Vivo's new cheap phone has a giant battery and 5G, with the Nord CE's price

Vivo Y72 5G
(Image credit: Vivo)

If you're looking for a new cheap phone and don't want to wait just a few days until Amazon's Prime Day cuts the prices of loads of devices, the Vivo Y72 5G might be a good choice for you. It's just been released in the UK, for a pretty low price of £299.

At that price, the new Vivo phone competes with other budget devices like the OnePlus Nord CE 5G, Xiaomi Poco F3, Nokia X20 and Oppo A94, which all cost exactly or close to that price; the Nord CE 5G is the most recent, and has some similar specs too.

We'll run you through the new phone's specs below, so you can see how it shapes up, but we won't be able to truly evaluate it until we've tested it. That said, we gave the Vivo Y70 three stars out of five in our review, so there are clearly things the brand could do to improve.

Vivo Y72 5G specs

The Vivo Y72 5G has a 6.58-inch LCD screen with a 60Hz refresh rate and a 1080 x 2400 resolution - it's broken by a teardrop notch, which houses the front camera, and is quite outdated in this world of punch-hole cut-outs.

There are three rear cameras: a 64MP main, 8MP ultra-wide and 2MP macro snapper, with a 16MP snapper for selfies on the front.

The phone uses a side-mounted fingerprint scanner and has a 3.5mm headphone jack, and it comes running Android 11, with Vivo's Funtouch interface laid over the top. There's a 5,000mAh battery, which is pretty big, though the 18W charging is rather slow.

In terms of processing power we're looking at the MediaTek Dimensity 700 chipset, which is a mid-range one. It's paired with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

Tom Bedford
Contributor

Tom Bedford was deputy phones editor on TechRadar until late 2022, having worked his way up from staff writer. Though he specialized in phones and tablets, he also took on other tech like electric scooters, smartwatches, fitness, mobile gaming and more. He is based in London, UK and now works for the entertainment site What To Watch.


He graduated in American Literature and Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. Prior to working on TechRadar, he freelanced in tech, gaming and entertainment, and also spent many years working as a mixologist. He also currently works in film as a screenwriter, director and producer.