So, you finally decided to spring for a new smartphone, and you landed on picking up this good-looking budget phone from vivo. We want to make sure you get the most out of it, so we’re taking a different route of sharing more about this phone alongside some tips and tricks on how to get the most out of the vivo Y16.
Let’s dive right into this story, shall we?
Tweaking the vivo Y16’s UI color
It’s hard to miss the vivo Y16, especially if you get the Drizzling Gold variant. The back of the phone mimics the sun’s rays with a design that makes it look more expensive than it is. (I love that it isn’t a fingerprint magnet.) But we’d want to match what you see on the back. With the Y16 running on Android 12-based Funtouch 12 OS, one of the design tweaks you can make is with the UI color to complement the wallpaper. I wish you could select the colors to use, but the preselected options are great, too.
To change the UI color, long-press on the home screen and tap on UI color. Toggle on the System and app UI color and then select the colors you want to use. When you change your wallpaper, the UI color will show you different palettes, and the changes will apply to compatible elements on the screen.
Quickly access the camera from the lock screen
There’s a quick way to access the camera app without having to unlock the phone. There are lock screen shortcuts you can enable from the settings. Head into the Lock screen & wallpaper section, then tap on Lock screen settings. You can choose between four options you can quickly pull up: Phone, Camera, Wallet, and Device controls. And determine whether you want to open this from the bottom left or bottom right of the phone. You need to drag it up to open the app.
Unlocking the phone is pretty quick on the vivo Y16, thanks to its side-mounted fingerprint sensor and power button. It’s positioned at the center of the phone for easy access.
Dealing with vivo Y16’s notifications
Ever accidentally swiped away a notification you needed or want a quick way to reply to messages? The vivo Y16 has ways to take care of your notifications. Head into your settings and scroll down to Notifications. The first thing you should do is enable your notification history. Head to the aptly named Notification history and toggle on Use notification history. This section houses your recent and snoozed notifications. So if you accidentally swipe away a notification you wanted to see, this is where you need to head.
If you want to answer or deal with notifications quickly, make sure the Suggested actions and replies option is toggled on. This will automatically show you suggested actions and replies for your notifications.
Appreciate songs better on this phone
If you want better sound quality while listening to music, you can tune the vivo Y16’s sound profile to suit your hearing. This works for when you connect wired headphones through the audio jack or wireless earbuds. Head into the Sound option in the settings, then scroll down to the bottom and select Ear-customized sound effects.
You can choose to use the sample sound profiles based on age or take the time to create custom sound effects to suit what you need. You can choose between Fast and Precision modes to test your hearing. The vivo Y16 has a solitary bottom-firing speaker that can work in a pinch, but for better audio quality, go for the headphones option.
How to get more RAM
The vivo Y16 runs on a MediaTek P35 processor paired with 4GB of RAM. This memory isn’t built for power users, but you can get a slight performance boost and smoother experience with this device’s Extended RAM feature. Look for the RAM & storage space setting and then tap on RAM to toggle the Extended RAM option.
The phone uses some of the phone’s storage to give you that extra performance. And if you opt for the large capacity 128GB model, you’ll have plenty to spare. We’re happy to see larger storage capacities in the sub-USD 200 price point. And the vivo Y16 has that option. The lower-capacity model doesn’t seem to be available yet, but we’re going to push you to get the 128GB model. With storage expansion support, you can even get an extra 1TB of storage out of this phone.
Get a slightly better gaming experience
Phones like the vivo Y16 aren’t what I’d consider gaming devices, but you can still get a better gaming experience on this phone. This handset has what it calls an Esports Mode that you can activate if you want undisturbed gaming. You can find this in the settings under the Ultra Game Mode feature. This is something you can enable in the sidebar of supported games. One title vivo mentioned is Arena of Valor.
If your Game sidebar isn’t activated yet, you can also toggle that on in the Ultra Game Mode. With the vivo Y16’s 5,000mAh battery, the company promises seven hours of “resource-intensive” games. This handset supports 10W fast charging and 5W reverse charging.
Turn your vivo Y16 into a productivity helper
With its 6.51-inch Halo FullView HD+ display, the vivo Y16 is a relatively large display to get some on-the-go writing on. But you can also ensure you don’t get distracted by the phone when you need to get some deep work done. If you need to work at specific times without your phone going off, you can automate the process on this phone.
Open the Y16’s settings and scroll down to Shortcuts & accessibility and then tap on Scheduled tasks. You can schedule features like vibration and airplane modes to automatically enable them at a specific time. Airplane mode might be drastic, but that’s one effective way to make sure you aren’t contacted during those times you need to concentrate.
What to do if your kid (or younger sibling) borrows your phone
If you aren’t the only person using your phone, this feature will come in handy. You can have multiple user accounts on the Y16. To add a guest or another user, head into System and then tap on Multiple users. You can also toggle the option to add a user from the lock screen from this window.
Tips for the vivo Y16’s camera
We have a few things to recommend you have enabled to get more use out of the camera. Two things to enable immediately in the Camera app settings are Framing lines and Portrait framing. The latter will come in handy when you’re taking photos with the main Photo and Portrait modes of the rear camera.
Now, to make it easier to shoot with other people, enable one or all of these shutter triggers (Touch, Voices, and Palm). This is accessible under the Shutter option in the Camera’s settings. The Palm shutter is my personal favorite because it is the easiest way to trigger the camera’s shutter.
Final thoughts
Budget phones like the vivo Y16 do not have the blazing-fast performance of their more expensive counterparts. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get a good smartphone experience out of them. You can still get what you need to be done if you aren’t too demanding on your smartphone. It’s not my favorite camera on an entry-level phone, but it’ll work in a pinch. First-time buyers and casual smartphone users on a budget will get what they need out of this, especially if you love to store a lot of files, photos, and other content on your phone. And this one gets the bonus of looking like it costs more than it does.
The vivo Y16‘s 64GB variant retails for PHP 7,999 (around USD 142). (There’s also a 128GB option for PHP 8,999 or approx. USD 161.)
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