Vivo X100 Pro in test: The best zoom camera?!

The Chinese manufacturer Vivo finally officially introduced the Vivo X100 Pro for the Austrian market today. It is a smartphone of absolute superlatives and has the potential to be the best smartphone camera.

For a recommended retail price of 1.199 euros, you get virtually everything your heart desires: a 6,78-inch OLED display with 120 Hertz, 16 GB RAM, a 5.400 mAh battery, 100-watt fast charge, a triple camera with 50 megapixels each and much more. On paper, the Vivo X100 Pro is one of the best smartphones on the market, but how does it perform in everyday use? Does it have the best camera currently available? You can find out all this and much more in this detailed review.

Conclusion on the Vivo X100 Pro

The Vivo X100 Pro is finally a smartphone that has really impressed me and stands out positively from the currently quite saturated smartphone market. Vivo has managed to create a convincing flagship smartphone in all areas and X90 Pro a worthy successor. It is quite large and heavy, but that is a matter of taste and in the really relevant points the X100 Pro delivers across the board:

The pristine OLED display achieves an impressive maximum brightness, the MediaTek Dimensity 9300 has plenty of power, the stylish software offers you many useful additional functions, the battery lasts a long time and is charged again in a flash, the speakers are excellent and the camera setup is phenomenal. For me, the Vivo X100 Pro is currently the best camera in a smartphone. The zoom in particular is fantastic and allows you to make photos look good even with a 30x magnification.

Are there any weaknesses? I actually find it difficult to find any weaknesses in the X100 Pro. The design mentioned above cannot be described as a weakness in my opinion, because this top hardware has to be housed somewhere and Vivo has done everything with the rounded edges to ensure that the smartphone still fits well in the hand despite its enormous size. The fingerprint sensor is also not a point of criticism for me. We are dealing with a step backwards compared to the X80 Pro to do, but that doesn't mean that the X100 Pro's sensor is bad. It's one of the best!

For a recommended retail price of 1.199 euros, I can recommend the Vivo X100 Pro across the board. I am of course aware that 1.199 euros is a lot of money, but it is actually worth it. Especially for those who place a lot of value on the camera and need a long battery life.

Design – large, heavy & high quality

In its press release, Vivo speaks of a slim and light design aesthetic, which is typical of the iconic X series. After more than a week of intensive use, I cannot really support this statement, because the Vivo X100 Pro is undoubtedly a very large, heavy and thick smartphone, which in many situations is no longer procan be easily operated with one hand. It measures an impressive 164,05 millimeters in height, 75,28 millimeters in width and 8,91 millimeters in thickness. The weight is 225 grams, which is quite a lot, but by no means unusual. Unfortunately, the weight is distributed rather top-heavy, which is not surprising given this huge camera bump and can hardly be solved in any other way, but it still makes the smartphone seem a little heavier than it already is.

Combined with the thickness and enormous dimensions, this makes the Vivo X100 Pro look a bit clunky and not as comfortable to use as, for example, my HUAWEI Mate 50 Pro. Nevertheless, Vivo has done a lot of things right in the design: The frame is made of aluminum with a high-gloss look, which feels extremely high-quality and, unlike many competitors, is not angular. I'm glad that Vivo isn't following the current trend, because a rounded frame makes the smartphone feel much more comfortable to hold than an angular frame. On the left side, the manufacturer places the on/off button and the volume up/down button, both of which are well made.

The back is made of matte glass, which feels unique but is extremely slippery. I've probably never had a smartphone that was as slippery as the Vivo X100 Pro. The glass offers almost no grip, which makes it almost unusable for me (especially with cold hands). I recommend everyone to get a case. Unfortunately, there is only one color available: "Asteroid Black". White, blue and orange are only available outside of Europe.

If we turn the smartphone around, we see a huge OLED display with rounded edges and pleasantly thin bezels. The chin could be a little thinner, but that's okay. As with its predecessor, the display is interrupted by a small cutout in the middle for the front camera.

Display – up to 3.000 nits

The front is dominated by a 6,78-inch OLED display in an elongated 20:9 aspect ratio, which has a razor-sharp resolution of 2.800 x 1.260 pixels, so that no individual pixels can be seen in everyday life. Samsung offers with the Galaxy s24 ultra although an even sharper display (3.120 x 1.440 pixels), but also the 453 pixels pro The Vivo X100 Pro's 120-inch display is more than sufficient. The screen also supports a smooth refresh rate of XNUMX Hertz, which makes all animations and scrolling appear buttery smooth, making for a great user experience.

The display is also impressive in all other areas. Colors are reproduced beautifully and naturally in "Pro" mode, and if you like it a little more saturated, you should switch to "Standard" or "Bright" mode. The black level is outstanding, as is typical for OLED, and even the white level is great. I was positively surprised by the viewing angle stability, which in my opinion is unrivaled. Even with extreme sideways tilts, colors hardly change color at all, which speaks for a high-quality display. The maximum brightness of 3.000 nits is also top-notch and naturally ensures that the screen is still visible even in very bright environments. procan be read easily.

Software – Funtouch OS 14

The in-house user interface Funtouch OS 14, based on Android 14, is used as software. This is a highly customized user interface with a number of additional functions. For example, you have the option to design the always-on display virtually freely or to configure the animation when unlocking using the fingerprint sensor integrated into the display. I find most of the additional functions more or less useful, but there are also a few features that I consider to be rather unnecessary. However, that is a matter of taste.

From a purely visual perspective, I like Funtouch OS quite a bit. The lock screen, home screen, notification bar and control panel appear tidy. I just think it's a shame that such an expensive flagship smartphone comes with a lot of bloatware, such as Candy Crush, pre-installed.

Performance – MediaTek Dimensity 9300 with 16GB RAM

One of the strengths of Vivo flagships has always been their flawless performance and fortunately the X100 Pro continues this path consistently. After the X60 Pro and X80 Pro were still equipped with a Qualcomm processor, the X90 Pro was already powered by a MediaTek processor, which did a very good job. This was the Dimensity 9200, which has now been replaced by the Dimensity 9300. This is now used in the Vivo X100 Pro with an impressive 512 GB (not expandable) and was able to completely convince me, but first things first. What makes this processor so special?

The Dimensity 9300 is manufactured using the energy-saving 4-nanometer process and does not use low-clock processor cores. A Cortex-X4 with 3,25 GHz is used as the prime core and, like the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen3, it also enables Bluetooth 5.4.

Much more important than the technical data of the processor is of course the everyday performance. The X100 Pro impresses with its fantastic performance and is right up there with the best in this area. Apps start and close extremely quickly and I actually didn't experience any stuttering or delays at any point during my test phase. It is really impressive how smoothly and consistently this smartphone runs. The RAM management works great thanks to the 16 GB RAM and it has no problems with more complex things like the camera or games. It does get a little warmer than usual, but it is definitely not a cause for concern.

Battery – excellent running and charging times

After the charging speeds in particular have been pushed forward in recent years, the leaps in battery capacity have been rather limited. Almost every flagship smartphone in the size class of the X4.500 Pro had around 5.000 to 100 mAh and was therefore nothing special. Now there has been an upswing this year - especially in the BBK Group, because in addition to the OnePlus 12, the Vivo X100 Pro also has a 5.400 mAh battery that can be fully charged in 120 minutes with the included 100-watt power supply with up to 32 watts. After about 12 minutes it is already half full. In this respect, it is currently one of the best and clearly beats Samsung, Apple and Google.

And what about the battery life? It's also really good, so even heavy users should be able to get through a day without charging. At the end of the day, with a screen-on time of four to six hours, I still had at least 40 percent and a maximum of 59 percent battery left, which is extremely strong. Still, I would have expected a little more for 5.400 mAh, but that's complaining at a very high level. The battery life is great!

Camera – absolutely impressive

The heart of the Vivo X100 Pro is undoubtedly the triple camera on the back, which was developed in collaboration with ZEISS. According to Vivo, it combines hardware and software to accurately capture high-quality photography in all scenarios. The focus is primarily on telephoto and night shots:

• 50 megapixel 1-inch main camera, f/1.75, OIS
• 50 megapixel ultra wide angle camera, f/2.0
• 50 megapixel APO floating telephoto camera, f/2.5, 4,3x optical

The ZEISS APO floating telephoto camera meets ZEISS's new Vario Apo Sonnar standards for high-quality close-up and telephoto shots. It features a "floating elements design" that enables very high image quality even at 6x to 10x magnification. The Vivo X100 Pro is the first mobile imaging system in the world to receive ZEISS APO certification - the strict standard for lenses in which color errors such as chromatic aberration and color fringing in high-contrast areas are corrected as much as possible to achieve exceptional clarity. The certified ZEISS T* coating, an advanced anti-reflective coating technology that significantly increases light transmission and helps to accurately reproduce colors while reducing light reflections and minimizing glare, also sets new standards.

Picture: TechnikNews

Let's start with the main camera, which actually surprised me in terms of color reproduction. What do I mean by that? The Vivo flagships of the last few years have all delivered excellent results, although in my opinion they were a bit too saturated. It almost seems as if Vivo has taken my criticism from the last test reports to heart, because the 50 megapixel main camera of the Vivo X100 Pro proproduces beautiful images with realistic color reproduction in the “ZEISS natural color” color mode. If you like something a little brighter, you can choose the “Vivid” or “Structured” mode in the camera app. In the end, which one you like better is a matter of taste, but I think it's great that Vivo offers a certain selection to satisfy all tastes. As is typical for Vivo, the dynamic range is first-class, the sharpness is at an extremely high level and there is hardly any unnecessary artificial sharpening.

As soon as the lighting conditions get worse, the night mode comes into play, which achieves phenomenally good results. It ensures bright – but by no means too bright – images that are characterized by a high level of detail. Even when you zoom in you can still see some details. Colors are reproduced well, even if they do not always correspond to reality. The noise level is extremely low.

I also really like the ultra wide-angle camera. It is very well matched to the main camera, resulting in almost identical color reproduction, which is not the case with some competitors. The dynamic range is great as usual and a lot of details are preserved, especially in the center of the image. There is only a slight blurring at the edges, which is common with an ultra-wide-angle camera, but is the only point on the camera that Vivo would like to improve in the future. Of course, in lowlight it can't keep up with the main camera because the shots are blurrier and sometimes extremely blurred. Nevertheless, we are dealing with usable lowlight shots that are among the best on current smartphones.

The best zoom camera?!

The heart of the camera is without a doubt the 50 megapixel telephoto camera, which enables a 4,3x optical zoom and is also used for macro shots. Similar to the HUAWEI P60 Pro you can zoom in close to objects without holding the device close to the objects you want to photograph. This has the advantage that you do not darken the objects you want to photograph with the device. Furthermore, the bokeh is much more pronounced with a wide zoom than with a wide focal length. All of this has a positive effect in practice. The macro images are beautifully sharp, reproduced with accurate colors and the natural bokeh looks fantastic. The Vivo X100 Pro is right up there with the best here.

The zoom capabilities of this camera are even better. At 4,3x magnification, the results look really good because they are very sharp and (almost) always displayed with accurate color. Even at 10x magnification, the images look great, giving the impression that this is 10x optical magnification and not digital. But it goes further! I never thought I'd mention this, but even photos at 30x magnification still look really usable. You can tell that the software helps a lot here, but I personally don't care as long as the pictures look good. And yes, the pictures look good! But it's not just the quality, but also the fantastic image stabilization that leaves me speechless. Vivo trumps all the competition here and makes a clear statement in the smartphone market.

Test photos

Let's take a look at a few test photos. The following images are absolutely unprocessed, but compressed without loss in order to keep loading times and memory consumption of the website low.

Other – regression in the fingerprint sensor

In recent years, one thing in particular has distinguished Vivo flagships: the fingerprint sensor! Both the Vivo X80 Pro Both the X90 Pro+ and the X3 Pro were each equipped with a 20D ultrasonic fingerprint sensor from Qualcomm, which is an impressive 30 x XNUMX square millimeters in size. In addition to the size, I was particularly impressed by the enormous speed and reliability, but also by the ultrasonic technology itself, because unlike optical sensors, it does not have to light up in order to be able to recognize the fingerprint.

Unfortunately, Vivo has taken a step backwards with the X100 Pro, which I cannot really understand. It has a (small) optical fingerprint sensor that is no longer as easy to reach and does not unlock the smartphone as quickly. Please do not misunderstand me here, because in my opinion the sensor is still one of the best of all current smartphones, but it is still an incomprehensible step backwards.

Good vibration motor & great stereo speakers

Since the X80 Pro, Vivo has been using very good vibration motors, which are only just beaten by the iPhones and Pixel phones. The vibration motor in the X100 Pro is very precise and gives an extremely high-quality feeling in the hand. The noise is also anything but annoying or unpleasant - quite different from, for example, the Sony Xperia 5VFor my taste, the vibration motor in the X100 Pro could be more present and stronger.

Like all current high-end smartphones, the Vivo X100 Pro also has stereo speakers. They are loud enough and sound really good at low to medium volume. I was particularly pleasantly surprised by the bass - if you can even say that about a smartphone - and voices, synthesizers, etc. are reproduced clearly. The sound just doesn't sound so great at high volume.

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