Rumor | The premium Vivo NEX smartphones are back and will upgrade once a year

Vivo is a member of the BBK Electronics family that used to define itself by its NEX flagship line: smartphones that often came with advanced specs such as pop-up selfie cameras and pronounced display curves. This series was also an early adopter of features such as circular rear camera humps, industry-leading charging speeds and 5G. However, this did not stop Vivo dropping the line in favor of others over time.

Nevertheless, it seems the phones are now on the way back, as of early 2022. This, according to MyDrivers, has been confirmed by Vivo vice president Hu Baishan in an interview. The executive has noted that there will be only 1 generation of NEX per year, whereas the OEM had had the habit of launching S-variants from time to time.

This may seem a strange decision, particularly as the X line has now effectively assumed all Vivo flagship smartphone duties. On the other hand, their maker has advanced tech ambitions that might lead it to compete with Xiaomi and its Mix line, which is where a "NEX 5" could well fit in.

Meanwhile, more evidence of the upcoming X70 series continues to emerge. It now seems an additional X70t Pro variant may join its vanilla, Pro and Pro+ siblings at launch.

This new device, with a name allegedly confirmed through an IMEI database leak, may also have been detected on Geekbench 5 with the model number V2135A. It may, like the X70 and X70 Pro, run on the Dimensity 1200 SoC, paired with 8GB of RAM in this variant.