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CHRIS VELAZCO: This
is the Vivo Nex

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S. You can't buy one in the US.

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And you probably haven't even
heard of the company that makes

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it, unless you've
seen all the signage

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at this year's World Cup.

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It would be really
easy to dismiss

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this thing as yet, another
weird Chinese smartphone

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that we'll never get.

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But I don't think we should
write it off that quickly.

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See, it's weird precisely
because of how ambitious it is.

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It has a front that's
almost completely screened

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with a fingerprint sensor
underneath that display,

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and a selfie camera that rises
up from a top of the phone.

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How could we not take
a closer look at this?

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So first things first.

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Just look at this thing.

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There's hardly any bezel around
the 6.59-inch AMOLED display.

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Barely any phones out
there have a screen

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to body ratio this high, though
the Oppo 5X, which is coming

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to North America, if
not the United States,

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technically has even less bezel.

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This is a 1080p display.

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So we're actually
looking at some pretty

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modest pixel density.

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But, whatever.

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It's here for its
edge-to-edge wow factor

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more than anything else.

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To pull off this
design, Vivo had

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to squeeze some important
components somewhere else.

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Just look at the ear piece.

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There actually isn't one.

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Instead, a vibrating exciter
turns the whole screen

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into a speaker.

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And it works pretty
well, even when you

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hold it away from your face.

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Under that screen is one of the
first in-display fingerprint

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sensors you'll find
in a commercially

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available smartphone.

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It works.

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That's really the best
thing I could say about it.

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Setting it up works
exactly the way

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that you would expect it to.

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And the one big difference
between this and a more

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traditional fingerprint
sensor set up

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is that this is
noticeably slower.

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It's not bad enough
that I wouldn't want

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to use it on a regular basis.

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But when it comes to
fingerprint sensors,

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I frankly been
spoiled by Samsung

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Galaxies and Google pixels.

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There's a dual camera
that combines a 12 and a 5

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megapixel sensor around back.

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And it takes decent
enough photos.

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But who cares, really?

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The Nex S's real claim
to fame is this eight

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megapixel pop-up selfie camera.

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If the idea of a camera that
rises up from the phone,

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like you'd Loch Ness monster
sticking its head above water

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to take a look around
wasn't absurd enough.

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Just listen to it do its thing.

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[BEEPING NOISE]

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It sounds vaguely Star Trek.

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And you know what.

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I kind of appreciate that.

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People says it takes about
a second for the camera

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to spring into
position and engineers

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a toggle, the selfie camera,
more than 50,000 times

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without issue.

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Theoretically, that should work
out to a couple years of use

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before things go south.

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But there are two things
to consider-- for one,

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millennials take
a lot of selfies.

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Also, this is a big phone.

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So the chances of someone
dropping this thing

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or trying to take a selfie
is well north of zero.

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That would be a shame too
since this thing actually

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takes half-decent selfies.

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They're not as detailed
as what you'd get

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from one of Google's Pixel 2.

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But they provide
a solid baseline

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for the phones' beautification
features to work from.

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So yeah, there's a lot
of fascinating stuff

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going on here.

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I'm just going to warn you
right now, though, if you try

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to import this thing from
China and use it in the US,

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prepare to be disappointed.

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For one, even with the system
language set to English,

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there is a lot, a lot of
pre-loaded Chinese software.

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I'd love to explore
what some of it does.

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But my Mandarin doesn't really
extend much further than,

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you know, how are
you, and I want

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to eat something right now.

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Because one of its weight words
is technically in English,

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I had to try using Vivo's
Jovi virtual assistant.

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I, for the life of
me, couldn't even

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get through the setup process
with that English weight board.

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I eventually got by, though, by
setting up the Chinese option.

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But my very limited Mandarin
could only get me so far.

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[SPEAKING MANDARIN]

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I don't know what that means.

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What else?

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Well, there are
obviously no Google

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play services on this
version of the phone either.

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So you'll have to find that
most of the apps you'd actually

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like to use on a regular basis.

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I should also point out that
even though this Vivo has

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top-tier components, like
a Snapdragon 845 chipset,

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8 gigs of RAM and 256
gigs of internal storage,

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it doesn't seem near
as fast as other phones

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that tested this year.

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The blame for that
lies almost solely

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on FunTouch OS, the poorly named
Oreo-derived operating system

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that lays a whole
lot of extra stuff

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on top of traditional Android.

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Vivo software also takes a
lot of cues from Apple's iOS

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design, which is fine, I guess.

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But if you're going to
build a phone that's unique,

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wouldn't you want to pair it
with an interface that didn't

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feel like a laggy copycat?

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Ultimately, the Vivo Nex S is an
absolutely fascinating machine,

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and, for that matter, a
great example of China

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embracing new concepts
and technologies

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with surprising speed.

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That said, you
shouldn't feel bad

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that the Nex S
probably won't wind

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up on a store shelf near you.

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It's one of those
devices that's much

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better when admired from afar.

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