Vivo X300 Ultra at half price: Importing from China can be worth it
No, this is not an April Fools’ joke. As is often the case with high-end smartphones from China, there is a lot of money to be saved if you are willing to deal with a China model and its specific limitations. The Vivo X300 Ultra is the latest example. The ultimate Zeiss camera phone was officially unveiled in China on the second-to-last day of March and has already been announced with some details and preorder deals for several European countries, including Austria.
Although Vivo Austria has not yet announced an official euro price, a leak from the official store page has already shown that the European version of the current Zeiss camera flagship will be anything but cheap. You can certainly save quite a bit with the full bundle if you already plan to use all the accessories, but we doubt the likely planned European price of €2,000 for the 16GB/1TB version will change much. Other prominent high-end smartphones with this storage configuration cost a similar amount, including the iPhone 17 Pro Max with 1TB of storage. Whether smartphones with 1TB of storage will become even more expensive in the future remains to be seen, but the current supply bottleneck is likely to continue for some time.
Import could save a lot of money
In China, prices are generally lower not only because of different sales volumes, missing certifications, and shorter warranty and update periods, but also because there are more storage options to choose from. The cheapest 12GB/256GB storage variant at TradingShenzhen costs €1,007 and is therefore likely close to half the price of the EU version. Other well-known retailers turned out to be slightly more expensive in our research: AverageDad charges €1,112, Wondamobile €1,093, and Trinity Electronics about €1,130 converted from HKD. Shipping is added in all cases, although taxes and customs are officially included at TradingShenzhen and AverageDad.
256GB of storage is probably too little for most people, but the 12GB/512GB variant at €1,107 from TradingShenzhen could be the sweet spot for many. Here too, the other retailers are somewhat more expensive, while AverageDad and Trinity Electronics do not offer this option. The 16GB/512GB version costs €1,207 at TradingShenzhen, €1,229 at AverageDad, €1,226 at Wondamobile, and about €1,240 at Trinity Electronics when converted. Last but not least, the 16GB/1TB China version, which is comparable to the global model, costs €1,377 at TradingShenzhen. That would still make it 45 percent cheaper, assuming the €2,000 price for the EU version turns out to be accurate.
Advantages and limitations of the China version
There is really only one advantage to the China version, and that is the white color option, which at least is not available in Europe. On the other hand, there are definitely some everyday limitations to keep in mind with a China model. Since the China version supports a fairly wide range of LTE and 5G bands, as already mentioned in our launch coverage, there should be no disadvantages in terms of network coverage in Europe. However, none of the popular eSIMs can be used unless you rely on eSIM adapters such as the one from JMP, which I can personally recommend based on hands-on use with the Vivo X200 Ultra.
Android Auto has been working with Vivo phones from China for several years, and German is also available as a language option in the settings. In daily use, the main remaining issue is compatibility with Wear OS smartwatches and various Google apps such as Quick Share, for which, to the best of my knowledge, there is no workaround. As an alternative, I can strongly recommend Blip lately, which, unlike LocalSend, also works on hotel Wi-Fi and other more challenging network environments. Gemini can be set up as the default AI assistant through indirect methods. Last but not least, return and support terms are much more limited with a China device. It is best not to expect more than a 1-year warranty and probably at most 3 years of software updates, whereas the Austrian version is advertised with a 3-year warranty and 5 to 7 years of software updates.
Source(s)
Wondamobile, AverageDad, Trinity Electronics, Tradingshenzhen, Own
Images: Weibo
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