The vivo X80 Pro is the company's new ultimate cameraphone. And besides the revamped cameras,
this year you get a new chipset and fingerprint reader, a curved display, and a larger battery.
That sounds like a nice package for a flagship- so let’s see how competitive it actually is.
I’m Will for GSMArena, and this is our full review of the vivo X80 pro.
We have here the global variant of the X80 Pro, which is different from
what you’d find in China. It’s even more widely available than last year’s model
For example you can now find the phone in the European market.
The first thing you notice is its large camera bump
and circular camera arrangement, which is a change from last year.
By name, the X80 pro seems like it would be the sequel to the vivo X70 pro-
But specs wise it’s actually a spiritual successor to the vivo X70 pro PLUS.
One benefit of having the new design on the back is that it’s even all the way across,
and the phone won’t wobble when sitting on a table or desk.
We have the X80 pro in the cosmic black finish- and actually for now that’s the
only color you can get - globally at least.The glass back tapers into the thin aluminum frame.
This finish has a sort of fuzzy texture - not unlike on last year’s models
iI’s nice to touch but not that grippy, and the phone is on the hefty side too.
If you do happen to drop it in water, at least you’ve got IP68
rated protection against water and dust, like last year’s pro plus.
The X80 pro’s display is a 6.78 inch LTPO
AMOLED with a QHD resolution and an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate.
It’s nearly the same as the previous model, except now the tech is LTPO gen 3,
and the screen is curved at the edges, instead of flat.
The display is able to provide a fast 120Hz refresh rate for smooth swiping and scrolling.
Then when you’re not interacting with it, it can dial down to as low as 1Hz to save energy.
We observed it changing dynamically even between swipes.
Unfortunately games don’t get support for a high refresh rate or framerate higher than 60fps-
which seems like wasted opportunity. At least
you get a 300Hz touch sampling rate, for better responsiveness.
The display itself is really sharp, with a pixel density of 517ppi,
and of course you get the great contrast you’d expect from an AMOLED.
It’s a ten bit panel too, with support for over 1 billion colors,
and there’s HDR10 plus support too. Colors are generally accurate,
and can be spot on if you change color profiles and add some tweaks in settings.
This screen is quite competitive when it comes to brightness, too.
We were able to measure a maximum of 490 nits with the manual slider,
and this boosts to over 1000 nits in auto mode, in bright sun.
Under the display sits a fingerprint reader for biometrics, and unlike last year’s optical sensor,
this is a large ultrasonic one. It’s fast and reliable,
and the large sensor makes it feel easier and more comfy to use.
The extra space also allows the scanner to be integrated with shortcuts.
Rather than just unlocking the phone to the home screen, through these you
can open up directly to an app of your choice. Like last year’s X70 pro plus, the X80 has a pair
of stereo speakers with the earpiece acting as the second one. They phone earned a score of VERY
GOOD in our loudness test, and the sound is well balanced, with pleasing vocals and even some bass.
The global variant of the phone runs vivo’s Funtouch 12 interface,
which is based on Android 12.
You don’t get bloatware, but there are a few proprietary apps,
such as the albums app, imanager, music, and the smart remote.
This remote app uses the X80 pro’s IR blaster to control devices and appliances.
Funtouch 12 is both highly customized, and customizable.
You can find a lot of these options in the Dynamic effects menu,
where you can tailor the animations for the home screen and other parts of the UI.
One neat set of options can be found in the sound menu.
You can create custom sound profiles, which can be useful for folks with less than perfect hearing.
And there’s an Ultra Game Mode, which can be accessed as an overlay on top of your games.
You get features like do not disturb, esports mode, and visual enhancements, among others.
At the heart of the vivo X80 pro is the current flagship chipset, the Snapdragon 8 gen 1.
Performance is excellent here, as you’d expect- more than enough for your daily tasks,
multitasking, and heavy gaming. Its graphics scores do fall behind
some other phones with the same hardware, but that’s because here you have a higher res screen.
The phone did display thermal throttling in our stress test, and that’s not ideal,
but it is typical for the flagships running on the Snapdragon 8 gen 1. It runs hot.
Another upgrade the X80 Pro brings is increased battery capacity.
The X70 pro plus had a 4500mAh battery, but here it’s 4700.
Battery life is not really any better for it though- in fact,
the X80 Pro scored a lower endurance rating in our tests- an unimpressive 79 hours!
At least you get fast charging to try and make up for it. The X80 Pro comes
bundled with a vivo Flashcharge 80 watt adapter.
With it, we were able to charge the phone from 0 to 88% in half an hour!
And a full charge took just 39 minutes. There’s also support for up to 50 watt
wireless charging! But for that speed you’d need to get a proprietary vivo charging pad.
The vivo X80 pro has essentially the same camera setup as last year,
but with a couple of changes. There’s a new sensor for the main camera,
and the gimbal stabilization has moved from the ultrawide to the 2 times zoom.
Overall there’s the 50mp main cam with OIS, a 2 times telephoto cam with gimbal OIS,
an 8mp, 5 times periscope telephoto cam with OIS, and a 48MP ultrawide that can take macro shots.
12.5MP photos from the main cam have a flagship grade level of detail,
with rendition that’s on par with competitors. There’s good contrast and great dynamic range,
and the colors are more restrained than what we’ve seen from previous vivo phones.
Actually when it comes to colors, the X80 pro handles things quite differently than most.
The AI toggle doesn’t have much of an effect,
but there is a zeiss natural color mode which gives you more restrained colors than
auto mode. And then there’s the hi-res 50MP mode, which gives you super punchy results.
The 50MP mode nets you a brighter exposure and more color saturation
But strangely the detail rendition seems to be more sketchy,
with the grass having an oil painting sort of look.
2 times zoomed photos are a little grainy, but have a good amount of detail and excellent
dynamic range. The colors match those of the main cam’s auto mode decently well.
The 5x telephoto stays in line too in terms of color rendition.
The detail is sharp and noise is well contained.
You can take portraits with each of these three magnification levels,
and you also get Zeiss branded styles and multiple filters to choose from.
Portraits from the main cam have a great level of detail and excellent subject separation.
The 2x zoom level offers you a chance to shoot the subject from a more comfortable distance,
and the detail level is slightly behind the main cam’s, but still good.
At 5 times zoom, the subject separation is still great, but the detail quality takes a hit.
The ultrawide camera's 12MP photos aren't exactly tack
sharp, but they still look good, and they have excellent dynamic range.
Colors are more subdued here than what you’d get from the main cam.
But like the main cam, shooting at the full resolution will result in much punchier colors.
Since the ultrawide camera has autofocus, you can use it to shoot closeups and nearby subjects.
There's also a macro mode you can toggle, which uses a digital zoom on top of that
to get even closer. The process means you’ll end up with less detail though.
In low light, photos from the main cam come out great. There does seem to be some night
mode processing happening even in auto mode, and you end up with well exposed shots with low noise,
wide dynamic range and excellent development in the tonal extremes.
Detail is also great, but there is some noticeable extra sharpening here.
Night mode adds about a second to the capture time, and the differences are modest.
You may notice a bit of extra detail in some darker areas,
and some warm light sources are a bit more saturated.
Low light photos from the 2 times telephoto are very good too,
just a bit softer than the main cam’s in shadowy areas.
Night mode will net you better sharpness and detail in the darker areas,
and you again get more saturation in some light sources.
At 5 times zoom, the X80 pro may take a digital crop from the 2 times camera-
creating a noticeably soft result.
Where there's enough light for the real 5x telephoto to operate, the photos are noticeably
better with reasonably well defined detail, and wide enough dynamic range, but some visible noise.
Night mode is helpful in improving noise performance,
but otherwise the benefits aren’t huge.
With the ultrawide, the low light performance is praiseworthy. Dynamic
range is great and colors leave no grounds for complaint either.
The night mode usually doesn’t change a lot, but you may see some minor tonal improvements.
Selfies come out at 32MP, and they offer a ton of detail and great colors,
as well as good exposure, even in backlit scenes.
The vivo X80 Pro can record video in up to 8K
resolution at 30fps with its main camera, or 4K at 60fps if you're more into high frame rates.
The ultrawide maxes out at 4K at 60, while the two telephotos only go up to 1080p resolution.
8K video is actually pretty okay- comparable in quality with the other
current flagships. We’re still not sure it’s worth dealing with the huge file size though.
In 4K at 30fps, you get plenty of detail, but the rendition has a processed look.
Still you get vivid colors and excellent dynamic range.
Between OIS and electronic stabilization, this footage is properly steady too.
In low light, the main camera captures solid 4K footage. It is somewhat noisy,
but there’s a good amount of detail, accurate colors and decent dynamic range.
The ultrawide camera's 4K footage is also great, with excellent sharpness and detail,
and no noise. Colors look good and there’s wide dynamic range.
Even though the ultrawide cam doesn’t have the gimbal this year,
its stabilization is still excellent.
In low light the ultrawide's footage is softer than the
main cam’s, but the footage is still usable.
2 times zoomed video in 1080p actually has finer detail than the digital zoom you’d get
if you tried to zoom in the higher resolutions. The quality is great.
The footage from the 5 times zoom has nice looking colors and good dynamic range,
but it’s a bit soft and fuzzy overall.
The stabilization from the 2 time s telephoto cam, with its gimbal, is super solid.
The 5 times camera isn't quite as stable, but it’s still okay.
So, that’s the vivo X80 pro. You get a super competitive,
flagship grade package here. And what sticks out to me here are the nice speakers,
the great ultrasonic fingerprint reader, and the overall excellent camera quality.
The most notable downside is the lackluster battery life,
and that’s an issue we’ve seen with many of this year’s Snapdragon 8 gen 1 phones.
At least the X80 pro has speedy charging to try to make up for it.
So overall, the X80 pro delivers a flagship experience that’s on par
with some of the best you can get right now, and it’s worth a recommendation.
Thanks for watching and see you on the next one.