Tag Archives: Vivo

Vivo X70 Pro+ Review: Picture Perfect?

Posted on by

Vivo has been trying to make it into the premium segment for a while with its X series of smartphones. These high-end devices focus on the camera but past models have often fallen short of expectations in other areas, given their premium pricing.

The Vivo X50 Pro (Review) introduced a unique gimbal stabilisation feature, but had a mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G processor at a premium price. Vivo fixed this performance gap with the X60 Pro+ (Review), but it offered no IP rating, wireless charging, or stereo speakers.

With the new X70 Pro+, Vivo seems to have done its homework. It’s priced at Rs. 79,990 in India, which means it competes with the iPhone 13 (First Impressions), Samsung S21+ (Review), Mi 11 Ultra (Review), and top-end variants of some other premium Android models. Vivo has filled in the gaps of the X60 Pro+ and also upgraded its camera system. After using this phone for a week, it’s easy to conclude that this might be one of the best smartphones in the flagship segment.

Vivo X70 Pro+ design

The Vivo X70 Pro+ plus ditches the faux leather back that the X60 Pro+ had. Vivo has instead gone with a matte glass finish and a skinny metal frame. The phone is available in a single Enigma Black finish which looks and feels premium but is also quite slippery. The glass rear panel feels durable and does a very good job of rejecting fingerprints and smudges.

The Vivo X70 Pro+ has a glass back and a metal frame

 

It’s easy to tell that Vivo has paid a lot of attention to the X70 Pro+’s design. The right and left sides of the frame are skinny, the bottom is a lot thicker but is flat, and the top has a glass insert with a more rounded appearance. It all looks good together, but the materials are very slippery. Thankfully, there’s a high-quality faux leather case in the box, which is soft to touch and adds plenty of grip, but it will increase the overall thickness of the smartphone when snapped on.

While the phone feels surprisingly slim at 8.89mm, the quad-camera module on the back protrudes quite a bit. At 213g, it’s not exactly light, but not too heavy for a premium smartphone either. Right next to that large camera module is a large reflective panel, which is a cosmetic touch, but can also be used as a mirror so you can take selfies with the rear camera.

Vivo includes a faux leather case in the box, along with a pair of Type-C USB earphones and a 3.5mm adapter

 

The X70 Pro+ has a large 6.7-inch WQHD+ AMOLED display panel with curved sides. The Schott Xensation cover glass is prone to smudges, but these can be wiped off easily. A new feature on this generation is the stereo speaker setup, with the earpiece doubling up as the second speaker. Also new is the IP68 rating which means you get good protection against dust and water.

Vivo X70 Pro+ specifications and software

The Vivo X70 Pro+ goes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888+ processor, which is a minor upgrade to the Snapdragon 888 found in most premium Android flagships. This processor has a higher 3GHz (2.999Ghz to be precise) clock speed and a faster Hexagon 780 AI Engine. There’s 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage, with no room for expansion. Communications standards include Wi-Fi 6 ac/ax, Bluetooth 5.2, and NFC. This phone supports several SA and NSA 5G bands, which were missing on the X60 Pro+.

Vivo’s custom Android skin, FunTouch OS, has been upgraded to version 12 with Android 11 as the base. The company’s much-talked-about widget-based Origin OS has yet to make it to any of the Vivo handsets in India, but the X70 Pro+ does get a handful of those cool-looking widgets including a Clean up & Accelerate function, a Nano music player, a few basic stickers (quotes, water counter, countdown), a featured album, and one for the weather. Apart from these, there are also the usual Android widgets to pick from.

Vivo’s X70 Pro+ runs FunTouch OS 12 with Android 11 as the base

 

What makes the FunTouch widgets special is their skeuomorphic design. There are buttons that open and close a jukebox-like music player (with Spotify integration) with some interesting animations like a CD slotting into a tray. Their overall fluidity is far cry from the usually clunky Android widgets. They are also very interactive. You can swipe across the album widget to glance at a few photos, or swipe across the weather widget to switch between hourly and daily weather reports. As interactive and fun as they are, there’s a lot missing in terms of deeper integration, which is something Apple’s iOS does much better.

Widgets aside, the software felt very fluid with no lag or stuttering whatsoever. While the phone does come with several preloaded third-party apps (which can be uninstalled), I was surprised to not see a single promotional notification pop up during the review period.

Vivo X70 Pro+ performance and battery life

The Vivo X70 Pro+ features a WQHD+ (3200×1440 pixels) display which is very sharp and gets quite bright outdoors. It claims to be able to reproduce a billion colours and has very natural-looking colour tones. The curved edges made swiping from the sides easier while navigating the software, and didn’t cause too much distraction when watching content. The display also supports HDR10+. While video on YouTube and Amazon Prime looked sharp and vibrant, Netflix’s HDR certification is still pending. Vivo has confirmed that it has applied for this and that it will be enabled later.

The AMOLED panel features a 120Hz peak refresh rate, which apart from making the software experience feel fluid, is also evident while playing games. Vivo’s Ultra Game mode has been revamped with a new interface and now has a lot of useful gamer-friendly controls including 4D vibration, a voice changer, and Eagle Eye View, which brightens up the game to let you see more clearly in darker areas.

The Vivo X70 Pro+ features a 6.7-inch WQHD+ AMOLED display panel with curved sides

 

I played Call of Duty: Mobile, and as expected, the gaming performance was flawless. Touch sampling was spot on with no lag or stutter, and the game loaded quickly. Despite playing at Very High graphics quality and Max frame rate (with all effects switched on), the phone only warmed up a little, even during extended gaming sessions. The dual speakers made for a very immersive audio experience delivering balanced sound that was loud and clear. The 4D vibration feature strangely did not work with Call of Duty: Mobile even though it was supposed to be supported.

In terms of benchmarks, there were minor differences between smartphones with the original Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor and the Snapdragon 888+. The Vivo X70 Pro+ managed a score of 8,16,115 in AnTuTu, and also scored 1,112 and 3,621 in Geekbench’s single-core and multi-core tests. The iQoo 7 Legend, for example, scored 8,05,450 in AnTuTu (v9.1.2), and 1,130 and 3,668 in Geekbench’s single-core and multi-core tests respectively.

With a 4,500mAh battery, I was a bit worried about the battery life of the Vivo X70 Pro+ given its large 6.7-inch pixel-dense display. However, even with the display refresh rate set to 120Hz, I easily managed a day and half of heavy usage. Setting the refresh rate to Auto might even have extended that a little. With regular use, I was left with about 40 percent at the end of the day, which is quite good for a premium flagship.

While the smartphone feels slim, its camera module on the back protrudes quite a bit

 

Vivo includes a 55W charger in the box, and it takes about 55 minutes for this phone to go from a dead battery to 100 percent. Wireless charging also makes it to the X70 Pro+ and this phone supports 50W wireless charging when used with Vivo’s own dock, which will be coming to India and will be sold separately.

Vivo X70 Pro+ cameras

The Vivo X70 Pro+ features four rear cameras. This includes a 50-megapixel wide-angle camera, a 48-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, a 12-megapixel telephoto camera with 2X optical zoom, and another 8-megapixel telephoto camera with 5X optical zoom. The 48-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera has a gimbal, which is used for the various stabilisation tricks this smartphone is capable of. All of the cameras offer autofocus and optical image stabilisation (OIS). Selfie duties are handled by a 32-megapixel front-facing camera.

The Vivo X70 Pro+ has four rear cameras, all of which feature autofocus and OIS

 

But there’s more. Vivo has also added what it calls a Professional Imaging Chip V1, which helps in multiple ways. This chip is said to help with frame interpolation, which according to Vivo, also improves smoothness when playing games, and helps the camera with brightness and denoising images accurately. All the camera lenses also have a Zeiss T* coating, which along with software, should help with reducing glare and ghosting in low-light photos.

Vivo X70 Pro+ daylight camera samples. (Tap to see full size)

 

Photos taken indoors and outdoors in daylight came out noise-free and with good detail and dynamic range. Sharpness was also spot on, and the X70 Pro+ did not go overboard with it. There was noticeable barrel distortion towards the edges of photos when using the ultra-wide-angle camera. Colours (with and without the Zeiss colour mode switched on) were faithful to the actual scene.

Vivo X70 Pro+ macro camera sample. Top: Macro mode, bottom: Auto (Tap to see full size)

 

The ultra-wide-angle camera doubles up as a macro camera. The 12-megapixel binned macro photos are quite clear and pack in plenty of detail as well.

Vivo X70 Pro+ zoom camera samples. Top to bottom: 0.6X, 1X, 2X, 5X, 60X

 

When zoomed in to a scene using the telephoto cameras, images came out sharp and free of noise, and showed good detail up till 5X optical zoom. Beyond this and all the way till the 60X digital zoom level, photos showcased a watercolour-like effect and the level of detail dropped progressively. Still, images taken at up to 10X zoom were usable. What impressed me most was how the X70 Pro+ managed to retain colour and white balance across the zoom range.

Vivo X70 Pro+ selfie camera samples. Top: Auto, bottom: Portrait mode (Tap to see full size)

 

Selfies came out clean and sharp, with loads of detail. Edge detection in Portrait shots was excellent, and this applied when shooting plants and other objects using the rear camera as well. Vivo has included a couple of different Style Portrait modes that replicate the look of classic Zeiss lenses (Biotar, Planar, Sonnar and Distagon) using software. I tried all of them and they all have very distinct looks, and can all work effectively in both daylight and low light.

Vivo X70 Pro+ Night mode camera samples. Top to bottom: 1X, 2X, 5X (Tap to see full size)

 

The camera system’s overall zoom performance remained surprisingly good even around sunset, which is impressive. Moving on to low light, the X70 Pro+ captured photos with exceptional clarity up to 2X with some noise showing up at 5X zoom. Switching to night mode solves the noise problem and delivers better dynamic range, bringing out more detail in the darker areas of the photo. The Zeiss T* coating also took care of the glare emanating from nearby lampposts and other sources of light. I even tried taking a 60X photo using Night mode and the results were surprisingly usable.

The Vivo X70 Pro+’s cameras tackled daylight video recording without breaking sweat, no matter what resolution and frame rate I selected. HDR videos looked quite sharp and offered excellent dynamic range, but were limited to 30 fps. Around sunset, areas of a scene with artificial sources of light flickered a bit. This flickering problem was not present when HDR was switched off. While details took a hit in low light, stabilisation was still quite impressive. I noticed a bit of a shimmery effect when walking through dimly lit areas. I even tried out the Super Night mode but I was not impressed with the results, and I preferred video taken in the Auto mode.

Evening camera samples. Top: Vivo X70 Pro+, bottom: Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra

 

Horizon line stabilisation is a neat trick and works better in daylight. When enabled, the camera system switches to the ultra-wide-angle camera (with the gimbal). This basically keeps the scene level with the horizon even if you rotate the phone 360 degrees while shooting, since the larger frame can be cropped and adjusted. This could be very useful when shooting videos with the phone mounted on a vehicle, or when running.

Vivo X70 Pro+ low-light camera samples: Top: Vivo X70 Pro+ (Night mode), bottom:…

.

Vivo V23 Pro Review: Sleek, Stylish and Feature-Packed

Posted on by

Over the past year, the sub-Rs. 40,000 smartphone segment has become crowded with plenty of options to choose from. Most of these smartphones are premium devices or “value flagships”, as they tend to offer top-tier performance and capture vastly better photos than lower-priced, mid-range phones. Their affordable price tags (compared to flagship smartphones) usually means that features such as an IP68 rating or wireless charging get the boot, although we have seen a few exceptions.

The Vivo V23 Pro seems to have graduated to the value-flagship segment, and the reason for this is its price, which starts at Rs. 38,990. That’s roughly Rs. 10,000 more than the Vivo V21. Compared to the previous Pro model, which was the V20 Pro (Review) launched back in 2020, the V23 Pro features several hardware upgrades such as a 108-megapixel rear camera, 50-megapixel front-facing camera, and front-facing LED flash for selfies. Is the Vivo V23 Pro a worthy upgrade to the V20 Pro, or does the competition offer better value? Let’s find out.

Vivo V23 Pro price in India

The Vivo V23 Pro is available in two variants. The base variant, which I received for this review, has 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage and is priced at Rs. 38,990 in India. The top-end variant has 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and is priced at Rs. 43,990. Both are available in two finishes – Stardust Black and Sunshine Gold.

Vivo V23 Pro design

The Sunshine Gold finish that I received is the snazzier of the two. The glass on the back is treated with a special paint that changes colour when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) light. The phone appears to have a gold finish indoors, but shifts to a rich blue (with hints of green) when used outdoors under direct sunlight. When using the V23 Pro indoors, you can get a glimpse of this hidden blue colour if the back of the phone faces a UV light source. The reactive layer retains its blue colour for a few minutes even after the phone is brought indoors, after which it gradually changes back to gold. It’s a neat trick and it works well. If this effect isn’t for you, the Stardust Black option has a plain subtle matte black finish.

The Vivo V23 Pro has a special paint that changes colour when exposed to direct sunlight

 

The back panel of the Vivo V23 Pro is made of a fluorite AG glass and has a matte finish that does a very good job of rejecting fingerprints. Just like the curved-edge glass on the front, this rear panel also curves along the left and right sides. The phone has a very narrow polycarbonate frame. This gives it a very slim appearance. It also looks delicate, but feels solid enough for regular use.

The Vivo V23 Pro features a slim design and is just 7.36mm thick.

 

Vivo has upgraded the V23 Pro’s display drastically, compared to the V20 Pro, from a flat AMOLED display to a curved-edge AMOLED panel with a 90Hz refresh rate. There’s no hole-punch cutout; instead an iPhone-style notch houses the two front-facing selfie cameras. The bezel is quite narrow all around the display but Vivo has managed to squeeze in two LED flash units (which it calls Dual-tone Spotlight Flash) on the sides of the display notch. The earpiece speaker is almost invisible between the frame and display.

Vivo V23 Pro specifications and software

The Vivo V23 Pro uses the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 SoC which we’ve often seen in lower-priced phones such as the Poco F3 GT (Review) and the OnePlus Nord 2 (Review). This is not the most competitive SoC in this segment anymore. The V23 Pro does not have any storage expansion option, which could also be a dealbreaker for some. There is a dual Nano-SIM tray and the phone supports 5G radios with dual-5G standby. The phone also supports Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi ac, and the usual satellite navigation systems. It has a 4,300mAh battery that can be charged quickly using the bundled 44W charger.

The V23 Pro is one of the first Vivo smartphones to come with Android 12 out of the box. It still has Vivo’s Funtouch OS 12 layer over it, and its design language seems to be a bit of a mismatch against Google’s Material You redesign. The new widgets for Drive, Conversations, etc feel out of place on the home screen with their bold outlines and fonts. Vivo has tried to blend some of the new privacy features such as the Privacy Dashboard and Permission Manager into Funtouch OS 12’s Settings app, but these still look out of place when you access them.

The Vivo V23 Pro runs Funtouch OS 12 which is based on Android 12

 

While the two design sensibilities don’t mix well, the Vivo V23 Pro does offer access to the Android 12’s privacy features. You get small audio and video indicators that pop up in the notifications area when the microphone or camera are being used. Apart from the Material You influence, there still are the familiar animated FunTouch widgets (that have trickled down from Origin OS). The new notifications tray and Quick Settings menu do not look like the ones on a Google Pixel running stock Android 12. The powerful new search functionality in the app drawer is missing, but notification history makes it, and you can access this by scrolling to the bottom of the notifications tray (after activating it in Settings).

Vivo has added a new Game Space app but it does nothing apart from showing how long you’ve played each game that’s installed. All the useful options you might expect can be accessed via a slide-out menu in-game, after activating the Ultra Game mode.

Vivo V23 Pro performance and battery life

The Vivo V23 Pro performed as expected in our standard benchmark tests. It scored 6,24,567 points in AnTuTu, along with 950 and 3,216 in Geekbench’s single and multi-core tests, respectively. These numbers are definitely on par with mid-range smartphones and are lower than what you’d get from similarly priced devices with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC, such as the Realme GT or the iQoo 7 Legend.

Gaming performance was quite good. I initially had my doubts given how slim this smartphone is, and the Vivo V23 Pro did get hot when playing Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt 9: Legends at the highest possible settings. However, it handled extended gaming sessions very well without any noticeable impact on performance. While Asphalt 9: Legends ran flawlessly with the 60fps mode enabled, Call of Duty was not very enjoyable as the display’s touch sensitivity was not able to keep up with the need to move and aim quickly to take enemies down. This noticeable delay resulted in plenty of lost tournaments. I even reduced the graphics quality to the minimum level, but the lag did not go away.

The Vivo V23 Pro has a single bottom-firing speaker which gets quite loud but sounds a bit distorted at high volume. A stereo speaker setup would have made audio more balanced and immersive (especially while playing games). The lack of stereo sound is unfortunate since nearly every smartphone competing in this price range offers this.

The Vivo V23 Pro has a 90Hz AMOLED panel with a medium-sized notch.

 

The AMOLED panel on the Vivo V23 Pro was quite good, showcasing bright, saturated colours, but it washed out a bit when viewed under direct sunlight. The 90Hz refresh rate seemed sufficient, but several competing smartphones have higher peak refresh rates. What makes this panel stand out is its curved edges. These were not not distracting in everyday use but the medium-sized notch did feel a bit odd given that most Android smartphones (above and below this price level) now have hole-punch cutouts that look neater and take up less space.

The battery life of the Vivo V23 Pro was surprisingly good for such a slim smartphone. It managed to last 12 hours and 7 minutes in our HD video loop test which is below average. With regular use, the phone lasted a full day on a single charge which is also not the best in this segment, so power users might want to look elsewhere. Charging the phone with the bundled 44W charger was quick. It managed a 65 percent charge in 30 minutes, and was fully charged in an hour.

Vivo V23 Pro cameras

For a fashion-forward smartphone, the Vivo V23 Pro is surprisingly packed to the gills with camera features. Both the front and rear cameras are capable of 4K 60fps recording. The front camera also supports HDR video recording, and has two LED flash units. There are three rear cameras and two front-facing cameras in all. There’s a 108-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera and a 2-megapixel macro camera on the back.

The Vivo V23 Pro has three rear-facing cameras including a 108-megapixel primary camera

 

The front-facing camera setup includes a 50-megapixel primary with autofocus and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera for group selfies. The camera interface is well laid out and offers quick access to important settings through a menu in the top left corner (when held horizontally). One thing to keep in mind is that most of the special video features, such as Steadiface and Super Night, are limited to 1080p at 30fps. HDR video is also limited to 30fps (1080p and 4K) and Super Stabilisation mode only lets you record at 1080p 60fps.

Vivo V23 Pro daylight camera samples. Top: Primary camera, bottom: ultra-wide angle camera (Tap to see full size)

 

Photos taken with the 108-megapixel rear primary camera were saved as 12-megapixel photos. Shots taken in daylight turned out a bit oversaturated but with good detail and dynamic range. Samples from the ultra-wide angle camera were a bit below average in terms of detail and were only usable if shot in daylight. However, these were far from ideal in terms of quality as they had plenty of barrel distortion.

Vivo V23 Pro selfie camera samples. Top: Daylight, middle: Low light, bottom: With Spotlight flash (Tap to see full size)

 

The 50-megapixel selfie camera also saved binned 12-megapixel images by default. Selfies taken in daylight came out sharp and clear with good dynamic range and background separation. Switching to Portrait mode resulted in excellent edge detection and detail. This was also the case with the rear camera’s Portrait mode. Results from the ultra-wide-angle selfie camera were also surprisingly good and very usable compared to shots taken with the rear-facing ultra-wide camera. The 2-megapixel macro camera is potentially useful for extreme close-ups but shots come out just average in quality.

In low light, the primary rear camera captured good detail and dynamic range. Night mode shots looked better, with a bit more detail to scenes. Objects appeared sharper, and better contrast made the results look a bit more dramatic. However, there were several photos in which I noticed that some highlights were overexposed near street lamps and other sources of lighting. Photos taken with the ultra-wide angle camera using Night mode looked fine on the phone’s display but were low on detail when viewed on a monitor.

Vivo V23 Pro low light camera samples. Top: Auto mode, bottom: Night mode (Tap to see full size)

 

Selfies taken in low light looked sharper and more detailed when using the Spotlight flash as compared to the screen flash, which made faces look a bit harsh. However, neither of these options made photos look better than just average. Night mode also did not seem to help, as photos lacked depth and had very poor details. In most cases, it appeared that the primary selfie camera struggled to lock focus in low light, even with the flash enabled.

Moving to video, things were again a bit disappointing. Vivo has tried to cram in a lot of extra features but appears to have forgotten the basics. The phone managed its best quality video when shooting at 4K 30fps. 1080p videos seemed to have issues with detail even in broad daylight. Stabilisation was decent at best at 1080p but was non-existent when shooting video at 4K 60fps.

There is an ultra-stabilisation mode that makes video appear rock-steady when shooting, but the resolution is limited to 1080p 60fps, which also means that the quality wasn’t the best. Selfie videos at any resolution tended to overexpose the background when shooting in daylight. The HDR video mode brightened up subjects and backgrounds but these clips ended up looking overexposed at best with below-average detail. Vivo has introduced a stabilisation feature called Steadiface which works well both in daylight and low light, making footage appear smoother.

Low-light selfie videos were quite grainy. The Super Night video mode helped reduce noise to acceptable levels but at the cost of an…

.

Vivo X80 Pro Review: Still Exceptional?

Posted on by

Last year’s X70 Pro+ was all about Vivo proving that it could go head-to-head with two of the biggest smartphone manufacturers such as Samsung and Apple in the premium segment. In my review of the X70 Pro+, I was completely convinced of its excellent camera performance and its much-hyped gimbal stabilisation system, making it a very unique offering in the premium segment. Vivo also finally added stereo speakers, wireless charging and an official IP68 rating to the X70 Pro+, which were missing on the previous generation and thus, completed the premium package. But, how do you build a successor to such a feature-packed smartphone that is still very relevant even a year later?

Meet the Vivo X80 Pro. It’s missing the “+” in its name, but don’t be fooled as for all intents and purposes, it is the spiritual successor to the X70 Pro+ primarily because of its similar specs and price tag. While I initially felt it was only a small upgrade to the X70 Pro+ in terms of hardware, I’m now convinced that it’s still a solid one nonetheless after having tested it over the past few weeks, and here’s why.

Vivo X80 Pro price in India

The Vivo X80 Pro, just like the X70 Pro+, is available in a single configuration and is also priced similarly. It comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage priced at Rs. 79,999 in India. Keeping its price in mind, the phone will compete directly with the Samsung Galaxy S22+ (Review) which is available from Rs. 84,999 onwards.

Vivo X80 Pro design

The Vivo X80 Pro’s overall design is very similar to the X70 Pro+. It’s only available in Cosmic Black in India and this colour has a slight sparkle in the finish when exposed to bright light, but otherwise appears matte black. The Fluorite AG glass on the back and the Schott Xensation Up scratch protective glass over the display have curved sides which meet the aluminium-alloy frame, which also has a matte finish. While these matte surfaces are excellent when it comes to rejecting fingerprints and smudges, it also makes the Vivo X80 Pro very slippery. Thankfully, Vivo has added a premium faux-leather case in the box, which offers good grip.

The Vivo X80 Pro looks very similar to the Vivo X70 Pro+

 

The back of the phone is where one will notice most of the design changes. There’s a large ‘window’ for the cameras, which looks very similar to the one on the iQoo 9 Pro (Review). It doesn’t rise up too much from the back panel and since it takes up the entire width, it prevents the phone from wobbling when placed on a flat surface. The primary, ultra-wide and one of the telephoto cameras sit inside a circular ring, while the periscopic telephoto camera is placed just below it.

Despite the somewhat recycled design, the Vivo X80 Pro still looks unique and feels premium when compared to any other smartphone in its class. There’s also an IP68 rating and wireless charging, just like its predecessor. The curved cover glass covering the AMOLED display does attract dust and smudges easily, but these can be wiped off easily.

Vivo X80 Pro specifications and software

The Vivo X80 Pro gets upgraded to the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC, which is found in smartphones both above and below this price point. Vivo seems to have missed out on the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, which was recently announced and would have made for a good upgrade from the Snapdragon 888+ SoC in the X70 Pro+. The company has added a second generation of its V1 imaging chipset called the V1+, which it claims helps with low-light imaging, video recording and gaming.

Communication standards include Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC and support for the usual satellite navigation systems. The Vivo X80 Pro’s internal storage cannot be expanded. The phone now features a 4,700mAh battery, which is an upgrade over the 4,500mAh unit in the previous model and can be charged quickly with the 80W adapter that’s provided in the box. The phone has a 6.78-inch AMOLED display with WQHD+ resolution (3,200 x 1,440 pixels). It features a 120Hz refresh rate and a 300Hz touch sampling rate.

Funtouch OS 12 is based on Android 12 and Vivo promises three generations of Android OS updates and three years of security updates

 

The Vivo X80 Pro runs Funtouch OS 12 which is based on Android 12. Vivo promises to support the phone with three generations of Android OS updates and three years of security updates, which is good news for buyers. Vivo’s X70 Pro+ was updated to Android 12 in January 2022, so I’m hoping Android 13 also makes its way to the X80 Pro in a timely manner.

Funtouch OS 12 is pretty much what you’d expect from any recent Vivo smartphone. Android 12 adds a certain level of customisation but the OS still has a very strong Vivo flavour rather than stock Android 12. While the software works smoothly with no hiccups whatsoever with regular use, I did encounter some software bugs (mentioned below) which I hope are resolved with future updates.

There’s now a theme engine which matches the colours of widgets and the keyboard to the selected wallpaper. Vivo has added a UI colour picker, much like what you get on Samsung’s One UI 4.1, but it’s limited to changing the colour of just the keyboard and not the accent colour of the widgets on the homescreen. The only way to force the widgets to follow the theme colour is by restarting the smartphone.

Dark mode was a bit buggy too as even though the background of the app drawer changed to black, the text didn’t switch to white, making it hard to read the labels of apps. Apart from the visual bugs that I encountered, there’s also several preinstalled third-party apps such as MX TakaTak, Josh, BYJU’s, Moj, etc, which I could have done without on a phone that costs nearly Rs. 80,000. However, you can uninstall all of them if needed.

Vivo X80 Pro performance and battery life

The Vivo X80 Pro’s E5 AMOLED display produces natural-looking colours and is bright enough to tackle direct sunlight when outdoors. Text and images appear sharp and I did not find the screen’s curved edges distracting when watching movies or playing games. This is the first smartphone display we’ve come across that uses the latest LTPO 3.0 technology which promises even better power efficiency. The X80 Pro has a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz and a minimum refresh rate of 1Hz.

I noticed that the display only hit 1Hz when the Settings app was open and that too only under bright sunlight. With regular use, the display’s refresh rate usually dropped down to 10Hz and fluctuated rapidly depending on the on-screen content or app. Smart Switch lets the display automatically switch between refresh rates depending on the content but you can force the display to run apps at 120Hz all the time if needed.

The Vivo X80 Pro has a 6.78-inch E5 AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate and a large 3D Ultrasonic fingerprint reader

 

The Vivo X80 Pro’s display also has an HDR10+ playback certification and supports the same in apps such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube. The stereo speakers get loud and the clarity is maintained even at high volume, which along with the vivid display, makes the X80 Pro ideal for watching movies or TV shows without requiring a pair of earphones.

The larger-than-usual 3D Ultrasonic fingerprint reader (first available on the iQoo 9 Pro) was a delight to use. Registering a fingerprint took one single tap and unlocking the device worked flawlessly during my review period. I also found Vivo’s Quick Actions feature quite handy, which lets you launch any native or third-party app the moment you unlock the device. Vivo has also thrown in a two-finger verification system for additional security and it worked as expected. Apart from the lockscreen, you can use your registered fingerprints for authenticating locked apps as well as hidden ones.

With Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC inside, I did not face any trouble when it came to benchmarks and the Vivo X80 Pro delivered very good performance as expected. The phone managed a score of 9,69,340 points in AnTuTu, along with 1,236 and 3,631 points in Geekbench’s single and multi-core tests, respectively. The Vivo X80 Pro’s performance in the benchmarks was definitely on par with the competition but was only marginally higher than what last year’s X70 Pro+ (with its Snapdragon 888+) managed.

Gaming performance was top notch. The phone was more than capable of running popular mobile games such as Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt 9: Legends at the highest settings, and it did so without breaking a sweat. What impressed me was the Game interpolation feature, which worked well. There’s only a handful of smartphones that are capable of running Call of Duty: Mobile above 60fps and Vivo’s Game interpolation feature (basically MEMC for games) which can be enabled via the slide-out console within a game, managed to render it at 90Hz which made the game feel smoother to play.

Vivo also claims that the phone consumes less power when using this mode as compared to actually running the game at such a high frame rate. The downside to this is the slightly lowered touch sensitivity which I did not find to be a problem in Call of Duty: Mobile. The feature will require you to adjust the in-game graphics settings (frame rate set to “Max or higher”) but it looks visually smoother when it works.

The Vivo X80 Pro has four rear cameras, all of which are quite impressive

 

I did not have any issues with the Vivo X80 Pro’s battery life. I managed to get a day and half of heavy use with the display’s refresh rate set to Smart Switch. Forcing it to 120Hz also did not seem to have any negative impact on battery life. The phone managed to last 16 hours,15 minutes in our HD video loop test and I was able to charge it from empty to full in 36 minutes when using the bundled 80W charger, which is quite good. The phone also supports 50W wireless charging, but you will need Vivo’s proprietary wireless charging dock that is sold separately.

Vivo X80 Pro cameras

The Vivo X80 Pro has four rear cameras just like its predecessor, but with a slight change. There’s a new 50-megapixel primary camera that uses a customised Samsung GNV sensor with optical image stabilisation (OIS), a 48-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera with autofocus, a 2X telephoto portrait camera with Vivo’s gimbal stabilisation system and finally, a 5X periscopic-style telephoto camera with OIS. Selfie duties are handled by a 32-megapixel front camera which uses a fixed-focus system.

The camera interface is all very familiar and just like the X70 Pro+, the camera app has well laid out controls and some of them are customisable. There’s the usual Pro mode for both stills and video, and a new Astro mode, which resulted in some really interesting photos.

Vivo X80 Pro daylight samples from the rear cameras (tap to see full size)

Vivo X80 Pro hybrid zoom camera samples (tap to see full size)

 

The primary camera captured excellent photos with good details and impressive dynamic range (thanks to the Zeiss T* coating) in all kinds of lighting conditions. In low light especially, it performed equally well with reduced noise in the photos. Lens flares and strong glare emanating from bright street lights, neon signs and other sources of light were kept under control, which helped boost dynamic range and detail in the shadows.

Night mode on the main camera also delivered noise-free photos along with colours that were very close to the actual scene. The Astro mode which is typically meant to capture the stars in the night sky (in the right weather conditions) was quite impressive. While it’s meant to work when the phone is mounted on a tripod, I managed to capture a few handheld photos with this mode and they looked equally good, with low noise and good detail.

Moving to the ultra-wide-angle camera, it captured photos that had good details and dynamic range. There was surprisingly very little barrel distortion, but the quality of the photos was not exactly on par with the primary camera, especially when shooting in low light, even with Night mode. This could be down to the lack of an OIS system for this camera, which was present on the X70 Pro+. Regardless, these were still some of the best looking ultra-wide-angle photos, in my opinion.

Vivo X80 Pro low-light samples from the rear cameras (tap to see full size)

 

Vivo X80 Pro camera samples: Astro mode (top) and macro photo (bottom) (Tap to see full size)

 

The ultra-wide-angle camera is also capable of taking macro photos up to…

.