Vivo V5s with 20MP front camera launched to capture 'perfect selfie:' Is it actually worth it?

Vivo is building on its #PerfectSelfie branding as it launches a new smartphone, the V5s in India with its focus on front camera. After days of constant teasing, the V5s is finally out in the open.

Vivo V5s was officially announced at an event in New Delhi on Thursday, April 27, where the Bollywood actress Nimrat Kaur was present to show off the first look of the device. The new handset in the Vivo V5 series continues the selfie revolution that has taken the Indian market by storm.

Vivo V5s will be available in Matte Black and Crown Gold shades starting May 6 in retail stores and exclusively on Flipkart. It is priced at Rs 18,990, which is a competitive price range category for premium mid-range smartphones.

Now let's take a look at the specs of the phone and see if the device is actually worth the money. For starters, Vivo V5s' biggest USP is the front camera, which has a 20MP front camera with moonlight glow, Face Beauty 6.0 and a new group selfie mode. On the other side of the phone is a standard 13MP snapper.

At the event, we had the chance to take the V5s for a brief spin.

The build quality of the smartphone is pretty standard, which is mainly due to the lack of metal body, and the design is pretty much same as the original V5 smartphone. As for the camera, Vivo has managed to deliver good-quality images in well-lit environments. But when there's dim lighting, the moonlight flash has to be used to get a clearer result or the images get over-saturated.

We will be reviewing the device for a more detailed experience of how the V5s camera works in different lighting conditions, so stay tuned.

Moving on, the next impressive feature in the V5s is the battery. On paper, the V5s has a 3,000mAh battery, but it is said to last well over two days in average use condition. It is quite impressive, but we are yet to review the phone to confirm the same.

Besides the camera and battery, we don't really see too many impressive features that make the V5s stand out in the crowd. Nevertheless, for under Rs 20,000, it is still one of the recommended phones in the market.

To conclude the spec-sheet, the V5s sports a 5.5-inch HD display with 2.5D Gorilla Glass, fingerprint scanner in the home button, octa-core 64-bit chipset, 4GB RAM and 64GB ROM with hybrid slot. Justifying the "Camera and Music" tag line, Vivo has added the Hi-Fi AK4376 chipset for a premium audio experience.

In addition to that, Vivo also revealed that it has partnered with Saavn to provide 2 months of free subscription to the premium music streaming service. The V5s also comes with Smart Screen-Split feature for easy multi-tasking, App Clone to use dual accounts on apps like WhatsApp and Facebook.

As the competition in the Indian smartphone market is fierce, Vivo's biggest challenger OPPO is also going to host an event on May 4 to unveil its latest "selfie expert" OPPO F3 in India. Since the V5s is not immediately available to buy, we'd suggest you wait until the F3 launches, so we can compare both phones and see which one stands out in the crowd.