vivo X100 Pro Review – Flagship with powerful Zeiss cameras and exceptional performance

It can be said that there is a vivo phone for every possible market segment on offer this year ranging from the modest Y100 5G to the midrange V30 series but for those looking for an uncompromising flagship experience, the vivo V100 Pro beckons. 

Designed in collaboration with the renowned imaging talents of Zeiss, vivo’s flagship phone is impressively appointed not just as a phone but as a camera too and is arguably more of the latter with the ability to even capture 8K@30fps video; a feat only a select few top tier phones can achieve.

We managed to get our hands on a sample for review and put it through its paces. Here’s our vivo X100 Pro review where we see if their flagship has what it takes to be in the big leagues.

vivo X100 Pro review – Build and Design

Flagship phones demand a distinctive design using premium materials befitting their role as paragons of performance and in that regard, our Vivo X100 Pro review unit did not disappoint. 

In terms of design, the vivo X100 Pro feels suitably premium indeed with excellent tactility and a solid heft. The chassis hosts rounded corners with the display curving in at all four edges, melding into the curved backplate to create a smoothly curved chassis that proves to be comfortable to grip though it is unfortunately somewhat slippery. The finish itself does look eye-catching especially under direct sunlight and also repels fingerprints well. 

The phone has a robust IP68 dust and water resistance rating which means that it is able to survive in up to 1.5 metres of freshwater for up to 30 minutes at a time while also having full protection against dust ingress.

In Malaysia, you’re able to acquire the phone in three colourways with our test sample coming in their signature shade of Startrail Blue. Alternatively, you can acquire it in a shade of Asteroid Black or Moonlight White. 

On closer inspection, the Startrail Blue finish on our vivo X100 Pro review sample resembles more of a light metallic blue colourway that features a concentric array of fine lines radiating out from the large rounded camera housing that hosts the phone’s signature Zeiss triple camera array.

The camera housing itself is fortunately symmetrical so that it doesn’t rock when placed face-up on a flat surface though it protrudes rather prominently from the rear of the phone. Of note here is that the camera housing is protected by a slab of Gorilla Glass Victus which makes it highly resistant against scratches and nicks.

Beyond the prominently placed vivo wordmark emblazoned in the lower quadrant of the backplate, the design hosts a slew of additional logos and subtle easter eggs sprinkled across the chassis. You get the Zeiss logo right in the middle of the camera housing itself as well as a red T* symbol to indicate that the camera lenses use a Zeiss T lens coating for superior clarity.

There is also a faint ‘Xtreme Imagination – vivo/Zeiss co-engineering’ engraved just below the camera housing too. There’s a few additional easter eggs too that need a magnifying glass. Engraved around the camera housing in the fashion of a traditional camera are its specifications.

The base of the phone hosts a SIM card tray, a USB-C port for charging and docking duties as well as a speaker grille for one of the two on the phone that form a matching stereo pair with the other one located up top. 

While the left side of our Vivo X100 Pro review unit is otherwise unremarkable, the right side hosts a power button and volume rocker. The top of the phone notably has an IR blaster up top as well as the sentence ’ professional photography’ engraved in a faint silver block font.

Up front, our Vivo X100 Pro review unit hosts a large 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED with 2,800 x 1,260 pixels resolution, a smooth 120Hz dynamic refresh rate and a 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut along with HDR10 and HDR10+ support for high dynamic range content. The display also has 2,160Hz PWM dimming and a quoted 3,000 nits of peak brightness which, on paper, ensures superb clarity under glaring sunlight. 

Night owls will also appreciate the fact that the display also has an SGS Low Blue Light and SGS Low Flicker certification rating too which ensures that it’s easy on the eyes. An in-display fingerprint reader is located in the lower quadrant of the display for biometrics. Up top, you get a small punch hole for the 32MP selfie camera.

Out of the box, our Vivo X100 Pro review sample has a generous assortment of kit. Not only do you get a transparent protective casing to go with the phone, you also get a 120W wired fast charger as well as a USB-C charging cable along with the obligatory SIM eject pin and warranty paperwork.

vivo X100 Pro review – Benchmarks and Performance

As flagship phones go, our vivo X100 Pro review unit is impressively appointed. The phone comes with the MediaTek Dimensity 9300 processor that’s built on a 4nm process and which is both 33% more power efficient in multi-core tasks while offering 40% better multi-core performance compared to the prior Dimensity 9200 chipset.

For Malaysia, the vivo X100 Pro only comes in one RAM and storage configuration only . Paired with the respectable Dimensity 9300 is a whopping 16GB LPDDR5X RAM along with 16GB of Extended RAM virtual RAM assigned off the onboard storage. The sheer amount of RAM both physical and virtual alone is easily more than what many flagship phones have to offer at present in the local market.

In addition to the Dimensity 9300 chipset, vivo has included an unusual extra bit of hardware with the phone – an imaging chip dubbed the vivo V3 that is intended to reduce image processing time and enable 4K cinematic portrait videos, cinema-grade bokeh in stills, advanced colour processing and overall enhanced image quality.

Running under the hood is the latest Android 14 with their FunTouch 14 user interface. Oddly enough, you cannot assign the amount of Extended RAM and are stuck with the existing 16GB though you can toggle the option on or off.

Another feature of note with FunTouch 14 is an Ultra Game Mode which eliminates irksome interruptions when gaming and which optimises performance for gaming which would be ideal for gamers. Here’s how our vivo X100 Pro review unit stacks up on paper…

Price	RM4,599
Display	6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED, 1,260 x 2,800 pixels, 120Hz refresh rate, 20:9 aspect ratio
Processor	MediaTek Dimensity 9300
OS	Android 14 w/ FunTouch 14
Memory	16GB LPDDR5X RAM w/ 16GB Expandable RAM / 512GB storage UFS 4.0
Cameras	50MP F/1.75 ZEISS Main Camera w/ IMX989 sensor and OIS + 50MP F/2.0 ultra wide angle camera + 50MP F/2.5 APO Floating Telephoto Camera w/ OIS [rear] / 32MP F/2.0 [front]
Battery	5,400mAh w/ 100W FlashCharge, 50W wireless FlashCharge
Size/Weight	164.1 x 8.9 x 9.1mm / 225g

In terms of hardware, our vivo X100 Pro review unit does not cut corners and you get a spanking new chipset of recent vintage, a generous amount of fast LPDDR5X RAM along with equally fast storage. When subjected to synthetic benchmarks with the full amount of 16GB of Extended RAM virtual RAM enabled, here’s how it fared…

3D Mark Solar Bay	7,381
3D Mark Solar Bay Unlimited	7,108
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme	4,630
3D Mark Wild Life Extreme Unlimited	4,594
3D Mark Wild Life	Maxed out
3D Mark Wild Life Unlimited	16,726
Geekbench 6 Single core	2,116
Geekbench 6 Multi core	6,977
Geekbench 6 OpenCL	14,870
Geekbench 6 Vulkan	14,714
PC Mark Work 3.0	17,223
PC Mark Battery Life	17 hours 20 mins

When it comes down to the numbers, our vivo X100 Pro review sample was able to go toe to toe with flagship phones running the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and give it a run for its money with comparable and in several cases, better benchmark scores too across the board.

Under extended stress tests in the 3D Mark Solar Bay Stress Test, it managed to get an impressive loop score of 7,281 with the lowest being 3,536 with 48.6% stability and a rather warm 47°C peak temperature. What this translates to is that the chipset has a higher performance envelope but runs hotter but otherwise doesn’t significantly affect actual day to day performance.

Under practical usage scenarios, our vivo X100 Pro review unit was able to comfortably handle demanding new games like Call of Duty Warzone Mobile on High settings and Genshin Impact too on default settings without issue. Productivity related tasks like editing videos on CapCut, swapping between over two dozen open tabs in Chrome and tackling the likes of spreadsheets and office documents were handled in a smooth fashion without issue.

Of note is the impressive LTPO AMOLED display which managed to serve up superb colour rendition and beautifully deep blacks and brilliant whites. Text was pin-sharp and the 1Hz -120Hz dynamic refresh rate is smart enough to dial it down on less intensive tasks like viewing an image and ramping it back up for selected games as this is primarily on a per-app basis.

Screen brightness was excellent and it was viewable under direct sunlight without too much issue while the PWM dimming and blue light filtering also meant that it was comfortable to see in dim light especially for reading e-books. 

Sound from the stereo speakers on our vivo X100 Pro review sample was pleasantly loud and stayed clear without distortion even when dialled to maximum with good detail and modest sound staging.

In terms of battery life, the vivo X100 Pro has exceptional endurance with close to a day and a half with normal use with PCMark’s battery life test serving up 17 hours and 20 minutes of endurance. Charging it to full from dead zero using the provided charger worked as advertised with a full charge in about 35 minutes which is quite a feat.

vivo X100 Pro Review – Cameras

Arguably the biggest draw to the vivo X100 Pro, the rear triple camera array consists of a triple 50MP camera setup. The primary 50MP camera has a large 1-inch Sony IMX989 sensor with an F/1.75 aperture along with optical image stabilisation.

Riding shotgun is a 50MP F/2.76 ultra wide angle camera along with a 50MP F/2.5 Telephoto camera with optical image stabilisation and a floating telescope lens design paired with Zeiss Apochromatic lenses to mitigate chromatic aberration which is the purple fringing seen in lesser quality cameras along with the ability to digitally zoom in up to 100x.

In addition, every camera lens, front camera included has a Zeiss T* lens coating to mitigate light reflections for better shots in challenging light conditions and has a quoted 20% enhanced clarity. The rear triple camera setup is also capable of an impressive 8K@30fps video capture too. Up front, you have a single 32MP selfie camera capable of up to 1080p video..

On top of the Zeiss certified lenses, our vivo X100 Pro review unit also comes kitted out with the aforementioned custom-made V3 imaging chip as well as special Zeiss-inspired camera settings. Unique to the vivo V3 Pro is a special Zeiss Cinematic Portrait Mode in the camera settings that implements your choice of film grain, video LUTS and focus switching with up to 4K@30fps video capture.

Only videos captured in this Cinematic Portrait mode have the option to tweak videos in this fashion even after you’ve captured footage as conventionally captured videos in the standard video mode lack the metadata to do so.

The camera settings also have a Zeiss-created Landscape & Architecture mode that helps to correct the horizon if you botch the angle when shooting buildings along with the option to create a tilt-shift miniature effect for more whimsical shots of architecture and scenery shots.

When tested with a variety of subjects in daylight conditions, the Zeiss triple camera arrays on the rear did not disappoint, offering excellent detail and dynamic range with lifelike colour rendition. Of note is the consistent colour rendition of all three cameras as lesser models often render hues slightly differently and you’re able to yield pleasingly good shots all the way out to 4.3x telephoto zoom.

There’s the ability to take 10x and even 100x zoom and to Zeiss and vivo’s credit, the ISP manages to eke out a good amount of detail too even at these huge distances but you’ll get best results if you keep to within telephoto zoom range.

In low light conditions, the rear Zeiss triple cameras were up to the task with a highly capable auto mode that offered great noise control and which was able to salvage a good amount of detail from the shadows without crushing blacks entirely while keeping highlights visible and retaining a good amount of colour.

Captured video in daylight or in low light in 4K was excellent and while 8K video is possible, it’s a novelty for now that isn’t practical to edit seeing the computational demands required or view seeing as most TVs have 4K resolution. All in, the rear Zeiss camera array is easily able to match results from the best that Cupertino or Suwon has to offer.

While competent and able to deliver good mugshots and 1080p video calls, the front single selfie camera pales in terms of the sheer power of the rear camera. If you’re looking for a more selfie centric design, the vivo V30 Pro packs a much larger front-facing 50MP camera. 

Should you buy the vivo X100 Pro?

The vivo X100 Pro is a flagship camphone, leveraging their close collaboration with Zeiss to create one of the best cameras yet seen on a smartphone with a rich set of features that would benefit serious content creators and dedicated videographers alike.

Add in solid performance, an excellent display along with superb battery life paired with blazing fast charging support and you have one of the best smartphones of 2024.

vivo X100 Pro review sample courtesy of vivo Malaysia. For more details and to purchase please visit https://www.vivo.com/my/products/x100pro