vivo X50 Pro+ review

Design, build, quality

The vivo X50 Pro+ has the same outer shell as the X50 Pro, but that is hardly a surprise. The regular version of the Plus is a glass-sandwich phone with an aluminum frame, while the limited edition has the back draped with eco-leather.

We have the glass version with Alpha Gray paintjob, while the other option, as we mentioned, is Camel leather. Hold your horses just yet, it is not a real camel leather but eco-leather.

So, the entire front of the X50 Pro+ is taken by the 6.56" AMOLED screen. It has tiny bezels and its protective glass is slightly bent towards the frame around the longer sides. It's a 1080p+ screen with 120Hz refresh rate and HDR10+ support and it looks gorgeous right out of the bat.

There is a small punch hole around the top left corner to make way for the 32MP selfie camera. The earpiece is rather invisible, hidden in one super thin gap between the frame and the glass.

The X50 Pro+, just like the plethora of AMOLED-packing phones, has its fingerprint scanner underneath the screen. It's of the optical kind and works rather fast. The accuracy is on par with the best in this business, so we have no complaints.

The back is just as curved as the front and made of tempered glass. It is painted in Alpha Gray, which is more like mystical blue, but let's not dwell on that. The glass finish is frosted, which makes the color transition silky-smooth from dark blue to a bit lighter hue. The effect is nice and the opposite of flashy and we do like it.

The quad-camera setup is on the back, of course, and it looks a bit different from the X50 Pro's. It also has two levels - the lower one contains the periscopic lens of the 13MP camera for 5x optical zoom, while the upper one has the 50MP primary, 32MP portrait and the 13MP ultrawide shooters. The triple-LED flash is also here, as well as the laser emitter and receiver that assist the autofocus.

The whole camera is protruding just like many of the competitors', which is still unavoidable.

The aluminum frame is very thin around the long sides and flat at the top and the bottom. On the right are the volume and power keys.

The bottom has the dual-SIM tray, the speaker grille, the mouthpiece, and the USB-C port. And since the frame is rather flat here, the X50 Pro+ can stand upright on its bottom, just like the X50 Pro.

The X50 Pro+ measures 158.5 x 73 x 8.8 mm and weighs 192 grams - about 1mm thicker than the X50 Pro and 11 grams heavier.

The frosted back may look beautiful and it may be fingerprint resistant, but it is not grippy at all. The X50 Pro+ doesn't feel secure when we hold it hand and we recommend using the bundled silicone case. It doesn't hide much of its signature looks, but you will get the much-needed peace of mind.

And while we're on the topic of safety, it's worth pointing out that the vivo S50 Pro+ is not water-resistant. It does appear to feature some rubber seals here and there, but there is no official word on any sort of ingress protection.

Finally, we have to say we liked the X50 Pro+ just like we loved the X50 Pro. It is a cool phone to have and handle, the frosted glass feels nice in hand, and the phone is not bulky at all. The curves help the overall impression, of course, as do the small bezels and the top-notch screen. It is among the more compact flagships on the market and that's a sought-after feature on some markets.