Vivo X300 Ultra Brings Professional Camera Tools Straight to Your Pocket in Smartphone Form

Vivo has just launched the X300 Ultra in China, and it’s clear that its camera system is where the company put most of its energy. This is essentially a phone built around hardware choices that are squarely aimed at people who want more from a mobile camera than a quick snapshot.

The hardware foundation is solid throughout, as the 6.82 inch display refreshes at 144Hz, keeping scrolling and live viewfinder framing smooth and lag free, and the color accuracy is reliable enough to trust as a genuine preview of your final image. Inside sits a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 processor paired with either 12 or 16 gigabytes of memory and storage options up to one terabyte, keeping the phone fast when handling large files or running editing software. None of that feels like the main event though, because the cameras are clearly where Vivo’s attention was focused.

Battery life is typically the death of most flagships, but not this one, as the 6600 milliamp hour battery lasts far longer than expected. The quick charging helps a lot, with a snappy 100 watts on the cable and 40 watts wirelessly, which means it’ll top it up in minutes, even after a long day of hammering through the shutter. So, you spend less time looking for a charging station and more time recording what’s in front of you as it happens. The cameras, however, are where the true magic happens.

The real attraction is the rear camera array, which has been fine-tuned using some of the best Zeiss optics available. At the heart of the arrangement is a seriously large 200 megapixel Sony LYT-901 sensor, not to mention a 35 mm focal length and a sensor size of a whole inch and a half across, so you get enough of light and a natural-looking depth of field that just makes your subject pop out of the picture. Street scapes, portraits, and everything else appear completely realistic, with none of the washed out, over-sharpened rubbish found on some other phones. Then there’s the 200 megapixel periscope telephoto lens, 85 millimeters, 3.7 times optical zoom, and gimbal-level stabilisation, which keeps your subjects clear even when you’re zooming in close or roaming about with the camera. And the sensor size does an excellent job of retaining all of the detail you’d expect from a large sensor, even at long distances. Last but not least, you have a 50 megapixel ultra-wide lens that allows you to fit a whole landscape or photograph a tight interior without having to back off, and then there’s that final 50 megapixel sensor that handles color and lighting with some serious finesse, twelve separate channels, to get a truly accurate representation of the tones and ambient conditions in front of you.

Video recording receives a significant boost, but in a clear, highly practical way. The device can handle 4K at 120 frames per second in 10-bit log format, and it can do so across various focal lengths simultaneously. Color grading happens directly in the viewfinder through custom 3D lookup tables, and an advanced codec makes files easier to work with later in editing software. Four microphones capture sound that matches the picture quality, and the phone even pairs with external wireless mics for cleaner audio on location.

Prices in China range from roughly 7000 yuan ($1,012) for the base model, which has 12GB of memory and 256GB of storage, to 9000 yuan ($1,302) for the top-end model. You can get it in three colors at launch: film green, silver tone, and black, but if you’re in the US, you might have to wait a bit longer or import it yourself, though the Ultra series should make its global premiere later this year.