Vivo X300 Pro: Camera ace with minor weaknesses reviewed

The Vivo X300 Pro is positioned as an expensive camera flagship and is sold exclusively with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage in Europe. The phone features an IP69-certified premium chassis made of glass and aluminum, and feels quite sturdy despite a slightly top-heavy camera module. Furthermore, the handset sports a very bright 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED display with a 1 to 120Hz refresh rate, high HDR brightness and accurate colors.

Additional features include WiFi 7, many supported cellular frequencies, tri-band GNSS, dual SIM with eSIM support, an ultra-fast ultrasonic fingerprint sensor as well as seven years of security patches and five years of major Android software updates.

The camera is clearly the highlight of the Vivo X300 Pro. A very good triple-camera setup developed in cooperation with Zeiss takes very good photos with natural color reproduction, convincing dynamic range and strong low-light performance. Video can be recorded at up to 8K and with very good stabilization in some cases, while the front camera also impressed our testers with its autofocus and 4K video support.

However, the X300 Pro also showed some noticeable drawbacks in everyday use. Under sustained load, the Dimensity chipset throttles significantly, the GNSS is rather slow when acquiring a satellite signal, the speakers sound tinny at higher volumes and battery life is solid but not fantastic despite the big battery.

As expected, there is no headphone jack, no microSD slot and no power adapter included. In addition, the X300 Pro lacks UWB support and has no barometer. Overall, this is a strong camera smartphone, but its thermal management, audio quality and efficiency leave some room for improvement, especially considering the high price. For more details, stay tuned for our upcoming in-depth review of the Vivo X300 Pro and check out the first part of our dedicated camera test in the meantime.