While Vivo might not be that well-known in most western markets, there’s little doubt that the Chinese smartphone manufacturer – which initially started out as a sister company to Oppo – has made great strides in terms of what it can offer buyers, at least when it comes to smartphone hardware. This can be seen with the company’s latest flagship handset, the Vivo X100 Ultra.
Vivo recently launched the X100 Ultra for Chinese markets, and with a starting price of around $900 (when converted), it’s obviously built to compete with the likes of high-end smartphones from Apple and Samsung, which dominate most markets worldwide. With that in mind, Vivo is banking on the phone’s camera prowess to give it an edge over rival devices, and if the X100 Ultra’s extra-large camera module isn’t enough evidence of that, we’re not sure what is. That being said, let’s take a peek at what Vivo is offering with its new premium smartphone.
We mentioned the large camera module, and this is built specifically for a purpose – inside the phone you’ll find a rather competent (to put it lightly) camera setup, which integrates a large 1-inch main sensor , more specifically the Sony LYT-900 – larger camera sensors have been appearing more frequently on smartphones in the past couple of years, with Chinese manufacturers such as Vivo taking advantage of the new technology.
Other camera details include a 200MP periscope camera with a massive 1/1.4-inch ISOCELL HP9 sensor, which is co-developed with Samsung; there’s also Vivo’s own V3+ imaging chip which according to the company can provide pro-grade video processing for portrait videos, which work similarly to Apple’s “cinematic” video recording mode. Speaking of video, the phone also supports 4K-resolution video capture at an impressive 120 frames per second.
This camera array is built into a chassis with a premium look and feel, crafted from glass and metal. Flip the phone over, and you are greeted by the X100 Ultra’s large display. It’s a 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED panel, which comes with a super-bright 3,000 nits of peak brightness, and your usual 120Hz refresh rate. Not much to complain about here, and it’s Vivo packing what some might call a “standard” flagship viewing experience into its newest phone.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the phone also comes with 2024’s flagship chipset of choice, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. There’s also Android 14 onboard, although this of course comes with a heavily-modified version of Android, as is the protocol with most non-Google smartphones.
This is backed with up to 16GB of RAM, and a whopping 1TB of internal storage – it should be noted however that this is for the more expensive variant, which is priced at around $1,100 when converted. As such, folks looking to cop a slightly cheaper option will have to settle for 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. Finally, the phone is powered by a 5,500 mAh battery, which by all accounts should be enough to last most users a day or even more, and also features support for impressively-fast 80W charging speeds (with compatible chargers, of course).
There is one big caveat with the Vivo X100 Ultra though – at the time of writing, the phone is exclusive to Chinese markets, although we’re hoping that Vivo eventually brings this over to international markets including the UK.
