vivo X100 Ultra review

01 July 2024


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  • ?
  • Anonymous
  • nDx
  • 02 Jul 2024

this is the best phone I bought and probably the best phone you can own if you value performance and not the logo
sure is not perfect and can't be the best at everything but overall for my needs is the best phone money can buy and samsung looks like a midrange compared to it in some aspects

    xslvrxslwt, 01 Jul 2024I liked this phone until I've realized how big of a sc... moreHonestly to me this phone isn't that bad, it's not fully AI like Honor and Huawei. It seems to me they use AI when all else fails on photography. Other than that it seem to me their rendition is just a bit artificial which has always been the case. Can you link those guys with the comparisons? and your comparison as well?

      GSMarena, the night mode 2x shots are the same as the 1x shots, LITERALLY, please fix.

      Anyways this phone is a banger, WOAH. I thought that telephoto would be a disappointment like the Honor but Vivo managed to one-up their already great X100 Pro, in some cases it looks like they went 2 steps ahead because this telephoto has so much natural bokeh that portrait mode seems redundant and the 10x is so beautiful just WOW.

      Vivo seems to have dialled down the oversharpening for the most part and now the 1x and other shots look pretty good. The daytime shots are perfect for the most part, they're close to Xiaomi and Oppo in terms of the sharpness balance now and there's nothing to complain about. The UW cam is the same as the Oppo and has the same issue of lack of sharpness and the Xiaomi is terrible at night, the noise is ugly. So it's like choose your poison, soft but beautiful shots like on the Vivo/Oppo or sharp enough but noisy shots like on the Xiaomi. I think Oppo one-upped Vivo in the UW cam tho, the night shots are perfectly sharp for the sensor on the Oppo, Vivo tried oversharpening and it looks bad. Maybe an update will fix it, hopefully.

      The selfie cam and the main cam's processing shows that Vivo has forgotten to dial down the sharpening because these nice huge sensors take in a lot of detail and so need less sharpening, the telephoto has a perfect amount of sharpening, hope they can fix it.

      The gaming battery life is surprising considering the X100 Pro did so well, maybe the combination of 8 gen 3 and the higher res display did it? Whatever the case this is an excellent phone and the speakers are great now! The only thing the Xiaomi has better is distortion/compression and that's the best speaker on a phone rn imo. Great job Vivo, now give this tech to Oppo and Oneplus lol, same goes for the display, SO BRIGHT! Why don't Oppo and Oneplus's one get this bright?

      Anyways, I am completely lost on the cons section. The UW cam of this phone isn't as impressive as the other 2 cams, sure, but this isn't bad. Every competitor has a problem and you put the S24 Ultra here, the one with the ugliest noise and pink-ish color at night, how's that acceptable even if this is unimpressive? The charging speed as well, this has a 5500 mah battery and charges faster than the S24 Ultra's 5000 mah battery for a full charge and essentially the same speed at 15-30 mins. If this is unimpressive then what is the S24 Ultra? Bad?

      I'm not saying you can't fault this phone, what I'm saying is if you fault this phone so heavily, why not fault the others, especially the S24 Ultra, as well? The Magic6 Pro is quite inferior to this phone in terms of camera performance yet has the same 4.5 stars, the star rating is completely random to me, it seems all other flagships are gonna be at one point like 4.5, the Samsung Ultra flagship and Apple flagship will be one notch higher at 4.6 or something.

        • R
        • Rkm
        • FY0
        • 02 Jul 2024

        Anonymous, 02 Jul 2024RX100 has bit smaller sensor ( 3:2 ratio). Less noise. ... moreThings have changed now. In fact, absolute 180 degree shift have happened.
        I am an avid user of point and shoot cameras. Now I use them as daylight cameras in good light for the range and better finer details.
        During challenging lighting and night, I use the phone's raw which is much better than point and shoots at night. Mine's only a pixel and these would be way better.

          • R
          • Rkm
          • FY0
          • 02 Jul 2024

          "The Galaxy is, in fact, potentially more versatile as a video recording device (in terms of controls and settings), while the photography side of things is harder to call."
          What do you mean by that? This obliterates s24 ultra in terms of still photography. 24 ultra doesn't even have the 10x lens that made it stand out. The processing is also way superior.

            Anonymous, 02 Jul 2024In english : Vivo can only do bit better than other bra... moreVivo uses the type 1 sensor for their main camera just like other Chinese companies do for their respective flagships, and does the best job among them when it comes to resolving details in the binned 12.5MP mode. X100 Ultra does better when it comes to utilising the full potential of the sensor on the telephoto camera too - Find X7 Ultra has to resort to the second tele camera to mask the resolution disadvantage at longer zoom ranges, whereas Honor Magic6 Pro with a comparable 200MP tele camera falls massively behind in comparison.

            Selfie and UWA cameras are severely limited by less-than-ideal sensor & optics combo, and there's not much software can do to save them to begin with.

            Conclusion: Please get your eyes checked ASAP.

              • ?
              • Anonymous
              • JHk
              • 02 Jul 2024

              I just noticed that the first 200 megapixel sample image is actually a 12.5 megapixel image (16-1 analog binning), which has been upscaled to 200 megapixel. The 50 megapixel image has more detail.
              A similar issue happens at 10x, again the first sample image (same scene). It seems that here (10x) the X100 Ultra uses 4-1 binning + upscaling, which leads to a worse result than the result of the X100 Pro.
              The photos of the clock don't have this issue, neither the 200 megapixel image nor the 10x image. The 200 megapixel image of the clock outperforms the 50 megapixel image.
              Gsmarena's review of the S23 Ultra showed a similar issue with the 200 megapixel main camera. In some cases (surprisingly the same scene), the S23 Ultra upscales a 50 megapixel image to 200 megapixel despite perfect light conditions.

                The 2nd paragraph in 'Competition' section - 'Still, let's start with another China-specific release, the Oppo Find X7 Pro.' You've obviously made a mistake, there is no Oppo Find X7 Pro, it should've been 'Oppo Find X7 Ultra'!

                  I'm happy that Vivo's camera app now has the Zeiss Texture mode, along with the Vivid and Natural - While it doesn't make much sense that the Texture mode has more natural-looking details than the Natural does, it goes to show once again that large sensor doesn't require an overzealous amount of sharpening applied to its images to make everything look nicer. Something other companies (*Cough cough* Apple Google Samsung Sony *Cough Cough*) could definitely learn from, all manufacturers need to implement a dedicated mode that goes less aggressive with detail processing even in auto mode.

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • X@r
                    • 02 Jul 2024

                    CamoGeko-XDA, 01 Jul 2024Nokia has no clue how to make a good phone anymore. I re... moreExactly

                      Anonymous, 02 Jul 2024RX100 has bit smaller sensor ( 3:2 ratio). Less noise. ... more"Less noise"
                      "Not even 10% of NR and sharpening"
                      Nonsense. Sony cameras do apply a fair amount of sharpening to JPEG by default (Which is why both Creative Look and Picture Profile settings have the option to reduce the sharpening). And no, there's more noise in RX100 VII's photos especially in low light because: 1) Less efficient noise reduction algorithms in general, 2) a Dimmer lens meaning less light being captured in the first place.

                      "Much higher colour accuracy"
                      Source: Dude trust me

                      1) Yeah, and most of them suck compared to what phones are capable of nowadays. Panasonic and Olympus have handheld super-resolution stacking algorithms built into their cameras which are miles ahead of Sony's solution (that requires a tripod and a desktop app for frame merging), but their motion compensation still isn't amazing and this limits their usability drastically.

                      2) Show me one area where RX100 has an image quality advantage over X100U *specifically* because of the total lack of plastic elements. I'll wait :)

                      3) Vivo's super-resolution processing is so good that it is being able to compete with other cameras with higher-resolution sensors. Surprised? https://www.gsmarena.com/piccmp.php3?idType=4&idPhone1=12694&idPhone3=10656&idCamera2=300302

                      4) Yeah, come back here when RX100 becomes capable of recording real-time HDR videos or anything beyond 8-bit. There's an advantage that could be gained from having a "real" optical zoom when it comes to video recording, but you can't deny that its overall capability won't hold up well in 2024.

                        SirArtur, 01 Jul 2024But you can have only two out of three: a fast lens, a big ... moreThe Pixels have great camera quality. Their camera bumps aren't huge.

                          • ?
                          • Anonymous
                          • 0p}
                          • 02 Jul 2024

                          Main camera images looks like someone put vaseline on the scene.

                            • j
                            • jim262
                            • jRf
                            • 02 Jul 2024

                            Seems like there are a lot of whiners here and since this phone is not global, I would bet that many of the folks complaining here don't even have the phone.

                              • W
                              • WhoCaresTM
                              • 0mU
                              • 02 Jul 2024

                              Once again the Chinese numbers don't add up in the real world and we're left with a scam phone.

                              -80W charging yet charges only to 65% in 30 minutes, while the S24 Ultra charges to 69% with just 45W charging.

                              -Titanium color, yet not only is it just aluminium, it even has plastic.

                              - 5500 mah battery and SD 8gen3, but last a whopping hour less than the X100 pro, and the S24 Ultra easily beats it with 500 mah less.

                              - Subpar manual brightness at just 500 nits.

                              - Horrible blue fringing because of curved screen

                              - Huge bottom bezel

                              - Speaker loudness also not on par with other phones

                              - Phone gets so hot you cant touch it

                              - Video jerking and dropped frames

                              - Subpar ultrawide

                                • ?
                                • Anonymous
                                • 0p}
                                • 02 Jul 2024

                                Nick Tegrataker, 01 Jul 2024Define "beating" RX100 Mark 7, because it would a... moreRX100 has bit smaller sensor ( 3:2 ratio).

                                Less noise.
                                Not even 10% of NR and sharpening.
                                Much higher colour accuracy.

                                1) many cams do have frame stacking too. No photographer bothers to use.
                                2) the glass is indeed giving the edge over $5 plastic lenses on phones, you want or not.
                                3) do not use the 20mp as excuse, since you always claim 50mp QB is equivalent to 50mp bayer.
                                4) video quality difference is beyond bizarre. Avoiding background overexposure does not save phones from giving much lower video quality. Looking " pretty" =/= being good

                                  • ?
                                  • Anonymous
                                  • asq
                                  • 02 Jul 2024

                                  sondesix, 01 Jul 2024I think I know the reason why the charging speed is so slow... moreNo, they're absolutely right. I measured mine charging, and it will technically hit 80w briefly, so long as the phone is quite cool, but it rapidly drops down to the 30s-40s range where it stays. Activating the screen drops it down to ~20w. This is with fast charging enabled as the default. Their top up times look very similar to mine as well as I normally charge approx 40% into my battery while I eat breakfast and it takes about 20 minutes.

                                  I also very much echo the same complaint about the ultrawide camera. It does a good job of capturing information, but its output is just short of nice to look at. Sadly, my old Mate 40 Pro with its smaller ultrawide camera (admittedly not as wide either) makes much more interesting looking photos. Luckily for me, the ultrawide is my least used lens.

                                    • ?
                                    • Anonymous
                                    • LkB
                                    • 02 Jul 2024

                                    Nick Tegrataker, 01 Jul 2024This is some of the finest rendition of details I've e... moreIn english :

                                    Vivo can only do bit better than other brands when using much larger sensors.
                                    Since super wide and selfie are not much that different,they cannot do better than other.

                                    Zero enhancements would result in better photos.

                                    Basic reading .

                                      Pumpino, 01 Jul 2024The Zeiss Natural mode takes nice photos. The camera bump a... moreBut you can have only two out of three: a fast lens, a big sensor, and a small lens. You cannot cheat the physics. Fast lenses on FF or Medium Format cameras are not big just to look cool. Unfortunately, it is the price that we all have to pay if we want to have better picture quality. And as for me, I am willing to pay that price.

                                        The Zeiss Natural mode takes nice photos. The camera bump alone ruins the phone though. Lenses shouldn't be as large as possible; they should be as small as possible.

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