When we say “camera”, we say CAMERA. We’re hoping colours are natural instead of vibrant this time around.
You may not be aware of it but Vivo actually creates top-of-the-line flagships under the X series. It succeeds the NEX series of concept phones and has a heavy emphasis on delivering professional-quality cameras. It is, in retrospect, Vivo’s counterpart to the Oppo Find X series. See? It even has the same series name.
Like many new flagships released lately, the Vivo X100 features a circular camera island which houses all the important sensors. The company describes this design, along with its flair as having the feeling of the “sun, moon, and stars, all within reach”. This circular layout is the most practical and most spacious way a phone can fit large sensors into a cramped box known as a smartphone. And because the lenses are made by Zeiss, it should also provide the quality you get from Zeiss’ own camera line up. Remember when they used to work for Nokia? We do!
The Vivo X100’s design takes inspiration from star trails, as the company would describe it. It comes in Startrail Blue, Vegan Leather Orange, and Asteroid Black. These colours are named after the heavenly bodies to which they are inspired from.
Although camera-centric, the phone also boasts the very anticipated MediaTek Dimensity 9300 chipset. The chipset designed to decimate its main rival, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 featuring a 3rd-generation 4nm process (because Apple’s 3nm just won’t cut it on the cooling) made by TSMC. Unlike the MediaTek Dimensity 9200, the cores of the Dimensity 9300 are rearranged with a heavier emphasis on its big cores and also lack the power-efficient cores. According to MediaTek, using a “full big core” design allows the chipset to be better optimized, lowers throttling, and also handles the most optimal temperature. Just like many flagship chips released, the Dimensity 9300 has hardware-based ray tracing.
The front features a 6.78″ 10-bit QHD+ (1260x2800px) LTPO AMOLED panel with a 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, 2160Hz PWM dimming, and a maximum brightness of 3000 nits. There is also a 4880mAh battery for the X100 and a larger 5260mAh for the Pro. Charging also differ for each unit. The former can only charge wired up to 120W. Meanwhile, the latter has 100W fast wired charging and 50W fast wireless charging. Both, of course, feature an ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, 5G services, Wi-Fi 7, NFC, and Bluetooth 5.3. Stereo speakers with Hi-Res Audio and Dolby Atmos are also noted features.
Now, going to the most interesting part of the phones: the CAMERA SYSTEM! Starting with the X100, this phone utilizes a 50MP Sony IMX920 custom primary camera with OIS, a 64MP telephoto with 3x zoom and OIS, and a 50MP 15mm equivalent Ultrawide camera.
While these cameras are great, it’s not as great as with the X100 Pro. This is the first phone certified with ZEISS’ Vario APO Sonar lens. Yes, both phones are equipped with the V3 imaging chip developed in-house by Vivo. The main feature of this chip is the creation of 4K portrait video. Both phones’ lenses are coated with T* coating.
The selfie camera is the same, a 32MP sensor. Can it record 4K? Who knows but it should.
It is not yet available globally. If it does, it would take another few months for it to become available. Though, in China, the X100 is priced starting at CNY 3,999 (12/256) (~PHP 30.8K) while the X100 Pro is priced at CNY 4,999 (12/256) (~PHP 38.5K). We’ll update this price if there is a global variant already.
Source: Vivo X100 (in Chinese), Vivo X100 Pro (in Chinese)