vivo X200 Pro review

26 October 2024


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  • ?
  • Anonymous
  • JH0
  • 27 Oct 2024

The most important specs for the image quality of distant objects are: pixels per angle, effective lens diameter and color filter array
The Vivo X200 Pro and Vivo X100 Ultra offer more pixels per angle (when analog binning isn't used) than any smartphone camera and they also have the largest effective lens diameter of all smartphone cameras, though I don't know whether you can always use manual exposure settings without binning for the dng files.

Here is a list with the relative maximum number of pixels per angle of certain cameras (approximately) (dual pixels are counted as one pixel):

128457% Extremely Large Telescope in the visible spectrum (not built yet)
20553% Hubble Space Telescope from 2002 till January 2007
995% Nikon P1000 B
268% Panasonic Zs80D B
100% BBK Vivo X100 Ultra, X200 Pro Q²B
91% Samsung Galaxy K Zoom B
80% Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom B
80% BBK Oppo X7 Ultra QB
69% Xiaomi 14 Ultra QB
68% Google Pixel 7 Pro QB
66% Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra QB
64.1% Google Pixel 8 Pro QB
63.7% Google Pixel 9 Pro 50MP mode QB
62% Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra B
60% Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra B
59% BBK Vivo X100 Pro QB
59% Huawei Mate 40 Pro+ B
53% Huawei Pura 70 Ultra QBY?QB
52% Huawei P60 Pro QBY
47% Sony Xperia 1 VI B
47% Lenovo Motorola Edge 50 Ultra QB
47% BBK Oppo Find N3 QB
35% Apple iPhone 16 Pro, 15 Pro Max B
34% Honor Magic6 Pro QB*
32% Google Pixel 9 Pro B*
30% Google Pixel 6 Pro B*
30% Huawei P30 Pro B
25% Asus Zenfone Zoom B
22% Apple iPhone 15 Pro B
16% Apple iPhone 7 Plus B
15% Apple iPhone 16, iPhone 15 QB
13% Nokia Lumia 1020 B
7.5% Apple iPhone 14 B

B= Bayer color filter array
QB= Quad Bayer color filter array (apparently without Quad Pixel autofocus here), can produce noticeably worse results than Bayer, when the number of pixels per angle is the same
QBY= Quad Bayer color filter array with yellow pixels and apparently without Quad Pixel autofocus here
Q²B= Tetra²pixel color filter array (with or without Quad Pixel autofocus, not always known), should perform worse than Quad Bayer, when the number of pixels per angle is the same
*= The Pixel 6 Pro actually has a value of 59.2% QB and the Pixel 9 Pro actually has 63.7% QB, but in contrast to the 7 Pro and 8 Pro, they always use analog pixel binning, which leads to 29.6% B for the 6 Pro and 32% B for the 9 Pro, though the 9 Pro offers at least a 50 megapixel mode where no binning is used.
The Honor Magic6 Pro actually has 68.4% Q²B, but it seems to always use at least 4-1 binning, which leads to 34% QB.
Possibly, there are other phones in this list with the same behavior (then the value would be only half as high).

And here is a list with the corresponding maximum effective diameter of the objective:

39300mm Extremely Large Telescope (not built yet)
2400mm Hubble Space Telescope
67.4mm Nikon P1000
20.2mm Panasonic Zs80D
8.42mm BBK Vivo X100 Ultra, X200 Pro
7.76mm Xiaomi 14 Ultra
7.14mm Huawei Pura 70 Ultra
6.98mm Samsung Galaxy K Zoom
6.93mm Huawei P60 Pro
6.83mm Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom
6.63mm BBK Vivo X100 Pro
6.53mm Huawei Mate 40 Pro+
6.43mm Google Pixel 8 Pro
6.40mm Google Pixel 9 Pro
6.24mm Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra
5.92mm Honor Magic6 Pro
5.59mm Apple iPhone 16 Pro, 15 Pro Max
5.55mm Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra
5.54mm Lenovo Motorola Edge 50 Ultra
5.47mm Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
5.43mm Sony Xperia 1 VI
5.43mm Google Pixel 7 Pro
5.20mm BBK Oppo X7 Ultra
5.18mm Sony Xperia 1 V
5.12mm BBK Oppo Find N3
4.25mm Huawei P30 Pro
3.21mm Apple iPhone 15 Pro
2.38mm Asus Zenfone Zoom

The larger the effective diameter
1. the more light from a distant object is captured per exposure time
2. the better is the maximum theoretical resolution of the lens regarding distant objects due to diffraction
3. the blurrier are the background objects, therefore, the periscope camera of the Vivo X100 Ultra, X200 Pro should also perform quite well for 85mm portraits

    • N
    • Notnot
    • KxY
    • 27 Oct 2024

    Anonymous, 26 Oct 2024Plus up to 7 years of updates.. Beats every Chinese brand o... more7 years not necessarily, because the phone will broken in 2-3 years. With awful costumers serivice

      Pictures seem too saturated and colorful. Get that some people may like it though but not my thing.

        • ?
        • Anonymous
        • JH0
        • 27 Oct 2024

        It would be interesting to know whether you can take 200 megapixel raw photos and if yes, whether it is possible in all light conditions and with manual exposure settings. As far as I know, this isn't possible with Vivo phones. (Google lets you save 50 megapixel dng files in all light conditions with manual exposure settings, but these aren't true raw files, but HDR+ dng files).

          • ?
          • Anonymous
          • JH0
          • 27 Oct 2024

          Nick Tegrataker, 27 Oct 2024Sony never mentioned that LYT-818 uses 2x2 OCL, though - It... more"If it had been a 2x2 OCL design the level of detail retention would've been a LOT worse."
          Not so sure, the sensor of the periscope camera does have a 2x2 OCL design and the 200 megapixel mode does deliver more detail than the 50 megapixel mode.

            • I
            • Izwan
            • YUU
            • 27 Oct 2024

            Vivo's software update is actually quite good. The security updates comes frequently. I just got the latest one yesterday. I was upgraded to 14 from 13 earlier this year. Not sure if I'll get 15 though since mine is the Y36 5G which is a low end model. Probably not but it doesn't matter.

            All in all mine performs well with no issues whatsoever.

              Nick Tegrataker, 27 Oct 2024I would wait and see how RAW images from both sensors to pe... moreThere is a separate mode for that on Vivo though. It doesn't make any adjustment at all for motion in automatic mode. They have a separate mode for snapshots where they will adjust the shutter speed for moving subjects (Vivo's implementation works really well for this BTW). They will both shoot with pretty similar shutter speeds in lowlight in auto mode as you need to enter the special mode for moving subjects. ZPH has a good comparison between the the three models with English subtitles on YT. With nightmode on though there is very little difference between all 3

                Aierlan, 27 Oct 2024I don't think the LYT-818 can match the imx989 at all ... moreI would wait and see how RAW images from both sensors to perform at the same ISO settings to be sure. If X200 Pro was tuned to capture subjects with a lot of motions (= prioritise faster shutter speed) then it would be natural that it fares worse without night mode, and I know all the Chinese manufacturers have been focusing a ton on turning the phone cameras into a perfect snap camera, i.e. A "You will never miss a moment" type of camera.

                  50MP mode photos on the main camera are looking much better than the normal 12.5MP ones. (it should be soft!)

                    • ?
                    • Anonymous
                    • PxV
                    • 27 Oct 2024

                    PaxLucis, 26 Oct 2024What a cheap, ugly looking rear camera design! Looks like a... morei think the best stove design award would go to iPhone. it's the best looking stove ever :D

                      • ?
                      • Anonymous
                      • PxV
                      • 27 Oct 2024

                      Bravemars, 27 Oct 2024Thank you Vivo for not making me crave for a new phone to r... moremay b 200 ultra ?

                        Nick Tegrataker, 27 Oct 2024Sony never mentioned that LYT-818 uses 2x2 OCL, though - It... moreI don't think the LYT-818 can match the imx989 at all though in terms of raw sensor performance for photos. It's particularly noticeable in very lowlight situations if you compare with the night mode off. There is an absolutely huge gap in image quality. They're claiming it is better for video though which may be true. I have seen a few people claim it's using 2x2ocl in China but can't seem to find any official information on this. Definitely the 2x crop is behind the imx989 though

                          • ?
                          • Anonymous
                          • PxV
                          • 27 Oct 2024

                          Anonymous, 27 Oct 2024Although the reviewer likes the "pop" of the colo... moreyeah. look disgusting. i always use Zeiss Natural with -20 sharpness, -10 saturation on main cam. and sharpness 0 on telephoto

                            Anonymous, 26 Oct 20242x2 OCL is less effective for digital zoom compared to 2x1 ... moreSony never mentioned that LYT-818 uses 2x2 OCL, though - It seems like Vivo simply increased the amount of sharpening from its predecessors, as when it comes to resolving small patterns or texts, X200 Pro is faring pretty well against X100 Ultra. If it had been a 2x2 OCL design the level of detail retention would've been a LOT worse.

                            I don't know why Vivo had to do this, these images exhibit a bit of an oil painting effect and I feel they could've turned down the noise reduction quite a bit yet they could've made them completely noise-free still.
                            X100 Ultra's main camera really stomps that of X200 Pro in almost every situation, which makes sense because LYT-818 competes with IMX989 image quality wise, not with the newer LYT-900.

                              • ?
                              • Anonymous
                              • sXH
                              • 27 Oct 2024

                              Although the reviewer likes the "pop" of the colour, it's too over the top for my taste, but there's no mention of a choice of a more natural mode.

                                It's unfortunate that Vivo refuses to disclose thee type of display glass used, especially for their premium phones. Almost all other Android brands disclose it. It'a a dealbreaker for me.

                                  Eduard33, 27 Oct 2024x200 pro is not a successor to the x100 ultra but the pro. ...and in many ways it feels like a downgrade. I'm happily keeping my 100 Pro for this phones season.

                                    Thank you Vivo for not making me crave for a new phone to replace my beloved X100 Pro. In many ways, I just think the 200 is not as good.

                                      jiyen235, 26 Oct 2024And it seems BOE put their money where their mouth is this ... moreAnd also look at the temps and the progress they've made. I remember phones with the 8 gen 2 had to get up to 50C+ to maintain high stability. Vivo is one of them, the x90 pro+ would get great stability at the cost of getting pretty toasty even with a way less powerful chip than this.

                                      Vivo could have easily achieved better stability with this if they let it run a little bit hotter as 43C is actually pretty conservative, in line with what Samsung usually does. So yeah, great progress has been made

                                        Inedian, 26 Oct 2024X100 Ultra is a stronger cameraphone. I think X200 Pro wasn... morex200 pro is not a successor to the x100 ultra but the pro.