Vivo X100 Pro Review: The Best Portrait Camera Of 2023
Vivo's flagship, unlike its peers. Chinese brands Oppo and Xiaomi don't have big deals in European and Asian capitals.
But among Android enthusiasts, especially those involved in mobile photography, the X series has become one of the most anticipated releases of the year. That's because the latest Vivo X phones had a strong case for being the best camera phone on the market when they launched. And the newly launched X100 Pro was no exception.
In fact, I'll take the word "maybe" out of the X100 Pro in one category: in portrait photography, the X100 Pro is the best of all smartphones right now.
The X100 Pro features a 50MP periscopic zoom lens and a floating Zeiss APO design with new Vario-Apo-Sonnar elements. What does this mean in plain English? The lens can move back and forth, so you can focus on objects at different distances. Vivo also gave the camera a fast f/2.5 aperture and a relatively large 1/2-inch sensor. The result is the most powerful zoom lens on a phone.
But that's not all, Vivo also has a very good software algorithm, which I've been praising for the past few years, that always adjusts HDR for a balanced dynamic range. There's also a vintage filter that makes photos look less digital and more like an analog film camera.
Below are the 100mm photos I took over the last few weeks using the phone. Zoom lenses are so good at producing images that look organic and bright with natural bokeh that it inspired me to become an amateur street photographer who takes at least a few hundred photos a day.
Vivo's zoom lens can produce sharper, noise-free images than most other smartphone zoom cameras. The difference is very noticeable in low light conditions. The cat photos below are stunning, no noise for low-light zoom photos taken with a phone.
I was particularly impressed by this shot under the espresso machine. Note that there is a subtle blurring of the background and foreground (depth of field blur), which gives the image a depth that is usually missing from smartphone shots.
In addition to the zoom lens, the X100 Pro also has a 1-inch main camera, but this is nothing new, it is similar to last year's excellent X90 Pro Plus.
Otherwise, the phone is also very similar to what it's flagship chip is, but it's not as efficient as its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 rival.
The Dimensity chip is powerful enough to handle most everyday tasks, but battery life doesn't seem to last as long as Snapdragon-based phones and the X100 Pro runs hotter than usual. By the way, it's nothing to worry about, just a small glitch.
The X100 Pro isn't very special in terms of processing power, display or user interface. What sets it apart is the camera system, especially the zoom lens. It is so good that I want to stop and take pictures of the surroundings.
