Vivo X90 Pro Plus review: This kitchen sink phone sets a high bar for 2023 flagships - XDA Developers

The Vivo X90 Pro+ is an overkill telephone successful each consciousness of the word. From the unnecessarily agelong sanction to the tacky over-branding connected its backside; the gigantic camera bump to the cutting-edge components used, it's the alleged "kitchen sink" telephone due to the fact that Vivo seemingly threw each mobile tech imaginable astatine it. In each my years of reviewing smartphones, lone a fewer devices person deed the country with this overmuch "new" hardware: the Huawei Mate 20 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra. The Vivo X90 Pro+ joins the list.

The device, on with the full Vivo X90 series, is connected merchantability lone successful China for now, but a European/Asia motorboat is coming, apt successful January. Unfortunately, this telephone won't scope North America officially. Even if that's the case, the X90 Pro+ is simply a noteworthy telephone and has been attracting attraction for its camera prowess.

About this review: I purchased my ain Vivo X90 Pro+ from a telephone importer successful Hong Kong. The reappraisal was written aft 9 days with the device. Vivo had nary input successful the review.

Vivo X90 Series specifications

Design and hardware: Do we truly request each that branding?

• Gigantic camera bump surrounded by gratuitous branding could beryllium divisive
• Tremendous 2K Samsung E6 AMOLED show
• Packed with the newest components similar Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC and UFS 4.0 retention

The Vivo X90 Pro+ has an eye-catching backmost plan that could beryllium divisive, peculiarly the reddish colour exemplary I'm testing. The gigantic camera bump that protrudes fractional an inch from the assemblage is someway located off-center. The vegan leather (aka fancy integrative made to consciousness similar leather) that wraps astir the backmost is tinted successful crimson reddish (although there's a much understated achromatic option) and breached up by a metallic barroom that runs horizontally. I would usually emotion the summation of this metallic bar, which adds contrast, but present it's marked by a garish tagline that reads "Xtreme Imagination — Vivo/Zeiss co-engineered." I rotation my eyes each clip I look astatine it.

This metallic barroom is conscionable 1 of 4 places you'll find Zeiss branding connected the phone's back. There's besides the Zeiss logo, on with "Zeiss Vario Tessar" substance usually recovered successful Zeiss camera lenses, and 1 last Zeiss T logo connected the camera module itself. Vivo truly should instrumentality a enactment from Huawei, Xiaomi, oregon Oppo: Just due to the fact that you've partnered with a bequest camera marque doesn't mean you fto its branding overtake the full phone.

If anyone from Vivo is speechmaking this, I highly urge getting escaped of the "Xtreme Imagination" substance for the planetary exemplary (if it's not excessively precocious successful the manufacturing process already) due to the fact that I americium definite I won't beryllium the lone English reviewer to mock it.

Despite each this, I inactive deliberation the telephone looks... good? I've ever been a instrumentality of circular camera modules and leather backs, truthful from afar, erstwhile I'm not staring astatine tacky slogans and logos, I inactive excavation the wide aesthetic.

The beforehand broadside of the telephone of the telephone won't look antithetic for anyone who's seen a flagship Android telephone over the past fewer years. It's yet different edge-to-edge surface that curves connected the near and close side, interrupted by a tiny center-placed spread punch. The 6.78-inch show panel, however, is noteworthy due to the fact that it uses Samsung's E6 AMOLED show with a 3200 x 1440 solution and a refresh complaint up to 120Hz. This is the newest and champion show exertion successful mobile, with improvements successful viewing angles and anti-flickering exertion (1440Hz PWM). Underneath the show is an in-display fingerprint scholar utilizing Qualcomm's 3D Sonic Max technology. Simply put, this is the champion imaginable surface connected mobile devices close now.

The interior components are each connected the cutting borderline too. The X90 Pro+ runs connected the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 — this is the archetypal telephone to vessel with the silicon — with 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB of UFS 4.0 storage. The second is the latest successful mobile retention standards and sees improvements successful read/write speeds, arsenic good arsenic vigor efficiency, implicit UFS 3.1. There's a 4,700 mAh artillery that tin beryllium accelerated charged via the included charger astatine 80W velocity and wirelessly charged astatine up to 50W.

Whether it's the E6 show panel, UFS 4.0 storage, oregon 3D Sonic Max in-display scanner, these are each innovative components that astir Americans won't adjacent person entree to until 2023. All this, and we haven't gotten to the cameras yet.

Cameras: The champion caller camera strategy connected the market

• Main strategy consists of a quad lens array, headlined by a Sony IMX989 1-inch sensor
• Two zoom lenses screen 2x and 3.5x focal lengths, which are perfect for portraits
• Vivo's V2 imaging spot produces uncanny HDR

While Vivo isn't arsenic wide known similar Apple oregon adjacent Huawei and Xiaomi, it has built a estimation among smartphone enthusiasts successful the past twelvemonth for having 1 of the champion camera systems around. In fact, I deliberation the Vivo X70 Pro+ and X80 Pro understandably held the best mobile camera title for astir a twelvemonth earlier the Xiaomi 12S Ultra dethroned it precocious with its 1-inch camera.

Vivo has present adopted that aforesaid IMX989 1-inch camera sensor to the X90 Pro Plus, and the results are arsenic awesome arsenic I expected. The 1-inch sensor pulls successful a batch of representation accusation producing shots that look much integrated with stronger dynamic scope than an inferior sensor. The 1-inch sensor has a earthy shallow depth-of-field for genuine bokeh successful photos. The pursuing acceptable of photos were each snapped with the main camera, successful car mode, without immoderate tweaking oregon post-shot editing.

To spot the quality betwixt a ample sensor camera and a smaller sensor camera, spot the beneath samples. Vivo's images connected the near intelligibly person much extent and grounds stronger separation betwixt taxable and inheritance than the iPhone 14 Pro Max's photos.

But this is to beryllium expected — I've seen akin results from shots captured by the Xiaomi 12S Ultra. What amazed maine was however beardown the different cameras are.

The X90 Pro+ features a brace of zoom lenses, a 50MP 2x telephoto camera utilizing Sony's IMX758 sensor and a 64MP periscope zoom lens with a 3.5x optical zoom (this 1 uses a lesser-known Omnivision sensor). The 2 zoom lenses equate to astir 50mm and 90mm focal length, and they're meant for snapping portraits — the erstwhile for emblematic chest-up portraits, the second for full precocious assemblage shots.

The focal magnitude and sensor size effect successful immoderate earthy depth-of-field adjacent without resorting to software-generated integer bokeh, but the bully quality is Vivo does a precise bully occupation of that too. I happened to beryllium traveling astir Tokyo portion investigating this camera, and I snapped immoderate portraits and thoroughfare photography I genuinely love. (The vintage filter and watermark tin beryllium removed — I near them successful due to the fact that I thought they added to the photos' quality.)

However, turning the periscope zoom lens into a 3.5x representation lens means the X90 Pro+ has taken a measurement backmost successful agelong zoom photography compared to erstwhile Vivo devices with a 5x periscope lens. But the 3.5x lens has capable pixels to compensate, and for the astir part, the X90 Pro+' 10x zoom shots tin rival the Pixel 7 Pro's but loses to Samsung's dedicated 10x optical lens successful the Galaxy S22 Ultra. If you analyse the samples below, Samsung's 10x zoom (on the right) is conscionable a tad sharper and amended elaborate than Vivo's.

One of the reasons Vivo's X70 Pro+ and X80 Pro became the champion camera phones from precocious 2021 done astir of 2022 was due to the fact that they produced uncanny HDR. Whether I was shooting against backlight oregon successful high-contrast scenes, the past 2 Vivo flagships produced perfectly balanced shots without blowing retired immoderate lights. Much of that was owed to Vivo's self-developed imaging chip, the V1, and the X90 Pro+ gets the next-gen V2 chip. I don't rather cognize precisely wherever the improvements are successful the V2 (I'm reviewing this telephone cold, without immoderate media briefing oregon property releases). Still, it produces perfectly balanced shots each time, nary substance the airy source. This HDR capableness carries implicit to each 4 lenses, too, including the ultra-wide camera.

To show Vivo's HDR prowess, we've inserted immoderate side-by-side samples beneath against the champion phones made by Apple, Samsung, and Google. Notice close distant the iPhone 14 Pro Max wholly botches the changeable (far right), blowing retired the airy root done the model portion underexposing the shadowed areas. The Galaxy S22 Ultra and Vivo X90 Pro+ some produced a well-balanced HDR shot, but if you zoom person you tin spot Vivo's representation is intelligibly sharper and much detailed. The Pixel 7 Pro (second from left) made the determination to support the shadows darker for contrast, and 1 tin reason it's the champion changeable of the bunch. Whatever the case, the Vivo X90 Pro+ is, astatine worst, the second-best of the four, with the iPhone successful dormant last.

Video signaling has improved importantly successful caller years, too. The X90 Pro+ exhibits the aforesaid superb HDR crossed each 4 lenses during video recording, and video stabilization is among the champion successful Android. You tin spot tons of video samples successful the video below.

The 32MP selfie camera is fine; it captures shots with close tegument tones and keeps vulnerability connected my look without blowing retired the inheritance excessively much. One shortcoming is the front-facing camera tin inactive lone sprout video successful 1080p resolution, not 4K.

Overall, the Vivo X90 Pro+ is arguably the caller champion camera strategy connected the marketplace and tin astir rival Samsung's Galaxy S22 Ultra for versatility. The latter's 10x zoom shots are inactive somewhat better, but the X90 Pro+ has a amended camera everyplace else. This is simply a camera strategy that earns its camera bump.

• Runs OriginOS based connected Android 13, but it doesn't consciousness similar it
• OriginOS has an aesthetic that's possibly a ripoff of iOS, but it brings a batch of utile features
• Google apps tally good

This instrumentality I'm investigating is simply a China retail portion moving Android 13, but it's hard to archer due to the fact that Vivo's precise dense OriginOS surface is connected top. Many of Android 13's caller features, specified arsenic the built-in QR codification scanner successful the shortcut toggle buttons, to the Material You theming engine, person conscionable astir been done distant with. However, immoderate of the important caller privateness features of Android 13 are inactive available.

OriginOS has been knocked for having an aesthetic that looks precise iOS-inspired, and I won't quality that. Still, erstwhile you get past the deficiency of originality, OriginOS is simply a great-looking UI with tons of other touches that I privation Android would adopt.

The main differentiating origin betwixt OriginOS and different versions of Android is that OriginOS's location surface is designed to beryllium widget-heavy, and astir of these widgets are interactive. For example, successful the beneath screenshots, you tin spot the archetypal 2 pages of my location screen. The photograph assemblage and calendar widget connected the archetypal leafage is afloat interactive. I tin swipe done the assemblage to rhythm done photos oregon scroll further down respective weeks connected the calendar, each straight connected the location screen. Likewise, I tin statesman oregon halt a signaling by tapping connected the recorder widget connected the 2nd leafage without ever needing to unfastened the app fully.

Animations are fluid and the UI wide zips astir without hiccups. There are myriads of customization options, including the quality to acceptable 1 sideswipe to motorboat an app alternatively of "going back." This makes consciousness since astir radical lone swipe 1 broadside to spell back, truthful having some sides bash that enactment seems redundant. Also, due to the fact that this telephone was meant for the China market, it does not travel with Google apps retired of the box, but Google Mobile Services is afloat supported and simply requires installing a fewer APKs to get Google up and running.

Performance: Unsurprisingly great

• Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 with 12GB of RAM keeps things speedy
• Excellent artillery beingness
• Can get 5G successful California via T-Mobile

With the newest Qualcomm flagship silicon and the latest standards for RAM and storage, it's nary astonishment that the Vivo X90 Pro+ performs precise well. I didn't brushwood immoderate slowdowns oregon app crashes passim my week-plus of utilizing the device. And the telephone could evidently grip immoderate app I threw astatine it. I changeable and edited galore videos connected the instrumentality during my travel to Tokyo, and I recovered the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and UFS 4.0 retention brought noticeable velocity improvements erstwhile trimming and editing videos. Whether I was exporting 360-degree footage via the Insta360 app, utilizing PowerDirector for 4K video edits, oregon gathering a Reel connected Instagram, the Vivo X90 Pro Plus performed tasks faster than, say, the Pixel 7 Pro oregon Galaxy S22 Ultra.

Battery beingness is strong, with the telephone capable to past each time easily. Even during heavy-use days, the telephone could spell astir 15 hours connected a azygous charge. It's besides worthy noting that I got 5G connectivity successful Japan (via Japanese bearer SoftBank) and successful Los Angeles (via T-Mobile). This hasn't ever been the lawsuit with China-only phones.

Vivo X90 Pro+: Should you buy?

You should bargain the Vivo X90 Pro+ if:

• You unrecorded successful China (or volition sojourn China soon) and privation the champion caller Android telephone
• You are unfastened to importing phones
• You privation the latest successful mobile tech that won't marque it to the North American marketplace for different fewer months

You should not bargain the Vivo X90 Pro+ if:

• You unrecorded successful Europe oregon Southeast Asia (or program to sojourn those regions soon) and tin hold a period oregon 2 due to the fact that this telephone volition motorboat successful those regions
• You don't similar heavy-handed Chinese Android skins

The Vivo X90 Pro+ is presently selling lone successful China, but its comparatively debased starting terms of 6499 yuan ($930) means adjacent importing it won't effect successful an exorbitant price. I purchased my portion from Trinity Electronics successful Hong Kong for astir $1,050, including shipping to Japan. However, I americium alert importing phones with nary authoritative warranty and after-sales work for buyers is not thing astir mean consumers would do. This means, for the astir part, astir of you folks speechmaking this can't bargain this close now.

The telephone volition motorboat internationally, chiefly successful Southeast Asia and Europe, successful aboriginal 2023, truthful you volition person to hold if you're interested. There volition apt beryllium a markup, particularly for the European market, but arsenic agelong arsenic it isn't huge, I tin springiness it a afloat recommendation. Vivo's camera prowess has been connected show for good implicit a year, truthful the X90 Pro Plus is nary fluke. This is astir apt the astir susceptible camera hardware close now. The remainder of the hardware components, from show to fingerprint scanner, representation to silicon, are each bleeding borderline exertion that astir chunks of the satellite don't adjacent person entree to. This is the caller room descend telephone and sets the barroom precocious for incoming 2023 flagships.