Vivo X100 Pro Review: Exceeding All My Smartphone Photography Expectations Barring One

Vivo recently released two flagship smartphones in its X series in India. The Vivo X100 and Vivo X100 Pro are the first two smartphones to use the MediaTek Dimensity 9300 chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3's biggest rival. The Vivo X100 series is also set to go on sale in India later today.

I recently got my hands on the Vivo X100 Pro, the top-end smartphone in the line-up. The Vivo X100 Pro puts the emphasis on camera performance and is said to be able to rival the iPhone 15 series and Samsung Galaxy S23 line-up. And it features a price to match (Rs 89,999)! So let's take a quick look at the Vivo X100 Pro.

PROS

• Excellent Cameras
• Powerful Performance
• Vibrant Display
• Stunning Design, Premium Build
• Good Battery Life
• Super-fast Charging Support

CONS

• Sub-par Selfie Camera
• Ultrawide Camera Could Be Better
• Software Needs Refinement

Design and Build

Let's start with the Vivo X100 Pro's design, which is stunning as usual. There's not much deviation from past Vivo X series smartphones. The Vivo X100 Pro comes in a sole Asteroid Black shade, which features fluorite anti-glare glass. The Vivo X100 Pro features a matte glass back with a shimmering pattern and several signs of Vivo's collaboration with Zeiss for the cameras on the handset.

However, this is most evident in the huge circular camera angle on the top, which protrudes well beyond the rear panel, not allowing the phone to lay flat on a surface. But despite this, the Vivo X100 Pro doesn't wobble when being used for some quick replies or emails on a desk. You are also treated to a glossy frame and beautiful curved display.

But don't let the elegance fool you as the Vivo X100 Pro boasts a resilient build. There's glass protection on both the front and back, while the frame is made from aluminum. The Vivo X100 Pro also features an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. The tough build does put the phone on the heavy side, weighing 225 grams and measuring 8.91mm thick.

The overall design of the Vivo X100 Pro feels elegant, and both the back and front were resistant to smudges and scratching during my time with the phone. However, unlike some major brands, Vivo does offer a free phone cover in the box for that added bit of protection. The phone does feel pretty though, although it would be nice to know the glass protection used on the front and back.

Display

The display of the Vivo X100 Pro ties well into the phone's design. Vivo opts for a 6.78-inch FHD+ (1260 x 2800 pixels) OLED display with a pixel density of 452 PPI. The LTPO panel boasts an adaptive refresh rate, capable of scaling between 1Hz - 120Hz. It also features a 2160Hz PWM dimming and is SGS Low Blue Light and Low Flicker certified to reduce eye strain.

The display supports HDR10 and HDR10+ but not Dolby Vision, although viewing content or photos on it looks stunning. It can also display HDR images in the gallery. Finally, the panel is easily visible both indoors and outdoors, offering a peak brightness of 3,000 nits.

The screen on the Vivo X100 Pro looks phenomenal but it doesn't quite match up to some flagships like the Pixel 8 Pro and Galaxy S23 Ultra, due to the lower pixel density. However, that isn't something easy to spot for a vast majority of users, including me. The dual speaker system on the Vivo X100 Pro gets quite loud but the audio is not as detailed as that on the Galaxy S23 Ultra.

Performance

For performance, the Vivo X100 Pro opts for the MediaTek Dimensity 9300 SoC, instead of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset. Paired with the MediaTek chip is an Immortalis-G720 GPU, 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM, and 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage. In terms of raw performance, the MediaTek chip showed similar results as the iQOO 12 5G with the SD 8 Gen 3 SoC.

In Geekbench 6, the Vivo X100 Pro managed a single-core score of 2058 points and a multi-core score of 6754 points, Moreover, it also managed an overall AnTuTu score of just over two million, 2,036,732 points to be precise. These results do fall short of the iQOO 12 5G with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip but are not too far behind.

After an excellent showing in the benchmarks, we ran a couple of games on the Vivo X100 Pro - Call of Duty: Mobile, Diablo Immortal, and Injustice: Gods Among Us with graphics and frame rates set to max. All titles ran smoothly without any hitches or over-heating issues. Where I did run into a little snag was when recording videos for than five minutes, when the phone did heat up.

While this didn't affect my recording, the viewfinder did feel a little sluggish. Performance on the Vivo X100 Pro is further helped by its capability to expand RAM up to 16GB using the Extended RAM feature, while the new V3 chip also helps with gaming.

The dedicated V3 imaging chip enables Game Super Resolution and Game Frame Interpolation. The former enhances image quality when gaming, while the latter boosts frame rates in games. The V3 chip also offers a mode to reduce power consumption. Apart from the minor heating issues, primarily during video recording, the Vivo X100 Pro offered performance worthy of a flagship smartphone.

Cameras

Perhaps the biggest highlight of the Vivo X100 Pro is its triple-camera setup on the back. At the helm, is a 1-inch type 50 MP Sony IMX989 primary sensor with Laser AF and OIS support.

The main camera is paired with a new Zeiss APO floating periscope telephoto lens with a 50 MP sensor that supports OIS and 4.3x optical zoom and an f/2.5 aperture. Lastly, there's a 50 MP Samsung JN1 ultrawide lens. Now, let's look at some real-world results.

The main camera on the Vivo X100 Pro captures excellent shots in daylight with great dynamic range, good highlight preservation, and accurate white balance. It also dealt with shadows well, while colors looked accurate for the most part with a tab bit of vibrancy. The large sensor also ensures there's virtually no noise present in shots and ensures a natural bokeh effect.

The 50 MP ultrawide camera maintains the same color consistency as the main camera, although there is a slight dip in detail, but overall shots are good in daylight. I also did see much distortion on the edges. However, the next star of the show is the floating telephoto-periscope lens with 4.3x optical zoom, which is not quite as powerful as the S23 Ultra's 10x optical zoom.

The Vivo X100 Pro also features a 10x hybrid zoom that captures a good amount of detail and does a solid job with dynamic range. In daylight, we noticed that shots taken up to 20x zoom yielded good results, although a good bit of noise creeped into the pics beyond it and 100x zoom was an unstable mess.

However, Vivo places a heavy emphasis on portrait photography with the X100 Pro and color me impressed. The Vivo X100 Pro captured the best portraits I've seen on a smartphone to date with 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, and 100mm focal lengths. This is the best smartphone I've used for portrait photography.

Additionally, the Supermacro mode is excellent for those closeups of flowers, leaves, etc. The phone also has a Telephoto Sunshot mode to capture stunning sunrises and sunsets. The one disappointing area in the camera department was the 32 MP selfie camera on the Vivo X100 Pro. While detail and color were good, facial softening was a little much and low light selfies were downright poor.

Speaking of low light, the Vivo X100 Pro captured a ton of light and detail in low light with night mode kicking in automatically. The dynamic range of shots taken with the main camera was excellent and the noise was non-existent. The main camera also does an excellent job handling white balance and shadows, although images tend to look a bit over sharpened at times.

The Vivo X100 Pro can also record 4K video at up to 60fps or 8K video at up to 30fps. The Vivo X100 Pro also has a new Cinematic Portrait mode, which records 4K video at 30fps with a bokeh effect. The optical image stabilization on the main and telephoto cameras also ensures steady footage. Overall, the Vivo X100 Pro has some of the best camera hardware I've tested on a smartphone, and it shows.

Battery

The Vivo X100 Pro has a massive 5,400 mAh battery, the larger than that of the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and Google Pixel 8 Pro. The massive battery can last an entire day under heavy usage and is ideal for a power user. The large battery on the Vivo X100 Pro supports 100W wired and 50W wireless fast charging.

Both quite impressive in their own ranks, although the Vivo X100 Pro does come with a 100W adapter in the box, which can take the from 0 to 100% in under 40 minutes. Despite the fast-charging support, Vivo also promises four years of battery durability. Overall, I had to give the Vivo X100 Pro an 'A+' in the battery department.

Software

On the software side, the Vivo X100 Pro runs Android 14 out of the box with Funtouch OS 14 on top. Funtouch OS on the Vivo X100 Pro bumps up the customizability with new always-on styles, switch-up the look of the overview menu, set up lighting effects, and more. Google Dialer and Android Messages are available at the get-go.

Vivo also offers an instant startup mode, which can boot the phone in 20 seconds after charging it from a dead battery. Funtouch OS 14 also brings various privacy features like Voice Isolation, Smart Mirroring-Privacy Protection, and Hidden Photos.

A pop-up sidebar enables launching two apps simultaneously in split-screen mode, while Quick Settings allows you to access various apps with a single swipe from your home screen. Apart from the myriad of customization features, the Vivo X100 Pro also has a much cleaner interface with relatively less bloatware compared to past iterations of Funtouch OS.

Vivo also promises three years of major OS updates and three years of regular security updates for the X100 Pro. Yes, Funtouch OS has a ton of customization options and is much cleaner, although the AI integration here is nowhere close to that on the Google Pixel 8.

The Good

The Vivo X100 Pro boasts hardware comparable to any other Android flagship on the market. The MediaTek chip isn't too far behind the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC, the AMOLED display looks sharp and vibrant, the battery easily surpasses the one-day mark, and the charging speed simply leaves most competitors in the dust.

But it isn't just the hardware, the phone features a design to match some of the top flagships and a robust build with an IP68 rating. However, the true star of the show here is the camera system on the back. Yes, it looks big and bulky! But boy does it deliver!

Camera performance exceeded my every expectation irrespective of the lighting. iPhone and Pixel users are definitely going to envy the portrait shots you get on the Vivo X100 Pro. And even though the zoom quality was not as good as the S23 Ultra, it got pretty damn close. Vivo has also put a major emphasis on video, which has gotten a lot better from past iterations.

The Bad

Now it's not all rosy as the Vivo X100 Pro isn't without its fault. For one, the selfie camera is bang-on average and is quite a letdown given how good the rear cameras are. Vivo hasn't quite provided all the specifics of the glass used as it can be slippery to grip even with the case on.

Additionally, while Vivo has stepped up its software game, it is not quite on the level of stock Android or One UI. The Full HD+ resolution is a step below the Quad HD+ resolutions of some of its competitors. However, these aren't quite dealbreakers in my opinion and the sub-par selfie camera is my only qualm with the Vivo X100 Pro.

Vivo X100 Pro Verdict

While India's premium smartphone market maybe on the rise, it is dominated by brands like Apple and Samsung. Consumers often don't give brands like Vivo, OnePlus, Google, or Xiaomi a chance. And in most scenarios, you are better off going with an Apple or Samsung but this might just be the exception.

For those that don't quite use the selfie camera as much, I'd say the Vivo X100 Pro is worth every penny, particularly if you love taking portrait shots. In terms of the Vivo X100 Pro, the 'Pros' easily outweigh the 'Cons' earning it an easy recommendation in my book.