Vivo launched the follow-up to its entry-level Vivo Y12 earlier in November this year. The new Vivo Y12s is already available in Southeast Asian countries like Hong Kong and Vietnam. And it’s now making its way to South Asia. India’s BIS certification authority recently signed off on the phone. And given Vivo’s typical release calendar, it should land in Pakistan next.
The certification document was first spotted by the Twitter phone leaker, Mukul Sharma, better known as @stufflistings. It lists Vivo Y12s under its model number V2026. The phone has also been featured on Russian and Indonesian certification databases.
Vivo Y12s is essentially a tweaked version of the Y12 from 2019. It offers a bigger storage capacity and a (relatively) faster processor, packaged in a new design. Vivo has moved the fingerprint reader to the side, where it doubles as the power button.
Vivo Y12s, available in the holographic Glacier Blue and Phantom Black, now embeds its three cameras inside a boxy camera bump. But the front-facing notch is still there. Not to mention the USB interface is the old-gen micro-USB.
Vivo new model also took out the 8MP ultra-wide camera the Y12 had, leaving the new Y12s with a 13MP standard, a 2MP ‘depth camera’, and an 8MP selfie cam.
The screen has slightly grown to 6.51”. It’s the same generic IPS LCD panel with a 720P resolution -- except for the side bezels and the chin, which appear more noticeable this year. Vivo Y12s weighs the same as its predecessor but is half a millimeter slimmer.
For the internals, you’re looking at the obsolete MediaTek Helio P35 that came out in early 2018. The chipset works with a 5000 mAh battery with no fast charging support. Contrast it against the POCO M3 (which roughly falls into the same price range), and Xiaomi’s model has the Snapdragon 662 chipset from January 2020. Even without considering POCO M3’s 1080P screen, dual stereo speakers, fast charging support, and its 6000 mAh battery, the Y12s value to price ratio is far lower.
Vivo Y12s has the same 3GB/4GB of memory and 32GB of base storage as before, but the 64GB version has been replaced with a 128GB one. We expect it to start from Rs. 22,999.