Vivo Xplay5 Elite: 6GB RAM smartphone introduced for first time by Chinese company

Chinese smartphone-makers over the past few years have innovated cost effective ways of manufacturing handsets without having to compromise on features. Joining the ranks of Xiaomi and OnePlus is another Chinese company called Vivo.

It has come out with a smartphone – Vivo XPlay 5 Elite – that consists a mammoth 6GB RAM that many laptops also do not possess. Along with this, it is also the second non-Samsung device – following the BlackBerry Priv – to pack a screen that's curved on both sides.

The company launched two versions of the device under a new series – the XPlay 5 and the Xplay Elite. The latter features Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 chipset, 6GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 128GB of internal storage. The Xplay 5 on the other hand is more of a mid-range device with a Snapdragon 652 processor, a 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

The Xplay 5 Elite is made entirely of metal using Gorilla Glass 4 for its dual-curved screen. Both versions sport a 5.43in Super Amoled display with QHD resolution (2,560x1,440) and fingerprint reader on the back. Both phones are equipped with a16MP Sony IMX298-powered main camera and a 8MP front-facing camera.

The disappointing bit is that the Vivo XPlay 5 models will come with the Android Lollipop, instead of the Marshmallow that devices launched this year are coming pre-installed with. While the Vivo Xplay5 Elite will cost $654 (£464), the 4GB RAM XPlay5 costs $564.

The 6GB RAM feature is definitely the highlight of this phone with more phones such as the OnePlus 3 expected get a similar specification when it releases later this year.