large 6.58-inch display with Full HD+ resolution, allowing any type of content to shine with punchy colors and great detail. It even offers Eye-Protection mode to reduce blue-light, protecting the user’s eyes.
Good All-Around Performance
What’s the point of having a good-looking phone if it can’t handle the tasks you’ll throw at it?
Thankfully, the vivo Y76 5G is equipped with a MediaTek Dimensity 700 processor, which offers a good balance of mid-range performance and efficiency to get you through your work or school day, handling your typical day-to-day tasks like media consumption, web browsing, social media, email, and most importantly your online classes or meetings.
With 8GB of RAM and up to 4GB more with its Extended RAM feature, multi-tasking shouldn’t be a problem. And with 128GB of storage, which can be expanded using a microSD card (supports up to 1TB cards), those with a decent library of apps or files should not have any issues.
The packaging of this phone will tell you that it should play Mobile Legends: Bang Bang well, and yes, the vivo Y76 5G can definitely run the game on High graphics + HD Mode and High Refresh Rate enabled, delivering a smooth gaming experience.
In fact, it should run most of today’s popular games. With less resource-intensive ones running at high to very high, and a heavy game, particularly, Genshin Impact at low settings, which is what you’d expect at this price range.
vivo also employs other enhancements to improve your gaming experience, such as Multi-Turbo, which basically optimizes several aspects of the device, allowing it to perform at its most optimal state.
Then there’s Ultra Game Mode, which offers numerous features like support for hands-free calls in the background when playing a game, set which calls to accept and reject, and prevents alerts from interrupting gameplay.
There’s also a sidebar that you can use to quickly switch from one performance profile to another, among other things.
Capable Cameras
At the back of the vivo Y76 5G is a trio of cameras that allow you to express your creativity. You get a 50MP main camera, and a 2MP bokeh lens which lets you use advanced portrait styles, and a 2MP macro unit for those up close shots.
Rear camera features include Eye Autofocus, which tracks the eyes of the subject even when on the move. Ultra Nightscape, which utilizes algorithms for bright and clear photos in low light.
Its 8MP front camera features AI-assisted beautification, which automatically identifies the subject’s skin type, age, gender, and skin tone, and intelligently applies adjustments for a more natural look.
Other features include Electronic Image Stabilization, Dual-view video, which lets you capture videos from both the front and rear cameras at the same time, adding a bit of a creative touch for vlogging, and a built-in AI Editor so you can quickly create and edit content that’s social media-ready.
A Battery that Charges Fast
vivo Y76 5G is equipped with a 4,100mAh battery. And while that may sound a bit unimpressive for 2022, they do make up for it with 44W fast-charging. Using the supplied charger, it only took around an hour to recharge from zero to full, which means you’ll be spending less time near the socket, being able to quickly return to the action.
So I hope that answers your question as to why this phone is overall, still a good buy this year, especially at its new SRP.
The vivo Y76 5G is a device that performs well as a daily driver, looks premium, is equipped with capable cameras that offer numerous nifty features that allow not just casual users, but also content creators to shine and bring out their imaginative self with each shot, and even quickly edit and share their content to their preferred platforms, and a battery that can be quickly recharged with minimal downtime.
vivo Y76 5G is currently available at all vivo stores and kiosks, the official vivo E-Store, and the brand’s official stores in Shopee and Lazada.
Emman has been writing technical and feature articles since 2010. Prior to this, he became one of the instructors at Asia Pacific College in 2008, and eventually landed a job as Business Analyst and Technical Writer at Integrated Open Source Solutions for almost 3 years.
