Vivo launches most affordable 5G smartphone

Chinese smartphone vendor Vivo has unveiled the most affordable 5G smartphone so far on Thursday night in Beijing, starting from just 3,798 yuan ($536), as it adopts an aggressive pricing strategy to attract early adopters.

The price is about 1,000 to 2,000 yuan lower than 5G alternatives unveiled by rivals including Huawei Technologies Co and ZTE Corp, and falls in the same price range as some of 4G handsets.

One of the key hurdles in 5G adoption, aside from having 5G network support, is the price of 5G smartphones. So the cheaper they get, the easier it will be to convince people to buy them.

As the first 5G model of Vivo, the iQOO Pro is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset, along with an Adreno 640 graphic processing unit. It has a 91.7 percent screen-to-body ratio.

The smartphone comes with a liquid cooling feature, along with superconducting carbon fiber and temperature equalizing plate for improved heat dissipation. Currently, how to properly address the overheating problem is a major hurdle for the development of 5G smartphones.

The iQOO Pro 5G packed a 4500mAh battery with fast charging capabilities. For the camera specifications, the phones sports a 48-megapixel primary rear camera, secondary 13-megapixel 120-degree ultra-wide lens and a 2-megapixel sensor for portrait shots. On the front of the device is a 12-megapixel camera on the front.

Zeng Kunpeng, general manager of the iQOO product series of Vivo, said the company has applied for more than 2,000 5G patent applications, as it works hard to beef up its technological capabilities.