vivo X70 Pro+ review

Capable video camera with some oddities

The vivo X70 Pro+ can record video up to 8K30 with its primary camera, or 4K60 if you're more into higher framerates. The ultrawide maxes out at 4K60, while the two teles only go as far as 1080p30, even though the app interface may lead you to believe you can do 8K30 at 2x zoom - that's captured by the main camera instead and it is mediocre.

You get to choose between the h.264 codec (the default one used) or the more efficient h.265. Audio is always recorded in stereo with a 128kbps bit rate.

8K video (104Mbps bit rate) out of the main camera at 1x zoom is predictably meh - pixel-level detail is relatively soft, and if that's the case, why invest 780MB per minute of footage and incur a noticeable crop as well? Dynamic range is good, though you can see some highlight clipping, and the pleasing vibrant colors we saw in stills are present in the video as well.

Colors remain a strong suit in 4K30 (50Mbps) as well, but there's no improvement in highlight dynamic range - it's not bad, we just expected to have some of that highlight clipping restored, now that the phone doesn't need to encode 8K. In any case, here we're getting excellent detail as 4K capture goes.

The ultrawide camera's 4K30 footage (63Mbps) is also great. The capable sensor-lens combo delivers top-level sharpness, colors retain the punchy look, and dynamic range is good as well - again, with some reservations about the highlight handling.

Moving on to zoomed-in videos, we'll straight up skip the 8K at 2x. You can get 4K out of the main camera at 2x, which is about as detailed as 8K at 1x - effectively not quite 4K level of detail, but as good or ever so slightly better than 1080p. On another positive note, that will get you the main camera's colors.

That's not the case with 1080p from the actual telephoto, which walks its own path with colors as in stills. It's good 1080p footage, all things considered - detail is sharp, there's no noise, dynamic range is wide.

At 5x zoom level, there are no camera shenanigans, and you're getting footage from the 5x periscope module. It's solid 1080p quality with good detail, vivid colors and a wide dynamic range.

In low light, the main camera captures decent 4K footage. Colors don't lose their pop, exposure is bright enough, dynamic range is reasonably wide, and shadows are developed well.

8K capture is darker, with mushy detail when viewed from up close. It makes little sense in good light, even less in the dark.

The ultrawide struggles in low light, but if you have the right scene, it just might do the trick. The relatively dark view from our office doesn't make it look too good - deep shadows, prevalent softness, noise.

At 2x zoom in 4K (so from the main camera) videos don't look spectacular. If you treat it as 1080p, however, you could call 2x capture usable.

You can't really say that about the 1080p clips from the 5x telephoto - they're way too soft and underexposed.

Stabilization is available in 8K on the main camera, and while it's better than nothing, it's far from what you'd call stable footage.

In 4K, on the other hand, it works superbly, and things are even smoother on the ultrawide thanks to the gimbal action.

When zoomed in to 2x and shooting in 1080p (so it's the 2x camera capturing), footage has a persistent... annoying tremor, and pans tend to have abrupt transitions. Not properly bad, but not praiseworthy either. It's a similar situation at 5x, though we're more willing to forgive imperfections at such long zoom levels.

There are additional stabilization modes on the X70 Pro+. 'Ultra' shoots in 1080p 60fps on the main camera, while 'Horizontal line' is locked at 1080p 30fps on the ultrawide.

Here's a glimpse of how the vivo X70 Pro+ compares to rivals in our Video compare tool. Head over there for the complete picture.

vivo X70 Pro+ against the Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G and the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra in our Video compare tool