Vivo’s first Pro Max phone proves its Ultra is still in a league of its own

When I declared this fountain that Vivo’s X300 Ultra had the finest cameras in any phone, two things made it remain out in my mind: its outstanding chief camera alongside a narrow 35mm focal dimension and what remains the most capable ultrawide in any phone worldwide.

You won’t discover either in the new X500 Pro Max. It has an notable camera scheme alongside world-leading energetic range and the identical awesome telephoto lens established in the Ultra. But it’s misplaced a small item of what made its predecessor fairly so special.

The X500 Pro Max is the latest in a trend that’s seen China’s important Android players rotate out Pro Max models, including Xiaomi, Oppo, Honor, and now Vivo. The new models near the gap between their former Pro flagships and camera-centric Ultra models — or, if you favor to be cynical concerning it, are an excuse to slap “Max” on the box to improved disguise RAM-induced cost hikes. A small of pillar A, a small of pillar B, I suspect.

The Pro Max adopts plentifulness of flagship features established in the older Ultra. It’s the identical size, for one, and has a matching 1440p, 144Hz OLED display. It’s got an equal bigger power division — 7,800mAh — which breezes through two days of use, alongside akin 90W wired and 40W wireless charging. Unlike the Ultra it doesn’t use the latest Snapdragon chipset, but its MediaTek Dimensity 9600 Pro delivers approximately comparable performance. It equal features the exact identical periscope telephoto camera, among the finest in any phone. Then there’s the price: €1,799 (about $2,000) puts this squarely in the ultra-premium bracket.

But notwithstanding all that, this isn’t a true successor to the X300 Ultra, which is motionless rumored to see a straightforward sequel sometime next year. The X500 Pro Max motionless sits fractional a stage downward in Vivo’s hierarchy, and so it would be a small unfair to anticipate it to equivalent or attack the older Ultra. The issue isn’t that this camera is worse than that phone’s, though, but that it’s much small unique.

As you’d anticipate from a step-down model, the 50-megapixel, 1/1.28-inch-type chief camera sensor is the two smaller and lesser resolution than the Ultra’s, impacting its quality. But the newer phone offsets that a small gratitude to one border on the Ultra: It uses Sony’s new Lytia L910 depiction sensor, which features LOFIC innovation that enables a wider 17-stop energetic range, alongside the enhancements chiefly in the highlights.

But the X300 Ultra’s camera wasn’t lone notable for specialized quality. I loved the fact that it adopted a 35mm focal length, and am disappointed that the Pro Max returns to the identical 24mm focal dimension established on iPhones and countless others.

This, akin most phones’ chief cameras, is a wide-angle in truth. It’s designed to obtain in as much of a environment as possible, reserving the ultrawide for really ample landscape shots. It’s part of why I’ve taken to strolling rear and using the telephoto by default on many phones, enjoying the tighter framing and improved bokeh, but that frequently brings another norm compromises, particularly in lesser light.

A 35mm chief camera, by contrast, feels nearer to many of the kit and premier lenses you power catch for a regular camera, narrow adequate to use for portraits and purposeful framing. It sits additional evenly in between the 14mm ultrawide and 85mm telephoto, giving you natural options throughout the range. You could of way fair use the X500 Pro Max’s 24mm chief camera and zoom in a little, but afterward you’re wasting several of the sensor and relying on digital zoom tricks, fairly than making the most of the lens’s optics. I’m stubborn concerning shooting alongside my cameras’ complete focal lengths whenever I can, and you have to be too.

If there’s a preservation grace to the decision to come back to a wider chief camera, it’s that it helps create up for the X500 Pro Max’s another shortcoming: a much smaller ultrawide camera sensor.

The ethos of the X300 Ultra was that all three lenses should provision comparable quality. As such, it treated its ultrawide akin another chief camera, alongside a ample sensor and equal optical depiction stabilization, a rarity on broad lenses. In fact, its sensor is the identical size as the X500 Pro Max’s main camera, so a reiterate of that feat was never particularly likely, but the 1/2.75-inch-type ultrawide in the X500 Pro Max is motionless a notable stage down.

Taking the phone to a nighttime Champions League game, there was a apparent gap in norm moving from the ultrawide to the another two lenses. Under the brilliant stadium lights, the ultrawide blew out the pale particulars on the throw and participant kits and remaining the assemblage in related darkness. The chief and ultrawide were capable to bring additional item out of the dimly lit spectators and improved grip the highlights on the pitch, without entirely giving up on the difference that gave the environment its character.

It’s crucial to put these gripes in context: This is a really outstanding camera scheme for a phone, and motionless additional capable than any you can officially buy in the US. The returning telephoto in particular is exceptional; all lens benefits from Vivo’s naturalistic color-tuning, developed together alongside Zeiss, and video capabilities contain Log record and 4K at 240fps dilatory motion. It supports Vivo’s teleconverter lenses too, including a earnestly chunky 400mm option. It’s fair a shame that the most engaging elements of the Ultra’s camera haven’t trickled downward to its archetypal Pro Max too.

Strangely, another phone I’ve tested this duration feels akin it picked up anywhere the X300 Ultra remaining off: Oppo’s Find X10 Pro Max, a beautiful straightforward competitor to this phone. Its triple 200-megapixel camera scheme motionless uses a wide-angle chief camera, but at smallest includes a substantially improved ultrawide camera to create that identical emotion that all of its three rear lenses is of comparable quality.

All I anticipation now is that whenever the X500 Ultra rolls about arrive spring, it builds on the achievement of the older Ultra, and perchance finds new ways to create its cameras remain out. After all, if the Pro Max expenses €1,799, the Ultra could disbursal substantially additional — and volition have its activity cut out to demonstrate it’s value it.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge