Vivo X100 Pro Review: The Best Portrait Camera Of 2023
Vivo's vacation, and above all because Vivo, unlike its colleagues. The Chinese brands Oppo and Xiaomi are based in Europe or Asia. Don't organize large events in cities.
But in Android phone-savvy circles, especially those involved in mobile photography, the Series X has become one of the most anticipated releases of the year. Because Vivo's latest X-line phones had a strong case for being the best camera phones on the market when they launched. And the new X100 Pro is no exception.
In fact, I'll throw the word "questionable" for the X100 Pro into a separate category: in portrait photography, the X100 Pro is currently the best performer of all smartphones.
The X100 Pro features a Zeiss APO “floating design” with a 50-megapixel periscope zoom lens and the new Vario-Apo-Sonnar element. What does this mean in simple English? The lens can move back and forth to focus on objects at different distances. Vivo has given the camera a fast f/2.5 aperture and a relatively large 1/2-inch sensor. The result is the largest powerful lens setup in a phone.
But that's not all, Vivo also has a very good software algorithm that I've come to appreciate over the past few years, which always adjusts HDR for a balanced dynamic range. There's also a vintage filter that makes photos look less digital and more like a film camera.
Here are some 100mm portraits I took over the last few weeks of using the phone. The zoom lens is so good and produces organic, vivid photos with natural bokeh that it inspired me to become an amateur street photographer and take at least a few hundred photos a day.
Vivo's zoom lens can produce sharper, noise-free images than most smartphone zoom cameras. The difference is very visible in low light conditions. The cat photos below are incredibly noise-free for low-light zoomed photos taken with a phone.
I was particularly impressed with this photo of the espresso machine below. Note that there is subtle background and foreground bokeh (depth of field blur) that gives the image a depth that smartphone shots typically lack.
Besides the zoom lens, the X100 Pro has a capable 1-inch main camera, but it's nothing new like last year's excellent X90 Pro Plus.
The rest of the phone is also similar to last year's X90, with a similar design language including a 120Hz curved OLED display. The phone is powered by a new chip, the MediaTek Dimensity 9300, which is a flagship chip but not as powerful as its rival Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.
The Dimensity chip is powerful enough to handle most everyday tasks, but battery life doesn't seem to last as long as Snapdragon-powered phones, and the X100 Pro runs hotter than usual. It's not serious, just a small mistake.
The X100 Pro isn't anything special in terms of processing power, display, or user interface. What sets it apart is the camera system, especially the zoom lens. It's so good that I want to stop and take photos of my surroundings.
