Benco V91 Review: Good Design, Bad Camera

TechLekh Verdict

If you’re in search of a trendy and stylish entry-level phone, the Benco V91 makes for an excellent choice. Not the best, but it delivers acceptable performance, offering satisfactory gaming experiences for the price.

The software experience is also found to be better than the Benco S1 with fewer noticeable lags. However, the camera performance is below par with poor output.

Benco V91 is an entry-level smartphone launched in August 2023. It is targeted toward budget-oriented consumers.

The price of the Benco V91 is Rs. 13,599 for the 4/128GB variant, while the 8/128GB variant costs Rs. 15,399.

In this Benco V91 review, we will discuss how the overall phone is including its performance and camera.

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Benco V91 Review

Stylish Design

• 162.94 x 74.69 x 8.99 mm
• 195 g
• Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)

Similar to the Benco S1 and the Benco S1 Pro, the design of the Benco V91 is also impressive for its price. Its plastic back features a smooth, glossy finish that surprisingly doesn’t show fingerprints. The upper camera portion boasts a cool radial effect, centered around the large camera ring.

On the front, there’s a waterdrop notch design, which may appear dated, but it’s understandable for an entry-level phone. The fingerprint sensor on the right side, below the volume rockers, works reliably. However, there is a noticeable delay in waking up the display, which can make the unlocking process feel slow when the display is off.

The left side of the device houses the SIM card tray, capable of holding two nano SIM cards and a microSD card. Similarly, the bottom side houses a microphone, a USB-C port, and a mono speaker grille. The speaker delivers average sound quality with decent loudness.

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Display

• 6.56 inches IPS LCD
• HD+ (720 x 1640 pixels)
• 90Hz refresh rate

The 6.56-inch IPS LCD HD+ display has a satisfactory brightness level; however, you may encounter some difficulty in direct sunlight. The color reproduction of the display is average. You can find displays with better colors in this price range, but nonetheless, it provides a decent experience for watching videos and using platforms like YouTube.

Impressively, Benco has also managed to offer a 90Hz refresh rate display with the V91. A typical refresh rate for a display on an entry-level phone is 60Hz. A higher 90Hz makes the display feel smoother.

Performance

• Unisoc T606 (12nm)
• Octa-core (2×1.6 GHz Cortex-A75 & 6×1.6 GHz Cortex-A55)
• Mali-G57 MP1
• 128GB 4/8GB RAM, supports microSDXC

The Benco V91 is equipped with the Unisoc T606 chipset, an entry-level processor also found in phones like the Tecno Spark 10C and Benco S1.

The unit I have comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, which is impressive considering its price. The storage is eMMC, a typical technology for entry-level phones. It’s comparatively slower than UFS storage, affecting app opening, closing, installation, and file transfer speeds.

While the Benco S1 features UFS technology and the same T606 processor, we discovered that the Benco V91 is much better optimized than the Benco S1. Perhaps it’s due to software optimization, but the V91 is noticeably more responsive than the more expensive Benco S1.

The phone feels responsive during general tasks such as app opening, UI navigation, and browsing. Of course, there are occasional small lags and delays, which are forgivable for a phone in this price range.

Benchmark

Gaming Test

We tested two games on the Benco V91. First, PUBG Mobile, which can run at HD graphics with a High frame rate. When we set the graphics to Smooth and the frame rate to Ultra, we achieved an average of 25 fps.

In the case of Free Fire, with graphics set to Ultra, resolution set to High, and FPS set to High, we obtained an average of 52 fps.

While playing these games on the Benco V91, it’s worth noting that the gameplay experience may not be very smooth, but it is possible to play them at lower settings.

Camera

• Rear Camera: 13 MP, f/2.0, (main)
  • 2 MP, f/2.4, (macro)
  • unspecified “AI” camera
  • Video: 1080@30fps
• Front Camera: 8 MP, f/2.2, (wide)
  • Video: 1080@30fps

The phone has a 13MP main camera, a 2MP macro lens, and a third lens, which is referred to as an ‘AI lens,’ presumably serving as a depth sensor.

It’s quite common in entry-level to budget phones to include multiple additional cameras primarily for the sake of achieving a higher camera count, often seen as a marketing gimmick.

As expected, the macro camera performs poorly, capturing soft photos with little detail, noticeable noise, and pale colors.

Main Camera

The main camera takes mediocre photos. The photos from the main camera lack sufficient detail, and the dynamic range is also poor.

There are instances when the photos come out decently, but you may notice that they have lower detail at the edges.

The colors also appear a bit too saturated. While the shutter speed for the first photo is acceptable, the image processing takes a few seconds, causing delays in capturing subsequent photos. This lengthy image processing time also prevents immediate viewing after taking a picture.

The focus is somewhat inconsistent, leading to some blurry photos.

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Portrait

The portrait photos are also not very impressive. The device does an okay job of detecting subjects, but it doesn’t detect the surroundings and blurs everything except for the human subject, resulting in very unnatural-looking portrait shots.

Furthermore, the phone struggles to properly distinguish edges, sometimes cutting off important parts of the subject.

So, if you want to take a photo in portrait mode on the Benco V91, it’s best to avoid leaning on or sitting near objects, as the camera may blur them as well. Instead, try to stand with no objects nearby; this may result in a slightly more natural background blur.

However, when it comes to picture quality, it’s, at best, average, with poor detail and exposure.

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Front Camera

The front features an 8MP selfie camera. The selfies capture satisfactory detail, but we noticed inconsistent exposure, with faces often appearing dark.

In indoor settings, the selfies show noticeable noise grain. However, in good lighting conditions, the selfies appear sharper.

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Video

The rear camera can record video at up to 1080p resolution at 30 fps, while the front camera is limited to 720p at 30 fps. As expected, the video quality is poor, lacking sufficient detail, having a low dynamic range, and featuring noticeable noise.

Battery Life

• Non-removable Li-Po 5000mAh battery
• 18W Charging

The Benco V91 has a 5000mAh battery that delivers impressive battery life. Even during my heavy usage, we were getting around 6–7 hours of screen-on-time, which is good.

The device supports 18W fast charging. To charge this from 0% to 100%, it took just under 2 hours.

Software

• Android 13
• INONE UI

In terms of software, the Benco V91 runs on INONE UI, based on Android 13. The UI features some Benco customizations. The first thing you will notice is the absence of an app drawer.

The UI doesn’t offer many additional features. However, it provides options for using gestures to trigger specific actions, such as double-tapping to wake up the screen and drawing a ‘C’ on the sleeping screen to open the camera. You can also customize which apps open with gestures corresponding to the letters ‘M,’ ‘W,’ ‘S,’ and ‘Z.’ Other features include the ‘Lift to check phone’ option and the ‘three-pointer screenshot’ feature.

Overall, we found that the software on the Benco V91 is much more optimized than on the Benco S1 because it experiences less animation lag and feels smoother.

What do you think of the Benco V91? Let us know in the comments!