Take that, Apple and Samsung: Exceptional Android juggernaut with 1-inch camera sensor goes official
From time to time, a phone gets announced that upends our understanding of what a modern smartphone should be like. While the dominance of Apple and Samsung on the phone market has lulled us into a skewed sense of what innovation should be, it's the niche Android manufacturers out there that often remind us what could be achieved with today's existing technology.
Vivo, the Android manufacturer hailing from mainland China, has just announced its latest behemoth of a flagship, dubbed the Vivo X100 Pro. This phone packs everything but the kitchen sink as far as a modern flagship phone is considered, including but not limited to one of the most capable and promising camera packages out there. There's also a very bright display as well as superfast memory and storage, as well as a very large battery and fast wired/wireless charging.
Price and release date
The Vivo X100 Pro will hit the Chinese market later this month. As usual, it might arrive at the global market but at a later date, just like its predecessor.
In terms of prices, it's a bit misleading to directly translate the local Chinese prices to US dollars and call it a day, as price tags in China are always much lower than the potential international one the phone may hail.
That said, here are the Vivo X100 Pro prices and how much they translate to in USD.
| Vivo X100 Pro version | Price |
|---|---|
| 12GB + 256GB | CNY4,999 (~$700) |
| 16GB + 256GB | CNY5,299 (~$726) |
| 16GB + 512GB | CNY5,499 (~$800) |
| 16GB + 1TB | CNY5,999 (~$822) |
Camera
Vivo and photography legend Zeiss have done it again: yet another spectacular camera phone vies for your attention, boasting awe-inspiring hardware with a deep bag of software features that make one versatile phone!
Boasting a 1-inch Sony IMX989 sensor for its main camera, the Vivo X100 Pro resides in the shade of its predecessor and promises spectacular camera performance. Most importantly, however, Vivo and Zeiss have worked on the optics: a new multi-layer nanocrystal coating has brought improved anti-glaring properties, which helps with color distortion and boosts the imaging capabilities of the camera. All of this leads to 20% improved clarity in comparison with the Vivo X90 Pro Plus.
The most exciting part of a modern smartphone, its telephoto camera, is no slouch on the Vivo X100 Pro. The Zeiss-certified Vario-APO-Sonar camera is utilizing a so-called floating design, which allows up to 96% more light to hit the sensor.
The telephoto is capable of achieving 4.3X optical zoom as well as up to 100X digital zoom, which should be pretty close to the focal range that the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the upcoming Galaxy S24 Ultra might deliver with their 5X telephoto cameras.
Portraiture seems to be a strong point of the Vivo X100 Pro. Developed along with ZEISS, the phone's portrait mode is quite capable and available in a lot of focal ranges, ranging from 24 and 35mm to the longer 50mm, 85mm, and quite intimate 100mm portrait modes.
Hardware and specs
The Vivo X100 Pro comes with a large 6.78-inch AMOLED display with claimed peak brightness of up to 3,000 nits, which could be among the highest we've seen. Recently, phones like the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the Pixel 8 Pro have really started to push the boundaries of maximum brightness, but the Vivo X100 Pro could technically come out on top if the 3,000-nit screen pans out.
Dimensity 9300 takes care of the performance, but what's more intriguing here is the superfast LPDDR5T memory available on the most expensive version of the phone. Announced by SK Hynix back in August, LPDDR5T is around 12% faster than LPDDR5X. Paired with the fast UFS4.0 storage, this combo should deliver excellent read and write speeds.
With a dual-cell battery consisting of two 2,700mAh cells (5,400mAh total), the Vivo X100 Pro also supports superfast 100W wired and 50W wireless charging, which should top up its battery in no time.
The new Vivo phone is available in four colors: Orange, Blue, Black, and White colors, each with a slightly different texture at the rear.
| Vivo X100 Pro | Vivo X90 Pro Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Dimensions and weight | 164.05 x 75.28 x 9.05mm, 221gr | 164.4 x 75.3 x 9.7 mm, 221gr |
| Display | 6.78" AMOLED, 2800 x 1260 pixels 120Hz refresh rate | 6.8" OLED, 1440p 144Hz refresh rate |
| Software | Android 14 with OriginOS 4 | Android 13 with Funtouch OS (Global) or Origin OS Ocean (China) |
| Processor | MediaTek Dimensity 9300 Immortalis-G720 GPU | MediaTek Dimensity 9200 or Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 |
| RAM and Storage | 12GB LPDDR5X + 256GB UFS 4.0 16GB LPDDR5X +256GB UFS 4.0 16GB LPDDR5X +512GB UFS 4.0 16GB LPDDR5T + 1TB UFS 4.0 | 8GB RAM + 256GB UFS 4.0 storage 12GB RAM + 256GB storage 12GB RAM + 512GB storage |
| Cameras | 50MP main camera, Sony IMX989, 1-inch sensor, f/1.75 50MP ultra-wide, 1/2,76", f/2.0 50MP telephoto, 1/2", f/2.5, 4.3x optical zoom 32MP f/2.0 front cam | 50MP main camera, 1-inch Sony IMX989 sensor, f/1.6 48MP ultra-wide, 1/2" sensor, f/2.2 64MP telephoto, 2X portrait cam, 1/2" sensor 8MP telephoto, 5X zoom, 1/4.4" sensor, f/3.4 32MP front cam |
| Battery | 5,400mAh | 4,700 mAh |
| Charging speeds | 100W wired 50W wireless | 80W wired 50W wireless |
| Price and release date | 12GB+256GB 16GB+256GB 16GB+512GB 16GB+1TB November 2023 | Expected to start from $1,000 (Global) November 22nd, 2022 |
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