vivo X80 Pro review

Up to 8K on the main camera, 1080p on the teles

The vivo X80 Pro can record video up to 8K30 with its main camera, or 4K60 if you're more into high frame rates. 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 4K30 or even 8K30 at 2x zoom - those modes are captured on the main camera.

There's a Movie mode, which records letterboxed 21:9 footage (yes, with the black bars encoded in the video) at 30fps - you'd think 24fps makes more sense for a 'Movie' mode. There is, in fact, also a 'Cinematic' style inside the regular Video mode that can get you the 24fps, but that's limited to 1080p. Oh, and that too is letterboxed.

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 actually pretty okay - for the standards of smartphone 8K we have at this point in time. It's not quite as sharp as that coming out of the Mi 11 Ultra, but it's as good or better than anything else we've seen, and a marked improvement over the X70 Pro+. That's not to say we consider it worth the overhead - a minute of 8K capture will set you back around 780MB (bit rate is 104Mbps).

We're a lot more into good old 4K30 and that is very good too. The bit rate is at least 50Mbps though it could climb into the low sixties depending on the scene. It's not the greatest rendition of detail - it has a distinctly 'processed' look, but the detail is there. Colors are pleasingly vivid, more in line with what you'd expect from a vivo than the laid back approach we got in stills. Dynamic range is excellent and so is overall contrast.

The ultrawide camera's 4K30 footage (63Mbps) is also great, possibly among the best ones we've seen. Sharpness and detail are excellent and there's no noise to speak of. Nothing but praise on color handling and dynamic range either. Switching to 60fps doesn't have a detrimental effect on quality either - same as on the main camera, in fact.

Moving on to zoomed in videos, we'll straight up skip the made-up 8K at 2x, which, as we said, is sourced from the main camera. You can get 4K out of the main camera at 2x, and if you don't pixel peep into framegrabs at 1:1, it's good enough. Staring from up close reveals its heavily sharpened nature and the broader strokes of what is essentially upscaled detail.

1080p from the actual telephoto in fact captures finer detail, making the 4K at 2x only suited to use cases where the resolution would help with workflow, but that sounds like making excuses for vivo's somewhat misleading practices. Anyway, 1080p at 2x - excellent (for 1080p).

At 5x zoom level, there are no camera shenanigans and you're getting footage from the 5x periscope module. Last year's footage was nicer, we must admit. This time around it's somewhat soft and fuzzy. On a global level things are looking good - dynamic range and colors leave nothing to be desired.

In low light, the main camera captures solid 4K footage. While somewhat noisy, the clips do contain good detail, colors are on point and dynamic range is pretty good for what are inherently quite high-contrast scenes.

The ultrawide's footage is softer, yes, but given a decently lit scene you'd be getting usable videos.

At 2x zoom in 4K (so from the main camera) videos are best described as passable.

In a relatively odd turn of events, stabilization has disappeared as an option for 8K recording - the X70 Pro+ did have that, even if it wasn't the steadiest. Perhaps vivo decided that if it's not going to be great, they better not do it at all.

In 4K on the main cam it's properly steady, so that's nice. It irons out walking shake, stays planted if you're just holding the phone pointed in one direction, pans without abrupt transitions.

The ultrawide camera may have lost the gimbal, but that doesn't appear to have affected the stabilization in any negative way and it's excellent too.

When zoomed in to 2x and shooting in 1080p (so it's the 2x camera capturing), footage is super solid. Pans are trouble-free too. 5x isn't quite as stable, but we'd still call it okay, given the long focal length.

As before, there are additional stabilization modes on the X80 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 X80 Pro compares to rivals in our Video compare tool. Head over there for the complete picture.

vivo X80 Pro against the Xiaomi 12 Pro and the Galaxy S22 Ultra in our Video compare tool