Vivo X80 Pro is probably the last Android flagship for the first half of 2022 in India. And, oh boy, it’s the best so far. At least when it comes to camera performance. The new Vivo smartphone beats the Samsung Galaxy S22+ and Xiaomi 12 Pro hands-down with its camera hardware and near-perfect optimisation. It even comes close to the iPhone 13 Pro in some scenarios. The last Vivo flagship I used was the X60 Pro Plus. Yes, didn’t get my hands on last year’s X70 Pro Plus and I must say the phone maker has incredibly improved its camera tuning in the last 14 months. I will, of course, talk about the camera performance in detail later in this review.
To give a quick round-up of the phone, it’s part of the X80 line-up, which also includes a slightly affordable X80. The latter is the first phone in India to have the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SoC, while the Pro model packs the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 — just like all of its competitors mentioned above. The rear has a quad camera setup led by a 50-megapixel main sensor and the front features a 2K AMOLED display. So clearly, Vivo has gone all guns blazing when it comes to the hardware.
But, almost all the flagship phones of this year have similar hardware. As I mentioned before, it’s Vivo’s tuning of it that has impressed me the most. I have used the phone for a week. I even took it to Dubai and Abu Dhabi to test the camera in different conditions and will share my experience with the Vivo X80 Pro in this review. Heads up, it is priced at Rs 79,999. So, it’s an expensive phone.
Vivo X80 Pro review: Camera
I will get straight to the point. If you want to buy an Android phone for photography, Vivo X80 Pro has to be the top pick. It shines in the clutter of similar-looking, similar-performing Android phones with exceptional camera performance across different conditions. The phone comes with a quad rear camera setup that consists of a 50-megapixel main sensor, a 48-megapixel ultra-wide-angle sensor, a 12-megapixel portrait sensor and an 8-megapixel periscope telephoto camera.
The last boasts 5x optical zoom and 60x hybrid zoom. The front gets a 32-megapixel selfie shooter.
The main camera adds a glass lens and all four sensors have been tuned by Zeiss to bring out more natural colours. Vivo has packed a separate V1+ chip in the phone which is used for MEMC and noise reduction to deliver better visuals while gaming and filming. The Micro Gimbal used on the ultra-wide-angle camera in the past has been moved to the portrait sensor this time. Vivo says it wants you to click better portrait shots in low-light.
I have used this phone to click a lot of pictures and record a lot of videos in different light conditions over the last few days and here is what I think –
– The main camera is the star of the show. It almost felt like I was using a point and shoot camera. Just picked up the phone, opened the camera, tapped the shooter and woah, clicked some of the best images I have captured this year. The sharpness, details and dynamic range are on point. The auto-focus is impeccable. Everything in the images looks sharp and clear.
– The Zeiss colour coating is turned off by default within the camera app. When you turn it on, you can see the difference in the colours but, even without it, the colours are very well controlled by the camera. The Zeiss mode also reduces the ghosting in images.
– The best part about the Vivo X80 Pro is the night photography. That’s where the camera tuning really comes into play. The X80 Pro clicks stunning images at Night. The pictures are quite bright even with the Night mode turned off. They are sharp and have very less noise.
– Enabling the Night mode takes the quality to another level. The image quality is almost as good as the iPhone 13 Pro. Even in pitch dark conditions, the X80 Pro manages to click bright images. At times the images were brighter than what I would have desired, but otherwise I am very impressed with what Vivo has done with the Night mode here.
– The wide-angle camera does a good job in both daylight and at night. The day images are sharper. Images clicked in Night are also pretty good, but I could see some noise every now and then.
– I also absolutely loved the portrait camera of the Vivo X80 Pro. It has a very impressive edge detection and equally good bokeh effect. Vivo has also added a few Zeiss bokeh modes here. The two that stood out for me were the Sonnar style bokeh and Biotar bokeh.
– The zoom capabilities of the X80 Pro are also as good as any other flagship phone in the market. However, I think the Galaxy S22 Ultra does a better job because of the OIS support. The images clicked at 60x on the X80 Pro can be shaky at times and might lack details. There is a Supermoon mode on this phone which works fine.
– The selfies are equally good. The front camera handles the exposure very well. The facial tones are on the softer side though.
Before I move on to the video part, here is a huge shout-out to Vivo for making the most comprehensive camera app on a phone. I have never seen so many options for photography on a phone’s camera. There are almost two to three sub-menus within every option. It gives you so much to do with the phone’s camera. Vivo just needs to find a better way for users to discover these options, otherwise they can get lost within the app. I had to ask about a few modes myself.
For example, X80 Pro has added a Horizon Line Stabilisation or HLS (the craziest feature of this phone) in videos. To enable this, I had to first open the camera app, go to the video toggle, enable stabilisation, click on the stabilisation icon and then select HLS. These are way too many steps to access a feature I believe could be a hit among X80 Pro users.
Similarly, you can shoot Cinematic videos on the Vivo flagship but, the option is again hidden within the app. I had to open the camera, go to video and on the right side there are 3 options – Style, Film LUTs and Filter. The Cinematic mode is the first option under Style. Too much work.
Coming to the video capabilities, the rear can shoot up to 8K videos at 30fps while the front is surprisingly restricted to 1080p 30fps. The videos from the rear camera are of top quality. Again, you have plenty of options to make good use of the camera. It is impossible to talk about each of them. I will just take you through the two I loved the most.
Cinematic mode – I have already explained how to enable this. The name is self-explanatory. It lets you shoot videos with a cinema-like effect and trust me, it has been implemented brilliantly. The mode shifts the focus between subjects to add bokeh effect to your videos. This is similar to the cinematic mode I used on the iPhone 13 series. However, the X80 Pro adds some sort of a filter or style to the video which actually makes it look like a scene straight out of a film or documentary. Well done.
AI video enhancement – Next up is video enhancement. This works while you are shooting towards the light. It handles the exposure very well while shooting in contrasting scenarios. For example, I managed a very good video of sunrise by enabling AI video enhancement.
Horizon Line Stabilisation – This blew me the first time I used it. When enabled, the mode shoots steady images even if you rotate the phone full 360 degrees. It’s mind-blowing because the orientation of the final video remains the same. Not sure how Vivo has achieved this, but it has a lot of potential when used on a tripod or an actual Gimbal.
There are a lot of other modes and options you will explore as you use the X80 Pro. I am, even now. Overall, it’s a great phone for photography with some brilliant work done behind the scenes.
Vivo X80 Pro review: Design and display
The Vivo X80 Pro has the same design as the standard X80 and even looks similar to the X70 Pro Plus. It has a premium finish and looks nice. The camera module is big but smaller than the X70 Pro Plus. This allows for better weight distribution. Why is that important? The phone weighs 219 grams and is the heaviest flagship to launch this year. It is definitely not made for single-hand use. People who prefer compact smartphones should also look away.
Initially, I wasn’t impressed with the size and weight of the phone, but the design has grown on me over the past week. The rear panel doesn’t catch any fingerprint smudges. It is not slippery and the curved 3D glass on the front gives the phone a nice look. Plus, the X80 Pro is IP68 rated, so you don’t have to worry about submerging it in water.
The power and volume buttons on the right side are easily reachable. There is a type-C USB button at the bottom, in between the SIM card tray and the speaker. The only other bothering part for me is that the periscope lens sits outside of the camera module. It kind of looks odd.
The front has a 6.78-inch 2K 120Hz LTPO E5 Samsung AMOLED panel with up to 1500 nits of peak brightness, 10-bit colours and support for HDR10+ content. The specs are at par with other flagship phones. The only notable feature missing is the Dolby Vision support which you get on the Xiaomi 12 Pro. The specs also reflect in real life use. The content looks beautiful on the big display. The brightness is enough for outdoor use. I could easily use the phone under direct sunlight in UAE’s desert.
Vivo has also used a pretty large area for the fingerprint scanner. It allows you to register two different fingerprints to improve the security on the phone.
Vivo X80 Pro review: Performance and software
Vivo has used the top-of-the-line processors from MediaTek and Qualcomm on the X80 series phones. The X80 comes with Dimensity 9000 SoC and the Pro model here packs the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC. This is the chipset used by Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi and Motorola in their flagship phones of 2022. All of them had heating issues. For example, I mentioned in my Samsung Galaxy S22+ review that the phone heated up every time I used the camera for more than 15 minutes.
I think Vivo has done a better job with platform optimisation. I used the camera for almost an hour (at a height of nearly 3000 metres) in Dubai’s heat, only to witness slight warmness. The phone did exceptionally well at keeping the temperature down. This applies to gaming as well. I played Call of Duty Mobile on the phone and only showed signs of heating up after about 50 minutes of gaming.
The phone comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage with an additional 4GB of virtual or extended RAM. My unit has been running smoothly over the past week with no performance related issues in daily use. Apps load quickly, animations are smooth and the vibration motor is among the best I have used.
Vivo’s software is also finally ready to take on the more appreciated OxygenOS and OneUI from Samsung and OnePlus, respectively. Only, it is let down by the number of pre-installed apps. These include a number of Vivo’s own apps and a few third-party apps like Cred, Byju’s and more. It ruins an otherwise fantastic experience. FunTouchOS 12 based on Android 12 is slick. It offers a seamless and bug-free experience.
Also, I liked the widgets tray Vivo has added next to the apps drawer to directly hold and place widgets on the home screen. There are plenty of customisations on the phone as well.
Vivo X80 Pro review: Battery
Vivo has increased the battery size to 4700mAh as compared to the 4500mAh battery pack on the previous generation. It is a decent battery pack but don’t expect extraordinary juice out of it because of all the hardware used. I have been clicking a lot of pictures with this phone over the past week and I have to charge every 18 to 20 hours. That’s the best you can expect on medium to high usage.
The phone comes with an 80W fast charger inside the box. You still get a type-C to type-A charging cable. Charging speed is never an issue with these fast chargers and the cable further helps. The phone also supports 50W wireless charging, which is at par with competition.
Vivo X80 Pro review: Final verdict
Only a few days back, I reviewed the Xiaomi 12 Pro on your YouTube channel and I called it the most complete flagship phone. I will stick with my statement. Even though I am thoroughly impressed by the Vivo X80 Pro. It is a solid phone, has a great display and offers a seamless performance, but it doesn’t have the most user-friendly design. It is big, bulky and difficult to carry. The Xiaomi 12 Pro covers that nicely.
Yet, there is no Android phone that comes close X80 Pro when it comes to photography and videography. Just the number of camera options you have is jaw-dropping. What they do, is even more impressive. As I mentioned at the top, it has hands-down the best camera on an Android phone of 2022 and will take some special effort to match performance. So, if you are looking for a point and shoot camera within a phone, the X80 Pro is the device to spend on.
Vivo X80 Pro review
Pros
- Night photography
- Camera app
- Video modes
- Premium design
