If you’re still reeling from Vivo’s flagship V30‘s R20,000 price tag, the Chinese manufacturer’s latest mid-ranger, the Y38, quietly unveiled in Taiwan, might be more your speed. There’s just one problem: Vivo has yet to officially ‘announce’ the smartphone, meaning it hasn’t been formally cleared for arrival in other markets.
All we have is a landing page for the Y38 on the company’s Taiwanese website appearing on a random Thursday afternoon with almost no fanfare to accompany it. We wouldn’t worry about it, however. Vivo’s Y-Series has long been a staple of Vivo South Africa’s smartphone bouquet, and we don’t expect that to change anytime soon.
Vivo’s got big dreams (and batteries)
While Vivo is leaving both international and local pricing and availability up in the air, we’ve got an idea of how it’ll perform when it inevitably leaves Taiwanese soil. On the outside is the device’s not-so-glorious 6.68in HD+ LCD display that’s massively saved by a 120Hz refresh rate and 1,000-nits peak brightness.
Just because Vivo doesn’t throw ‘5G’ at the end of every device’s name doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t up to the task. The Y38 is. That’s all to do with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 SoC, which is also responsible for Bluetooth 5.1 and Wi-Fi 5 support. Pair it with the 8GB of RAM and 256GB of UFS storage, and the Y38 looks like a decent little mid-ranger.
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Vivo isn’t about flashy numbers when it comes to cameras. It’s stuck to a relatively plain 50MP main shooter on the rear, and a simple 8MP sensor on its front. The 2MP depth sensor attached to the former isn’t the most exciting thing out there, but it’ll put in a shift when called upon. More exciting is the 6,000mAh battery in the trunk and 44W wired-charging spec — uncommon even in most flagships today.
We’ll keep you updated on the Y38’s progress out of Taiwan and hopefully into South Africa. We’ve reached out to Vivo South Africa in hopes of learning more about the phone’s local pricing and availability and will update this article if we hear back.
