Vivo’s previous flagship offerings in India included the X70 Pro and X70 Pro+ (Review). The company has now launched the successor to these models, but with a slight twist in the naming convention. The new Vivo X80 replaces the X70 Pro, and you can read our first impressions of it here. Vivo X80 Pro, on the other hand, is the successor of X70 Pro+ and was launched at the same price of Rs. 79,999.
This new flagship model from Vivo competes with other high-end Android offerings such as the OnePlus 10 Pro (Review), Samsung Galaxy S22+ (Review) and even the Galaxy S22 Ultra (Review), as well as the iPhone 13 (Testing). Here are my first impressions of the X80 Pro after using it for a few days.
The overall design of the Vivo X80 Pro makes it look a lot like the X70 Pro+ from the front, but it’s quite different from the back. The rear camera module is now a giant rectangular block that takes up about a third of the rear panel. However, since it’s tall and doesn’t protrude much, the phone doesn’t wobble when placed on a flat surface. The glass panels on the front and back of the phone have curved sides that make this phone comfortable to hold, and the matte-finish back panel (made of Fluorite AG glass) doesn’t attract fingerprints. Overall, the phone looks quite premium and sleek.
The Vivo X80 Pro has a Fluorite AG glass back panel and an aluminum alloy frame
The Vivo X80 Pro has a 6.78-inch E5 AMOLED display with a resolution of 3200×1440 pixels (2K). It’s protected by Schott’s Xensation Up glass that easily attracts fingerprints and dust particles. The display features a 120Hz refresh rate and LTPO 2.0 technology allows it to drop to 1Hz when needed, to save power. The X80 Pro also has a new 3D ultrasonic fingerprint reader similar to that of the iQoo 9 Pro (Review) and it enables new tricks. The readable area is much larger than that of conventional capacitive sensors and can even authenticate two fingers at once. Vivo has also implemented a feature called Quick Actions which lets you launch a specific app the moment you unlock the screen with a particular finger.
The fingerprint reader (like on the iQoo 9 Pro) also only requires a single firm press to register a fingerprint, making it easy to set up. The phone’s screen is also said to have a touch sample rate of 300Hz. I played a few rounds of Call of Duty: Mobile with the default graphics settings and it ran without any issues. The screen’s touch sampling rate seemed to be perfect.
Vivo’s X80 Pro runs Android 12 but comes with several third-party apps pre-installed
The Vivo X80 Pro features a new 50-megapixel 1/1.31-inch Samsung CNG sensor for its main camera, with large 1.2μm pixels and an af/1.57 aperture lens. It also has 4-axis optical image stabilization (OIS). Vivo has this time implemented gimbal stabilization for the 12-megapixel portrait camera instead of the ultra-wide camera, like on the X70 Pro+. According to Vivo, the decision to move the gimbal system to the portrait camera was made so that users could take sharper portrait shots even in low light conditions. The X80 Pro also includes Vivo’s second-generation V1+ imaging chip, which is used to offload image processing tasks from the main SoC.
There’s a 48-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera that can also take macro shots as it has autofocus. This camera does not have OIS but it does have a 114 degree field of view. Finally, there’s an 8-megapixel periscope-style telephoto lens with 5X optical zoom (125mm) and 2-axis OIS. Selfies are handled by a 32-megapixel fixed-focus front camera.
The Vivo X80 Pro’s camera app gets a new Styles feature for video, which was previously only available in photo mode. The cinematic style is all new and lets you shoot video in a cinematic 2.39:1 aspect ratio and add oval-shaped light highlights to the background. Vivo has also added Movie LUTs (Lookup Table) which are pre-selected color filters that can be used to change the mood and look of your video. The camera’s Panorama style is also new for stills and lets you add motion blur to the background of still or moving subjects. Vivo has also brought the Cinematic Style feature to photo mode, which lets you capture photos in a wider aspect ratio with software-driven background light reflections.
The Vivo X80 (left) and X80 Pro (right) come with a quality leatherette case in the box
The first batch of photos I took with the Vivo X80 Pro looked very promising. I loved the ultra-wide-angle camera which offered noise-free photos not only in daylight but also in low-light scenarios. The 2X portrait camera managed sharp images with excellent detail, but the 5X periscope camera struggled to capture a similar level of quality. Zeiss’ natural color mode was quite impressive and seemed to find the right color tones. I’ll reserve final judgment on the cameras for the full review, once I’m done testing them thoroughly.
Vivo X80 Pro camera examples (top to bottom): 2X telephoto camera, main camera (Astro mode), ultra-wide angle camera in Night mode (tap to see full size)
The Vivo X80 Pro has a 4,700mAh battery that can be charged at up to 80W when connected to the included wired charger. The phone also supports 50W wireless charging, but you’ll need to purchase the proprietary charging stand separately. Given that we now have cheaper phones that support 150W charging, I expected at least this flagship model to be able to charge faster, although 80W is by no means slow. Vivo claims that the X80 Pro’s battery can reach 70% in 19 minutes from empty and fully recharge in 37 minutes.
As for the software, the Vivo X80 Pro runs Funtouch OS 12, which is based on Android 12. In my first experience, the software ran smoothly but I didn’t notice several pre-installed third-party apps. Along with the X80 series, Vivo also claims that it will release three generations of Android OS updates and three years of security updates.
The Vivo X80 Pro comes in a single configuration with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and is priced at Rs. 79,999 in India. Other features inherited from the X70 Pro+ include stereo speakers and an IP68 rating.
Many potential buyers might wonder if Vivo will announce an X80 Pro+ model in the near future with even better features than the X80 Pro. However, looking at the specs of the X80 Pro, it’s hard to imagine what more Vivo could add, other than the upcoming Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+ SoC. In the meantime, we can assume that the X80 Pro is the company’s flagship model.
Unlike the Vivo X80, the X80 Pro is more of an iterative update to the X70 Pro+. The most notable changes are the new Qualcomm SoC, faster wired charging, Vivo’s second-generation V1+ imaging chip, and the custom Samsung GNV main camera sensor. This phone looks like a good all-rounder on paper and I’m pretty impressed with what I’ve seen so far, but I’d recommend waiting for my full review for the final verdict, so stay tuned.
Disclosure: Vivo sponsored the correspondent’s flights and hotel for the pre-launch event in Dubai.
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