Vivo X90 Pro review

Last year we crowned the Vivo X80 Pro our favourite phone camera of the year – so it’s fair to say that we’ve been a bit excited for the X90 Pro, which takes things one step further with a whopping great big one-inch camera sensor. 

It’s already given the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera some stiff competition, and even this early in the year there’s a chance this could be 2023’s best phone for photography – well, except for Vivo’s X90 Pro+, which is sadly staying a China exclusive. 

The regular X90 is no slouch elsewhere either, with one of the latest flagship chipsets, a welcome grippy leather finish, and all the usual fast charging and top display specs you’d expect. 

Design & build 

• Big, but comfortable to hold 
• Premium fake leather rear 
• Massive camera module and busy rear design 

I have mixed feelings about the design of the Vivo X90 Pro, but let’s start with the good. 

I’m a fan of the black vegan leather finish you’ll find on the rear of the phone, which makes it both grippier and more durable than most rivals – and helps it stand out amongst the sea of glass slabs.  

It’s durable elsewhere too. The IP68 rating should keep the phone safe from both dust and water, while the screen is made from Schott Xensation α – a recent rival to the popular Gorilla Glass. 

I also like the fact that, despite being quite a large phone overall, it feels comfortable and deceptively light in the hand. I say deceptive because it still weighs a healthy 215g, but somehow seems to carry that weight well. 

So what am I less of a fan of? For starters, look beyond the leather finish and the phone’s rear is…busy. There’s a subdued Vivo logo, a less subdued blue Zeiss logo, a strange metallic strip with ‘Xtreme Imagination’ inscribed in calligraphy, and a honking great camera module. 

That camera sticks out of the phone a good half-centimetre, and feels a little more obnoxious for the fact that only three of the ‘lenses’ are real – the bottom-right is simply the spot where a fourth lens would be on the more powerful X90 Pro+, which is only sold in China. The camera as a whole is probably powerful enough to justify its size – more on that later – but you will have to learn to live with its design. 

Screen & speakers 

• Expansive 6.8in, curved AMOLED display 
• Full HD+ resolution and 120Hz refresh rate 
• Standard quality stereo speakers 

The display is one of the few areas where the X90 Pro doesn’t quite throw everything at the wall, though it’s by no means a bad screen. 

You get a large 6.78in AMOLED panel, with curved edges that keep it comfortable to hold. The 1260 x 2800 resolution is plenty, though admittedly is a drop down from last year’s X80 Pro, which packed a QHD+ display, as many of the X90 Pro’s rivals do too.

Similarly, the 120Hz resolution is nothing to complain about, but it’s a shame that Vivo hasn’t used a modern LTPO display with fully dynamic refresh rate from 1-120Hz, which would allow the phone to save battery when that fast refresh isn’t really needed. 

1300 nits peak brightness isn’t bad, but again, you can find slightly better elsewhere such as on the Galaxy S23 Ultra if you often need to use your phone in bright, direct sunlight. 

This are all nitpicks that mean the X90 Pro’s screen definitely isn’t the best around, but is still excellent. It’s bright, punchy, and attractive, with HDR10+ support for applicable content. Unless screen specs are your Mastermind specialty, you’ll find a lot to love here. 

The stereo speakers are a little more underwhelming, which is to say: they’re fine. I find it hard to get too worked up about phone speakers either way, and these are pretty standard: good enough to play tunes in a pinch or take a call on speakerphone, but with some clear limitations. Again: not the best, but good enough. 

Specs & performance 

• High-end MediaTek Dimensity 9200 chip 
• Lags a little behind Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 rivals 
• 12GB RAM and 256GB storage 

Vivo made an unusual choice with the X90 line. While the top-end X90 Pro+ is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 – the chip du jour for flagship phones – the X90 Pro uses rival MediaTek’s Dimensity 9200. 

On paper, it’s a similarly specced flagship chip, and should be a close match, though in benchmarks it actually lags a fair bit behind 8 Gen 2 phones like the Galaxy S23 Ultra or OnePlus 11. On the graphics-heavy GFXBench tests included below, note that every other phone included runs at a higher resolution – so what seem to be strong numbers for the X90 Pro aren’t actually so impressive. 

In reality, I’m not sure how much any of that matters. The X90 Pro is so exceptionally fast and fluid that no-one could ever accuse this phone of being slow. Serious mobile gamers may see the appeal of the small step up in the Snapdragon, but no-one else would ever notice the difference day-to-day. 

It probably helps that Vivo ships the X90 Pro with 12GB of RAM by default, which helps with nippy multitasking. The 256GB storage allowance is also generous, though it’s perhaps a shame that there’s no option to upgrade this further – or expand it with a microSD card. 

Naturally there’s 5G support, along with the latest Bluetooth 5.3 standard and the not-quite-latest Wi-Fi 6 – for some reason it doesn’t support the more recent Wi-Fi 6E, though it’s unlikely your router does either. 

Camera & video 

• Probably the best main camera in any phone 
• Excellent supporting lenses 
• No periscope zoom 

Until now I’ve been upbeat, but perhaps not awe-inspired, about the X90 Pro. Here’s where that changes. 

This phone was always going to come down to its camera. The Vivo X80 Pro was 2022’s best camera, and it would take some doing for Vivo to exceed that – but it has. 

Let’s get the main downside out of the way first: there’s no periscopic zoom here. The main camera and ultrawide are joined by a 2x zoom ‘portrait lens’, which still gets decent results up to 5x magnification or thereabouts. Again, the China-only X90 Pro+ does get that deeper zoom, it’s just not included here, which is a slight drawback in comparison to the likes of the S23 Ultra. 

For my money, the quality of the other three lenses more than makes up for that shortcoming. The best by far is the main camera, which is powered by the 50Mp Sony IMX989 sensor. This 1in sensor is the biggest around right now, which means it can capture more light for deeper dynamic range, broader colours, and far better lowlight performance, all bolstered by Vivo’s in-house V2 image processing chip.

At night there is no phone I’d rather have in my pocket for photos than this. Bright lights are carefully exposed to minimise glare without a loss of detail from darker spots of the frame. And areas that should be dark – like the night sky – tend to stay that way. Other flagships come close, but none deliver quite the same effect. 

The sheer sensor size also means this shoots a little more like a mirrorless or even DSLR camera, with a shallower depth of field. That means you get a natural bokeh effect even without using portrait mode, and photos that look more, well, photographic. 

There’s a downside: the shallow depth-of-field means it’s easy to get bits of your subject out of focus, so you’ll have to work a little harder to frame shots. However, learn how to use it and you’ll take photos that simply don’t look like they’ve come from a smartphone. 

I find the phone’s default colours a little over-saturated, but luckily a single tap enables the Zeiss Natural Colour mode – the camera company has long collaborated with Vivo on its camera hardware and software, including a T* anti-glare coating on the lenses here. 

The Zeiss photo mode keeps true-to-life tones without any lose in detail or dynamic range, and I much prefer it. There’s a whole range of other filters, some powered by Zeiss and some by Vivo alone, including a surprisingly good vintage film mode and a rather silly Zeiss option to add JJ Abrams-style lens flare to every photo. 

Move beyond the main camera and you get a 12Mp ultrawide and a 50Mp, 2x telephoto. The ultrawide is the weakest of the three rear lenses, with a drop in detail, a flatter colour palette, and diminished lowlight performance. That criticism almost feels unfair though, as it’s still among the better ultrawides out there. 

The 2x telephoto is even better. It’s a shame there’s no periscope, but this camera – which Vivo markets as a ‘portrait’ lens – fares well enough at low zoom levels to cover most use cases, and good stabilisation means it can even take acceptable zoomed shots at up to 10x, though understandably these can’t compete with a true periscope. 

With a smaller sensor, it’s no match for the main camera in dimmer light, but colours and crispness are better than the ultrawide manages in other conditions, making it a happier substitute. And with a broader depth of field, it can cover for the main shooter when the bokeh isn’t quite right, lending a versatility to the whole setup. 

The selfie camera impresses too. The 32Mp sensor is impressively high resolution, though the aperture of f/2.5 is a little more limited. Still, shots impress when that detail can shine through in good lighting, but don’t expect any of the low light magic you’ll find from the cameras on the other side. 

Video recording from the rear cameras goes up to 4K@60fps or 8K@24fps. Unless you need the resolution, you might be better off sticking to 1080p, at which point you’re able to use the phone’s ‘Ultra’ stabilisation, which is among the best around – and helps deliver yet more excellent low light capabilities. 

Battery & charging 

• Comfortable all-day battery 
• Incredibly fast 120W wired charging 
• Reverse wireless charging seems broken 

If camera is the main area the X90 Pro excels, then the battery probably comes up second. 

The 4870mAh cell is generous, and close to the biggest you’ll find in a flagship. Most importantly, it translates to a phone that easily lasts a full day of use, and usually a fair bit longer.  

When it comes to charging, the 120W charger included with the phone is about as fast as they come. With the phone’s optional ‘Fast charging’ setting enabled, it restored an impressive 70% of the phone’s battery – so basically a day’s worth – in just 15 minutes of charging, one of the fastest scores we’ve ever recorded. 

Vivo has also included support for wireless charging and reverse wireless charging. You can technically charge at up to 50W speeds wirelessly, but only with Vivo’s official accessory, which is sold separately – though it will work fine at slower speeds on regular Qi chargers. 

Unfortunately, I have to add that I’ve found the reverse wireless charging – which allows you to wirelessly charge other devices from the phone – to be entirely unreliable and borderline non-functional. Trying two pairs of earbuds and another phone, all begin to charge but seem to lose the connection quickly, only rarely managing to sustain charging. Hopefully this is fixed in an update, because for now it basically isn’t working. 

Software & updates 

• Ships with Funtouch OS and Android 13 
• Lots of bloatware 
• Three years of Android updates 

Finally we get to arguably Vivo’s key weak point in its ongoing attempts to break into Western markets: software. 

The awfully named Funtouch OS is still Vivo’s international Android skin (in China it instead ships the distinct OriginOS), and it’s still pretty frustrating. 

There’s some variation here to be fair. Global versions of the phone ship packed with bloatware – much of which can’t be uninstalled – but as a rule there’s substantially less of this on official European models. 

What doesn’t change is the problem of over-optimisation. Funtouch aggressively manages app networking, battery use, and even permissions in the background, creating problems as it shuts off apps you thought were running, or blocks notifications.  

Other incompatibilities are harder to explain. For some reason the autofill capability of my password manager, 1Password, will not work on this phone. It works on every other phone I test, including the previous Vivo X80 Pro, but for some reason I can’t autofill a password to save my life on this one. 

One definite improvement is in long-term support at least: Vivo is now promising the X90 Pro will receive three Android version updates (taking it past this year’s Android 14 and through to Android 16) with security patches over the same period. 

That’s not as impressive a commitment as you’ll get from Samsung, OnePlus, Google, or some others, but it’s a step up for Vivo, means you can rely on this phone to run well for at least a few years. 

Price & availability 

The Vivo X90 Pro costs €1,199 across most of Europe – a €100 increase on last year’s X80 Pro.

Vivo had initially promised that the X90 Pro would launch in the UK too, but has since confirmed to Tech Advisor that this launch has been cancelled, so it’s import-only unfortunately. A US launch was never on the cards.

The price puts it pretty directly against competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max, but that’s a big ask for a phone with less brand recognition, fewer repair and warranty options, and a less polished software experience. 

I still reckon that this is one of the best Android flagship phones around, especially where the camera is concerned, but at this price I’d forgive anyone for sticking with what they know.

For the full competition, check out our guide to all the best phones right now, the best phone cameras you can find, or the best Vivo phones for more from the brand. 

Verdict 

The Vivo X90 Pro is a powerful flagship by any measure, with perhaps the best phone camera you can buy outside of China – though it’s not without compromises. 

Everywhere from the display, to the chipset, to the software experience, the X90 Pro is always good – and often great – but never the best around. 

That all changes with the camera, where Vivo’s phone is almost unrivalled, especially when it comes to the absolutely brilliant main camera – by itself undoubtedly at the top of its game. The only real camera complaint is that with no periscope lens, this lacks the versatility of some rivals, including Samsung’s S23 Ultra. 

Specs 

• 6.78in, 120Hz, 2800 x 1260 AMOLED display 
• MediaTek Dimensity 9200 
• 12GB LPDDR5 RAM 
• 256GB UFS 4.0 storage 
• Camera: 
  • Vivo V2 ISP 
  • 50Mp f/1.75 main camera (Sony IMX989) 
  • 12Mp f/2.0 108-degree ultrawide lens (Sony IMX663) 
  • 50Mp f/1.6 2x portrait telephoto lens (Sony IMX758) 
  • 32Mp f/2.45 selfie camera 
• 4870mAh battery 
• 120W wired charging 
• 50W wireless charging 
• 5G/4G 
• Wi-Fi 6 
• Bluetooth 5.3 
• GPS 
• NFC 
• In-display fingerprint sensor 
• IP68 water and dust resistance 
• 164 x 74.5 x 9.3mm 
• 215g 
• Android 13 with Funtouch OS 13