25 Essential Settings to Improve Your Vivo Smartphone Experience

Vivo is now the number one best-selling smartphone brand in India, thanks to its wide range of products, from budget to premium and even foldable smartphones. However, one big downside of using Vivo smartphones is their OS.

Vivo smartphones in India come with Funtouch OS, different from the global variants, which come with Origin OS (Vivo is said to be bringing Origin OS to India, according to recent reports). Apart from a few issues with optimizations, another bigger downside of Vivo smartphones is unwanted ads and notifications that appear even on the most premium phones.

Fortunately, you can get rid of ninety percent of these ads and unwanted notifications with these simple changes in the settings and truly enhance your experience of using Vivo smartphones, from best developer settings changes to system tweaks, home screen settings, and more. Here are the twenty-five settings that you need to change on your new or old Vivo smartphones.

25 Settings Every Vivo Smartphone User Should Change Today

Get Rid of Ads and Unwanted Pop-Ups

Ads and unwanted pop-ups are the major reasons for your bad smartphone experience, and what is even more concerning is that not just Vivo, but many brands are using dark patterns (which companies intentionally ensure that you enable or disable specific settings with wide design and psychological factors).

You can get rid of the majority of the ads by disabling some settings while you are setting up the smartphone, and you can also turn them off after setup.

Here are the settings you need to turn off while setting up your new smartphone

• In the service recommendations page, disable the following options: Personalized recommendations, Lockscreen Poster, and User Experience Evaluation.

If you have already set up and are using your smartphone, here are the settings that you need to disable:

Disable App Store notifications on Vivo smartphones

• Find the app store app, long-press on it and click on the app info, next click on the notifications, and then turn off the app notifications completely

• Now, in the Vivo app store info, tap on the permissions, select notifications, and turn off the notifications. And next, tap on the phone app and turn off the phone permission to the app store.

• Next, disable the lock screen poster to stop unwanted ads on the lock screen. To do that, go to Home screen, lock screen & wallpaper settings, tap on the lockscreen Poster and then turn off the lock screen poster setting.

• Next, find the tips app on your smartphone and long-press on it. Now tap on the app info. After, in the app info screen, tap on the notification and turn off notification access to the Tips app.

Use Private DNS

Not just system ads can also be annoying inside apps and on websites. Fortunately, without installation and extension, you can easily get rid of ads on your smartphone using a private DNS.

Here is how to set up private DNS on your Vivo smartphone and get rid of ads:

• Open Settings in your Vivo Phone, scroll down, and tap on More connections.
• Scroll down and tap on Private DNS
• Now select the Private DNS option and then enter this DNS server: dns.adguard.com

Change the Default Browser

Most users are fine with using Google Chrome, and we also recommend the same, since it’s secure and easy to use for most users.

However, if you are a power user and want more from your browser, you can install Quetta, a new browser that I really started liking recently. I have shared my detailed experience of using this browser in a separate post.

With Quetta, you can use extensions as one of the easiest ways to enhance your browser capabilities. It is easy to use with a very minimal interface and also blocks ads by default for a private browsing experience.

You can install the browser for free, currently available on the Play Store for free. Once you set up, open the settings and change the default browser. You can also use Chrome as the default primary browser or Quetta as an alternative for powerful tasks. This isn’t a sponsored post. I am sharing my experience after using it.

How to change the default browser on your Android smartphone:

• Open the Settings app on your vivo phone
• Scroll down and tap on Apps
• Scroll down and tap on Default apps.
• Now select the Browser app and select the Quetta browser.

Enable Developer Settings

Developer settings are often the most ignored, and many users think they are only for power users; however, there are plenty of developer options that are very useful for regular users. To offer the ten best settings, I have covered all the useful developer settings that you can enable or disable on your Android, which works for every Android smartphone, including Vivo. To save you some time, here are the top 5 settings that are really helpful for Vivo smartphones.

How to enable developer settings on a Vivo smartphone:

• Go to settings on your Vivo smartphone
• Scroll all the way down and tap on About Phone
• Tap on Software information
• Now tap multiple times on Build number until you see a message that says you are a developer.

Reduce Animation Speed to Make Your Phone Feel Faster

Vivo is not known for performance apart from their T series, most Vivo phones rely on looks and camera as their main selling point, because of this they often come with underpowered processor and lower USB versions, as a result you won’t get the best performance and even in worst case hanging, we often recommend checking and freeing up the storage and uninstalling resource intense apps, however changing this simple animation setting can significantly make your phone feel faster. To do this

How to reduce animations on a Vivo smartphone using developer settings

• Open the Settings on your Vivo phone and tap on the System Management
• Here, scroll down and tap on the Developer options
• In the developer options, scroll down and find Windows/Transition animation scale settings, and set it to 0.5x in the same way you set Animator duration scale to 0.5x

Hide App Previews

If you hand over your smartphone to someone, App Lock is the best way to prevent them from accessing your private information and even hide the app preview from recent apps, hiding your content if the app is in the recents and running in the background.

The only downside is that you need to lock the app, and you have to unlock it every time you open it, which adds a lot of friction if you jump between apps frequently.

Fortunately, Vivo offers a hide preview feature that allows you to hide app previews in the recent tab without requiring a password. This saves your time and also hides content from the previous to prevent anyone from reading for even better privacy, and you can combine it with a screen lock with delayed time intervals to save time from entering the password.

Here is how you can enable hide app previews in the recent tabs on your Vivo smartphone, similar to app lock. You can also set this option for individual apps without blurring everything.

How to hide recent app previews on a Vivo smartphone: 

Open Settings on your Vivo Phone, scroll down, and tap on  Security and privacy.

• Next, click on the More privacy Settings
• Next, tap on the Recent app preview
• In the next screen, enable the option that says Blur recent apps.

Enable Recovery for App Lock

If you forget your app lock password, you can easily recover it using an email on Vivo phones. Unlike a few other phones, you don’t need to reset your phone or even factory reset your phone; you can simply add a recovery mail address while setting up a password, and if you forget, Vivo will send a recovery code to your email address, which you can use to unlock the app password. Here is how to add a recovery email to apps.

How to add a recovery email address for app lock on Vivo Phones:

• Open Settings on your Vivo smartphone and go to Security & privacy settings
• scroll down and tap on the app hiding.
• In the next answer a few security questions, and in the next screen select your email address, which you want to use as the recovery email address for the app lock.
• In the next screen, select the app you want to hide. In case you forgot the applock passwords, you can tap on the forget password and get a recovery code to this email.

Isolate Your Voice During Calls From the Background

If you often take calls in noisy environments, this feature should come in handy for you. All Vivo phones come with voice isolation features that isolates your voice from the background noise such as traffic, people talking of you in a cafe and makes your voice clear to the other user on the phone, the good thing is not just the phone app it works for all popular apps including WhatsApp for voice and video calls and even professional meet apps like Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, while this doesn’t do wonders it can make the voice decently clear for other users and can come handy in many scenarios.

Despite its use, this setting is turned off by default. Don’t worry, you can easily enable it from the settings.

How to Isolate your voice from the background

• Go to Settings on your Vivo smartphone, scroll down, and tap on shortcuts and accessibility.
• Scroll down and tap on voice isolation.
• Here you can see the apps that support voice isolation. To turn on, you can tap on any app and select Always On.

Choose What the Long-Press Button Can Do

The most annoying change many companies are changing is the press power button which used to open the power controls menu to easily restart, and power off your smartphone, however many companies including Vivo have replaced this function with its own assistant and even the Gemini app, while this can be useful it can be really frustrating if your smartphone is lagging and requires a quick instant restart.

Fortunately, you can change this function and reset to use the old power off menu option.

How to change what happens when you long-press the power button

• Go to Settings on your Vivo smartphone, scroll down, and tap on Shortcuts and Accessibility Settings.
• Scroll again, and from here, tap on the option that says Power button.
• Here, select the launch power menu. That’s it.

Turn OFF Face Beauty for Video Calls

If your friends often say that you look like you wearing makeup, this isn’t your fault, this is actually a feature on most of the Chinese Android brands including Vivo, while this can be handy in some cases like group video calls and when fun events, but sometimes it applies over beauty and reduces the quality of the video, this setting is turned off by default, however if this turned on and you want to turn it off you can go to settings and then.

How to turn off Face Beauty on Video calls:

• Go to Settings on your Vivo smartphone, scroll down, and tap on Shortcuts and Accessibility Settings.
• Now, scroll and select Face Beauty for a video call.
• From here, turn off Face Beauty for the apps you don’t use beauty filters.

Enable Flash Notifications

I have seen many people gifting a smartphone to their grandparents, but because of the aging problems and small screens, they often struggle to use them. I have recently published a post on how to make a smartphone easy to read for them.

If you are using a smartphone, most of those features come with default settings without installing third-party apps. One such feature is flash notifications, which notify the user easily by flashing the rear flash on the smartphone to make it easy for them to recognize. Here is how to enable flash notifications on your Vivo smartphone.

How to enable flash notification on your Vivo smartphone:

• Go to settings and tap on Shortcuts, and accessibility
• Scroll down and select the flash notification setting
• From here, you can turn on flash notifications for incoming calls.

Prevent Mistouch While Your Phone Is in Your Pocket

Another handy feature on a Vivo phone is to prevent Mistouch while you are putting your smartphone in your pocket. This isn’t a major concern if you are using the smartphones with a lock; however, if you place your smartphone unlocked or if you don’t use a lock screen at all, there is a high chance of Mistouch in smartphones. Fortunately, Vivo offers a Mistouch prevention feature that you can enable from the settings.

How to prevent mis-touch when your phone is in your pocket:

• Go to settings on your Vivo smartphone, scroll down, and tap on Shortcuts and accessibility
• Scroll down again and find the option that says Mistouch prevention. This feature is currently available for only a limited number of smartphones. If you don’t find this setting, it means your smartphone doesn’t support it.
• Next screen turned on the feature that says, ‘Prevent accidental touches in pocket’.

Mark the Number Without Saving It to Contacts

If you get an important call, the usual way you can remember or save the number is by adding it to your contact list. The problem is, once the contact is saved, it also shows up in WhatsApp, where they can message and also view your status by default if you enabled all contacts options.

Fortunately, with Vivo, you can mark the number and add a tag to that unknown number without saving it into your contact list. This is incredibly useful, and I wish other smartphones would also copy this feature. Here is how to mark the contact.

How to mark the number without saving it to contacts

• Open the dialer app on your Vivo smartphone and go to your recent call history. From here, select the number you want to mark.
• Long-press on it and select the option that says Mark number
• From here, you can select pre-existing tags such as spam, suspected scam, advertising, estate agent, insurance and finance, and more. You can also add your custom name, tap on the custom option and also enter the label, and click on okay to save.

Disable Control Centre Access While Your Smartphone Is Locked

The majority of smartphones allow access to the control panel even when the smartphones are locked. While this can be handy to quickly access quick settings, it also can be a downside if someone else can access the control centre settings, such as personal hotspot, Wi-F, and mobile data settings, and even turning on the airplane mode when your smartphone is stolen. Fortunately, you can prevent this from happening.

How to Disable Control Centre Access While Your Smartphone Is Locked

• Go to settings on your Vivo smartphone, scroll down and tap on home screen, lock screen, and wallpaper settings.
• From here, select lock screen settings.
• And in the next screen, turn off the option that says Open Control Centre from the lock screen.

Require a Password to Shut Down

If you want to further secure your smartphone, turn on the required password to turn off the smartphone, which can be a lifesaver if your smartphone is stolen. The first thing many people do after a theft is turn off the smartphone, making it completely unable to track it. With this setting, now the user is required to enter the screen password to turn off the smartphone.

To further enhance theft protection, you can also disable Control Centre access, so your mobile will remain connected to the internet, and also enable Google’s theft protection features to further secure your smartphone from theft.

How to enable the required password to power off your Vivo smartphone

• Go to Settings on your Vivo smartphone and tap on the security and privacy settings
• Scroll down and select more security settings.
• From here, turn on the option that says unlock to power off.

Get the Old Google Dialer Back

Vivo phones come with their own dialer; however, if you use the Google dialer, the recent updates might have frustrated you. If you are still suffering with the new update, there is an easy way to get the older Google dialer UI on any smartphone, including the Vivo. You can easily get the older dialer back by uninstalling the latest update. Here is how:

Turn off Google Discover

Like any other Google app, Google Discover is now the default news pane on most Android phones; however, if you don’t like it to be on your home screen, there is an easy way to remove it from the screen, and Vivo offers it by default to do it.

How to turn off Google Discover on your Vivo smartphone

• Go to Settings and tap Home Screen, Lock Screen, and Wallpaper Settings
• From there, select home settings and turn off the option that says Google Discover.

Customize Vivo Jovi

All Vivo Phones come with Jovi, its own version similar to OnePlus Shelf, to view all your shortcuts and widgets in one place. The biggest downsides are that most of this content is filled with ads and unwanted recommendations; however, with simple tweaks, you can make it more useful.

To customize your Jovi home on your smartphone, click on shortcuts and enable all the necessary shortcuts.

Next, click on the dynamic service and disable all the services. While doing this, click on the notification service at the top and turn off all the notifications.

In the pinned services, you can disable all the services. If you want, you can keep a few services from the apps, such as drink water reminders, a note pad, and favorite contacts for quick access.

And scroll down to the bottom and under the permissions tab, tap on the permissions, and then turn off all the permissions for the app. This is how you make your Jovi home less distracting and more useful.

Enable Simple Mode

While flash notifications can help elders get notified about notifications easily, simple mode can help them navigate their smartphones easily, especially if they are switching from a feature phone to a smartphone for the first time.

To further simplify it, you can even add widgets with shortcuts such as calling a specific contact, turning on the flashlight,and more to make it easy for them to use the Smartphone.

How to enable Simple mode on your Vivo Phone 

• Go to Settings on your Vivo smartphone, scroll down, and tap on the screen lock and wallpaper settings
• Here, tap on the option that says simple mode, and in the next screen, turn on simple mode.

Increase Picture Quality and Make the Color Look More Vivid

The majority of supported mobile phones come with a visual enhancement feature that optimizes the color and contrast of media playing on your device.

The best part is that it also works for third-party apps such as YouTube and Netflix to enhance colors if you prefer to watch more vivid colors on your smartphone. Not just that, you can also adjust screen colors on a Vivo smartphone.

By default, it is set to standard. You can also make it look more professional and brighter. You can also adjust the color temperature by setting it to warm or cold, depending on your style.

How to boost colors on your Vivo smartphone while watching media:

• Open Settings on your Vivo smartphone and tap on Display and Brightness settings
• Scroll down and tap on the visual enhancement setting.
• From here, turn on the option that says visual enhancement. You can also turn on or off for individual apps that support visual enhancement.

Remove Notifications Completely From the Status Bar

If you often avoid notifications during your productivity hours, such as while you are working, you can turn on the do-not-disturb mode to prevent any distractions. However, if you want to get rid of notifications completely from the status bar without turning on the do-not-disturb mode, you can change the notification method to learn from your smartphone’s settings.

How to remove notifications completely from the status bar

• Open Settings on your Vivo smartphone and tap on notifications and status bar settings.
• From here, scroll down and tap on the status bar
• From here, select the option that says notification method and select none.

Adjust Charging Speed Settings

Most Android Smartphones come with fast charging support. However, to preserve battery life, this is turned off by default. However, if you are in a hurry and want you charge your smartphone quickly, you can enable fast charging features from the settings to quickly charge your smartphone.

How to adjust charging speed on your vivo smartphone:

• Go to Settings on your Vivo smartphone and tap on Battery settings
• From here, tap on battery health and charging settings
• From here, select the fast charging option if you want to quickly charge your smartphone. And also for better battery life, change optimised battery charging to 80%.

Change These Useful Gaming Settings

If you often play games on your smartphone, Vivo FunTouch OS comes with some useful game customisation options to enhance your gaming experience.

First, you can bring up the game sidebar on all the games you have on your device to quickly access quick settings. If it doesn’t show, you can also manually add the game. And if you don’t want to be disturbed by unwanted notifications in the gaming mode, you can disable and block all notifications and calls while you are gaming.

If you prioritise frame rate over resolution, you can also prioritise frame rate for games you are playing, which helps you to keep the highest frame rate possible by compromising on the screen resolution.

How to enhance gaming experience on your Vivo smartphone:

• Go to Settings on your Vivo smartphone and tap on Ultra gaming mode settings
• From here, you can customize your gaming experience by selecting frame rate, priority, blocking, and wanted notifications, and much more. You can go through each setting and enhance your gaming experience.

Safety and SOS Information

This is a must-add setting for every smartphone user. Go to settings, and then safety and emergency information, and here add all your medical information, such as your emergency contacts, SOS, and also all your medical information, such as your name, blood type, height, weight, and also allergies and medications information. Vivo phones also come with the personal safety setting from Google, which can be extra useful in unsafe cases.

How to add safety and SOS information to your Vivo smartphone

• Go to Settings on your Vivo smartphone, scroll down, and tap on safety and emergency settings
• From here, you can add all the details, such as your medical information, emergency contacts, and more
• To add your medical information to your smartphone, tap on medical information settings, and from here, you can select your name, date of birth, and also blood type, height, weight, and other medical information.

A Few Useful Google Services You Should Enable

Google has added several services to its Android smartphone to further protect your device. These settings are available on almost all Android smartphones, including Vivo.

First, A remote lock, where you can lock your smartphone remotely if it is stolen. However, this feature is turned off by default; you can go to Settings, Google, All Services, find hub, and enable this feature.

And while doing so, you can also turn on the Theft protection and offline device lock. Google will automatically lock your device after your device goes offline if someone tries to remove the SIM card from your smartphone. This ensures the data is protected on your smartphone.

Settings to Get the Best Out of Your Vivo Phone

So those are the twenty-four settings that you should enable or disable on your Vivo smartphone, whether you bought a new Vivo smartphone or are using an existing one. These settings can come in very handy to help you enhance your experience.

I hope you found this guide helpful. If you have any suggestions and want to share with the community, you can come, and we will review the settings and include them in this guide. If you face any issues after changing these settings, you can easily revert by following the same steps.

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