A flagship phone with a focus on design and photography

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Vivo X90 Pro review: A flagship phone with a focus on design and photography

In a sea of top-tier smartphones where all look and perform alike, the recently launched Vivo X90 Pro stands out. Vivo has not just built on its camera legacy but has come up with a remarkable design as well. But does the phone powered by MediaTek Dimensity 9200 stands a chance again the Snapdragon Gen 2-powered smartphones? Let’s find out.

Stunning beauty

The Vivo X90 Pro, with its sleek and curvaceous design, breaks free from the conventional big and boxy shapes of modern-day smartphones. It’s an embodiment of elegance and sophistication, leaving a lasting impression on anyone who sees it. The moment I held it in my hand, it evoked memories of the Samsung Galaxy 7 Edge and 9 Edge – a true testament to its ergonomic design.

Flip it over, and the rear is crafted with premium vegan leather, complete with a large circular raised camera module that houses all the necessary sensors. While this may not be the first attempt at such a design, as the Asus Zenfone 2 had a similar design back in 2015, it’s hard to deny that the result is nothing short of stunning. The Vivo X90 Pro’s innovative design language truly stands out from the crowd.

Despite its weight of 214.85 grams, the Vivo X90 Pro feels remarkably light to hold, and its comfortable grip ensures that you won’t feel any strain even after prolonged use. In conclusion, the Vivio X90 Pro is the epitome of design and functionality, with its luxurious aesthetics and unparalleled ergonomics. But not at the cost of durability. The IP68 rating keeps it safe from dust and water, with the screen protection from Schott Xensation α – Corning Gorilla Glass’ rival.

Display

With the Vivo X90 Pro, it’s clear that the focus is on style and functionality. But in terms of the display, Vivo has chosen to keep it simple yet effective. While it may not feature the QHD+ resolution found on many flagship devices, the large 6.78-inch AMOLED curved-edge panel still offers an impressive resolution of 2800×1260 pixels. The sunlight legibility at 1300 nits peak brightness is decent but falls short in front of the recently reviewed Samsung Galaxy S23+ with 1750 nits peak brightness. Overall, the screen is bright with punchy colours and also has HDR10+ support.

Photographer’s delight

Vivo phones are all about cameras and photography. And for the X90 Pro, Vivo has gone all in.  Or should I say Vivo has taken mobile photography a notch higher? The setup includes 50MP 1-inch-type IMX989 sensor aligned with 12MP ultrawide and a 50MP, 2x telephoto.

The 1-inch sensor size on a smartphone is not very common and is worthy of all praise. This big sensor captures more light for a deeper dynamic range and better lowlight photography, and is powered using Vivo’s in-house V2 image processing chip.

Most smartphones impress with daylight shots. So does Vivo X90 Pro, as the shots clicked during daylight capture fine details with great colour reproduction. But that’s nothing extraordinary, right? Where it outshines is low-light photography. The biggest challenge while shooting images at night or in low light is to stand still for anywhere between 3 to 7 seconds. But I could use this phone to capture low-light shots quickly. Moreover, the ergonomic design assists in staying still and doesn’t feel heaving on the hand. Unlike many flagships that artificially brighten the low-light or night image, this one doesn’t. During no noon, the night sky, for instance, looks dark. Focusing on subjects with a primary lens often resulted in bokeh life effects images, so I had to be a little careful while framing the shots.

Images captured by default tend to be slightly oversaturated, just like on the Samsung flagships. But if you wish the images looked more natural, the dedicated Zeiss setting within the main camera app captures natural-looking colour images, similar to the results captured for the latest iPhones.

And if you love getting close to the subjects to capture finer details, you will love macro mode. While it gets in action by default, the results were erratic. I preferred turning in on with one tap, and the details it captured, like the dust particles and threads from plants, were mind-blowing. There are also ‘Astro’ and ‘Supermoon’ photography mode, for night sky photography.

I am not a selfie person, but the 32MP sensor is impressive as it captures great images during daylight, but I will recommend asking someone to capture your shorts using the rear camera at night.

Last but not least, the rear camera has Zeiss T* coating on the lens, which actively reduces glare from harsh light sources.

Performance

This is Vivo’s flagship offering, and unlike most top-end ones powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon Gen 2, this one has MediaTek Dimensity 9200. This is MediaTek’s flagship chip resulting in fast and fluid performance. Everything ran smoothly, including video editing and even games like Asphalt 9 but with some heavy graphic games, it stated to stutter. While in real life, the performance of MediaTek’s flagship is nothing to complain about, it falls short of Qualcomm’s flagship chipset on performance benchmarks.

With the app tray housing all the apps, the user interface on the FunTouch OS 13 feels (based on Android 13) intuitive. However, other than the essential Google Services and apps, it has much bloatware such as Snapchat, PhonePe, Uber Eats, Spotify and others. Thankfully most of them can be uninstalled barring a few like Vivo Cloud, V-AppStore, etc.

The X90 Pro, which is accompanied by a proprietary 120W fast wired charger, juices this 4870 mAh battery in just under 30 minutes, which easily lasts a day with extensive camera usage. It also supports 50W wireless charging speeds with a Vivo wireless charger.

Verdict

One of the best camera smartphones, the Vivo falls short in terms of performance compared to Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra (Rs 1,24,999). But that said, the price difference between the two is huge. Our review unit was the one 12GB RAM and 256GB storage and will retail for Rs 84,999. If you don’t intend to spend Rs 30,000 extra, the Vivo X90 Pro is worth considering.

Price: Rs 84,999

Specs: 6.78-inch AMOLED display, 2800×1260p resolution, 120Hz refersh rate, 50MP + 50MP + 12MP rear camera, 32MP front camera, MediaTek Dimensity 9200 processor, 12GB RAM, 256GB storage, Funtouch OS 13 (Based on Android 13.0), 4870mAh battery

In the box: X90 Pro, USB Cable, Charger, phone case

 

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