vivo X70 Pro+ review

Beautiful QHD AMOLED

The X70 Pro+ comes with one of the best-specced displays on any smartphone today. It uses an LTPO AMOLED panel with a 120Hz maximum refresh rate and adaptive behavior. HDR10+ and 1 billion color support are among the selling points, alongside a 1500-nit peak brightness for HDR content or 1000nits in normal use. The 6.78-inch panel boast a 1440x3200px resolution too for a 517ppi pixel density.

In our testing, we got 1022nits of max brightness out of the X70 Pro+ when exposing the phone to bright ambient conditions - in line with the company's claims. It's a roughly 200-nit upgrade over the X60 Pro+ and puts the new phone right up there with the best in the business - the iPhone 13 Pro Max and the Galaxy S21 Ultra. In less demanding circumstances, the phone maxes out at 458nits.

There are three color presets on the X70 Pro+ as well as a simple stepless temperature slider for some manual biasing one way or the other. The Standard profile has a wide color gamut and is generally accurate for DCI-P3 content, though its white point and grayscale colors are visibly cold and shifted towards blue.

Bumping the slider halfway in the warm direction will improve things somewhat, bringing white closer to target, but with a reddish tint now. Then there's the Bright mode, which expands the gamut beyond the P3 color space and is a bit punchier.

The Professional preset, meanwhile, is tuned for sRGB content and is excellent in its accuracy.

Display settings

The X70 Pro+ did play HDR videos on YouTube but is apparently not whitelisted by Netflix and Amazon Prime Video for HDR playback. It does have a Widevine L1 certification and got 1080p streams on both platforms.

vivo X70 Pro+ battery life

The latest Pro+ gets a battery capacity increase, minor as it may be - 4,500mAh vs. the 4,200mAh of the X60 Pro+. 5,000mAh would have looked better in the specsheet and we're seeing that on some potential rivals, but capacity isn't everything.

The X70 Pro+ does a good job with longevity considering its hardware. We clocked 14:44h of offline video playback and 14:15h of Wi-Fi web browsing - that's with the screen set to its nominal 1440x3200px resolution and the refresh rate at 120Hz and 60Hz, respectively (as best as we can tell - it's not always clear with these adaptive LTPO panels). The voice call result is about average, while standby was on the low end of the spectrum for high-end Snapdragons. Accounting for all that, the X70 Pro+ posted an Endurance rating of 85h - decent, but hardly remarkable.

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating denotes how long the battery charge will last you if you use the device for an hour of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. More details can be found here.

Video test carried out in 60Hz refresh rate mode. Web browsing test done at the display's highest refresh rate whenever possible. Refer to the respective reviews for specifics. To adjust the endurance rating formula to match your own usage - check out our all-time battery test results chart.

We went ahead and repeated the screen-on tests in 1080p resolution mode and got virtually the same results, so there's no reason to lower the resolution from an endurance standpoint.

Charging speed

Vivo is no stranger to fast charging, and the X70 Pro+ can take up to 55 watts using the company's proprietary FlashCharge standard. Our review unit (intended for the Indian market) is bundled with a 66W brick, which maxes out at 20V/3.3A, but the phone prefers the 11V/5A mode.

Using this included adapter, we clocked 48 minutes on the X70 Pro+ for a full charge from flat, while the first 30 minutes will get you to 80%. That's marginally slower than the outgoing model, but it's a larger battery, so it checks out. It's not a class-leading result either, but it's fast enough that we can't complain one bit.

30min charging test (from 0%)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi 11T Pro
  100%
• Oppo Find X3 Pro
  100%
• OnePlus 9 Pro
  99%
• Realme GT Explorer Master
  96%
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
  89%
• vivo X60 Pro+
  84%
• Xiaomi Mi 11
  83%
• vivo X70 Pro+
  80%
• vivo X60 Pro
  68%
• vivo X70 Pro
  64%
• Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G
  54%
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  54%
• Motorola Edge 20 Pro
  53%
• Asus Zenfone 8 Flip
  53%
• Sony Xperia 1 III
  50%
• Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max (20W Apple)
  42%

Time to full charge (from 0%)

Lower is better

• Xiaomi 11T Pro
  0:21h
• Oppo Find X3 Pro
  0:28h
• OnePlus 9 Pro
  0:32h
• Realme GT Explorer Master
  0:33h
• Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
  0:37h
• vivo X60 Pro+
  0:42h
• vivo X70 Pro+
  0:48h
• Xiaomi Mi 11
  0:50h
• vivo X60 Pro
  0:58h
• vivo X70 Pro
  1:00h
• Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G
  1:11h
• Samsung Galaxy S21+ 5G
  1:12h
• Motorola Edge 20 Pro
  1:17h
• Asus Zenfone 8 Flip
  1:40h
• Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max (20W Apple)
  1:46h
• Sony Xperia 1 III
  1:50h

The X70 Pro+ supports wireless charging - neither its predecessor had it nor does the X70 Pro non-plus. Vivo advertises a 50W maximum input power, but that would require one of their own FlashCharge wireless pads, which we didn't have for testing. For what it's worth, the WPC lists the X70 Pro+ to support the Extend Power Profile for a maximum received power of 11 watts, and that's what you can expect with off-brand wireless charging pads.

Speaker test

The X70 Pro+ has a stereo speaker setup, and that's a rare sight on a vivo - only recently a whole bunch of iQOOs joined a lone Y70s to have the feature, and now the X70Pro+. That's then an improvement over both the X70 Pro and the X60 Pro+.

The configuration can best be described as conventional. A bottom-firing dedicated speaker is joined by the earpiece to form a pair of channels. The earpiece is handed the left channel in portrait orientation, while in landscape orientation, the phone will assign the correct channels based on the accelerometer input. The bottom speaker is a bit louder, but it won't be helping out the earpiece with the lows as some other phones do.

Bottom speaker • Earpiece/Top speaker

The X70 Pro+ earned a 'Very Good' rating for loudness in our speaker test, a result it shares with the majority of high-end phones. It's a notch up from the X60 Pro+ and the X70 Pro alike, too. The X70 Pro+ has more presence in the low end than a Galaxy S21+, but it's not quite as boomy as an iPhone 13 Pro Max. Overall, a very balanced showing from the vivo, and we can't help but wonder where they've been hiding these speakers up until now.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.