Having a dependable device that could capture your everyday moments right at your fingertips is something that a lot of people may want. The vivo X300 is a phone co-engineered by ZEISS, marrying the benefits of both smartphone and optical manufacturers into one handheld device. This makes the vivo X300 a good contender for those who prefer the slightly cheaper base model with a good camera. That, paired with speedy software that may even help you secure concert tickets (more on this below), this phone could be something worth considering.
Design and build
The vivo X300 comes in a Unibody 3D Glass design. In addition to being encased with an iridescent finish, this gives the device an elegant look on the lighter Halo Pink colorway. For those who prefer a more sleek, discreet, and clean look, there is also the Phantom Black color option. The smooth casing minimizes the likelihood of fingerprints appearing, lowers the possibility of scratches, and makes dust and debris easier to remove. Although this casing makes it feel smooth to the touch, the glass body could make the device more slippery. Despite that, this can also be easily circumvented by placing a phone case if you prefer to do so.
The circular design of the camera housing adds to the sleek look of the vivo X300, with a seamless blend connecting the lenses and the body. The phone’s edges are defined with a metal frame, keeping it feeling solid and cool to the touch. It allows for a bit of grip, with its subtly curved ends allowing you to hold it more comfortably.
The device also has a 1.05mm Ultra Slim Symmetric Bezel, allowing for even more screen real estate than other phones in the market. It is also 7.95mm thin and weighs 190g, keeping it at a lightweight range and allowing pocketability.
The vivo X300 is also IP68 & IP69 Dust and Water Resistant, giving you an ease of mind in the event of accidents. It also has Wet-Hand Touch, a feature that should keep the screen responsive and accurate despite having damp or wet fingers.
With the release of the vivo X300, vivo also introduced their first-ever 4K Vapor Chamber. This allows the device to cool even with intense usage, thanks to its liquid cooling design. This is an added bonus for those who like to multitask or those who like to use their phones extensively. Although this may give a bit of peace of mind to mobile gaming enthusiasts, the phone may still increase in temperature in intensive moments, like when using the Gaming Mode’s boosted performance settings.
The device can come with 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB UFS 4.1 storage. There is no internal card slot so you are unable to expand the phone’s internal storage. Depending on the model, the RAM could either be 12GB or 16GB, which is capable enough for an average user, being able to handle multitasking and gaming. This will be explored further under the performance aspect of the device.
Display
The device has a 6.31” LTPO OLED display that reaches a peak of 4500 nits of screen brightness. This gives quality graphics and readable text even under daylight. Supplemented with a 120Hz refresh rate, this allows smooth scrolling and fluid animations when using the phone. This is also a bonus for gaming as it gives good responsiveness and minimizes motion blur on the equally compact and visually immersive screen.
Having the ZEISS Master Color Display is a plus for good color accuracy and high brightness. Not only will this benefit those who enjoy watching videos or playing games with vivid graphics on their phone, but it will also bring out the colors on the photos you take with the camera.
For those who are concerned about eye strain and consider the effects of eye fatigue, the vivo X300 has Hardware Eye Protection that enables eye care with 2160 Hz high-frequency PWM dimming across all brightness levels and full DC dimming technology. The device also has Smart Eye Protection Mode 3.0, Anti-fatigue Brightness 2.0, and Adaptive Color Temperature which further shows the phone’s attempts at lessening visual fatigue and its efforts for eye protection. Night Eye Protection Mode 3.0 and Sleep Comfort Mode are present for nighttime use and, for avid gamers, Game Eye Protection Mode 2.0 is also included. The device is low blue light certified and TÜV Rheinland Flicker-Free Certified for that extra added assurance.
Camera
Onto the star of the show on the vivo X300’s back panel, the three ZEISS cameras sit elegantly in a slightly protruded circle. It includes the 200 MP 1/1.4” ZEISS Main Camera, the 50 MP 1/1.96” ZEISS APO Telephoto Camera, and the 50 MP 1/2.76” ZEISS Ultra Wide-Angle Camera. The camera also features an Adaptive Zoom Flash that helps with the adjustment of the brightness based on the used focal length (hardware coverage for 23mm and 50mm). For the front-facing camera, it contains a 50 MP 1/2.76” ZEISS Wide-Angle Camera.
The cameras are very capable of documenting your daily life. The phone captures great quality and can keep a realistic bokeh to keep subjects in focus. The shutter was responsive in my use and the colors were vibrant in the photos. The main camera app includes ZEISS presets which you could choose from, which act like filters that could give your photos a certain look, including Black and White options. In the “More” tab, you’ll be met with more options to further customize what you would like out of the phone’s camera, including a Pro mode for more customizability. The selfie camera stayed sharp and could be modified to have extra bokeh or “Beautification” which could soften or blur your skin if you prefer, although I have kept it off in my testing. When using the selfie camera, I did notice that the white balance did sometimes shift when under natural lighting, so it may be something you need to manually tweak if you prefer a more constant color.
The sharpness did start to soften at the 70mm lens, as well as the 2x zoom (46mm) as the latter isn’t a dedicated lens but a digital zoom. However, these two still procured lots of decent results, especially in well-lit situations or if you tinker a bit with the camera settings.
Trying to keep the focus in low-light scenarios was sometimes a bit of a struggle. The photos could result in unfocused outcomes at certain moments with dimly lit subjects. Despite that, cityscapes or environmental photos when the whole picture remains in focus still had results that came out good.
My favorite mode in the camera app, which is something that could be easily overlooked, is the Humanistic mode. You could reach this mode by swiping an arrow found at the edge of the screen when on the camera app. It is like a film camera with different presets that I enjoyed using. This could be a feature that you may also enjoy if you are into the hype of film styles and film cameras.
For those who want to take their photography to the next level, one can set their vivo X300 with an even more professional camera rig by getting the Telephoto Extender Kit. Although I wasn’t personally able to test this out, it contains 13 high-transparency glass elements and 3 ultra-low dispersion lenses to help with the clarity and quality of your images. The camera goes up to 2.35x with the telephoto rig.
The first feature I’ll mention that’ll specifically appeal to concert goers (but can definitely be used in other use cases as well) is the concert Stage Mode 2.0. This feature aims to keep your concert videos stable and sharp, all the way up to 20x zoom. It intends to deal with the bright stage lights and the performer’s movement, which could be just what you need for your fancams.
Not only that, but this other feature is something I also personally have been wanting and find very useful in concerts. Aside from filming the performers, I have always wanted to film myself and my reactions in order to remember how I felt in the moment, how the moment affected me, and keep a souvenir of myself being in that moment with the performer or performance. The vivo X300’s Dual-View Stage Video feature allows you to record with two cameras at the same time! This feature allows you to simultaneously record using the front and rear camera so you are in the same recording with your favorite performer (the layout for this can be modified as well). Not only is this useful for POV and selfie videos, but you could also use this feature to capture using a lens with a wider focal length and a zoomed-in one. This is very useful for group performances, allowing you to film your favorite idol or focus a close-up on whoever is in front of you, while still having another recording where you see all the performers on stage. A specific use case example is recording a close up fancam of your KPOP bias, while still being able to record the whole KPOP group with their different blocking and/or dances. Of course, one can be creative and definitely be able to use this feature for other scenarios outside of concerts and performances as well.
The video performance was good on the vivo X300. You are able to get 4k 30fps and 4K 60fps on all four cameras. The main camera can reach up to 4K 120fps at up to 2x zoom. When using the Pro video mode, you are able to get as low as 24fps and up to 240fps (although at a lower FHD (1080p) quality for the latter). The 4k 60fps portrait video could also help with beauty and bokeh effects if you would like to use those features.
The stabilization on this phone was very capable with limited wobble when walking while recording. You could also toggle Ultra Stabilization on, but this limits your resolution to only 2.8k max. While having good general sharpness and vivid colors, low-light scenes didn’t have the best quality and had some noise, especially on the ultrawide and telephoto lenses. In decent lighting, the video quality was still good, although noise and lack of sharpness could be present, especially for the non-main lens. Despite an overall decent video performance, I did notice some autofocus drops when I took a moving video with a dog in frame.
Performance
This device was easily capable of handling regular use, as well as heavier loads like multi-tasking and gaming. Using Dimensity 9500, this phone had an increase in GPU (33%) and CPU (32%) single-core performance, and a decrease in GPU (42%) power consumption. I didn’t notice any stutter when launching and flipping between different phone applications.
Multi-tasking was easily achievable, whether as a split-screen or a floating window. The latter allows one to resize and move the window pop-up to wherever you would like to on the screen, giving you added flexibility when multi-tasking. The vivo X300 was able to handle gaming and watching a YouTube video simultaneously, a testament to its performance capabilities.
To further add onto the gaming aspect, the device’s chip coupled with the 120Hz refresh rate made gaming a smooth and stable experience. I did not notice any lag when playing EA Sports FC and Call of Duty: Mobile, which are, at minimum, moderately demanding games. A bonus for mobile gaming enthusiasts is the ability to customize the phone’s performance and how much of its system you would like to use in your gaming experience with the use of the Performance Panel that you could toggle when playing. You are also able to customize the refresh rate in this panel, as well as quickly access different apps within your phone. You can further customize gaming controls at the Ultra Game Mode setting found within the phone’s settings app. You could also add a 4D Game Vibration feature if it is supported on your preferred game.
Adding to another concert-helpful feature, if you’re an avid concert-goer like myself, the vivo X300 has a feature that could help you grab those tickets. I understand the frustration and stress of trying to secure tickets with a high-demand performer that you would really like to watch live. In these situations where every second matters, this phone has Snap-Up Engine, which claims to speed up the different steps of the ticketing process, from speeding up taps — like choosing your preferred seats — all the way until payment by up to 36% when enabled! Understandably, this could be a feature that some may greatly appreciate, although I wasn’t able to personally test it out.
OS/UI
The vivo X300 runs on OriginOS, allowing for a customizable interface with fluid animations. It comes with neat visuals for its icons, giving the phone a modern look. The phone’s theme and icon design can also be customized in the device’s settings.
The transparent control center gives a clean aesthetic, and functionally allows you easy access to a lot of the phone’s controls. The Origin Island at the top of the phone also becomes useful as it could show information on real-time app statuses like timers, navigation, and media playback.
The Origin Smooth Engine makes multitasking smoother with its ultra-core computing, memory fusion, and dual rendering capabilities. These make the phone more fluid and polished with its visuals, responsiveness, and performance.
AI
Aside from the AI capabilities of the camera, which could be useful, just like the post-processing of the images or removing unwanted clutter in photos, you could continue to benefit from this device with its different additional AI features. AI SuperLink helps you stay connected by switching to a better network. This can be very useful for those who take important calls, care about internet lag, or find importance in always having a phone signal. This feature claims to give the vivo X300 60% less call drops in underground garages, 68% less video call lag in elevators, and 71% less video streaming lag in elevators.
The AI Search helps you instantly search things within your phone without needing to switch apps, while AI creation helps rewrite, summarize, or even translate documents to help your notes or documents become more refined. For those who would like assistance with note takings in the middle of meetings or videos, AI captions instantly transcribes, translates, and summarizes your calls. These features could result in higher productivity and better time efficiency, which could definitely benefit the user.
Battery and charging
The vivo X300 contains a 6040 mAh BlueVolt Battery that allows a decent charge that could last up to 2 days depending on one’s usage of the mobile device. It claims to be able to stream YouTube videos for up to a day (24.1h), and 15.8h of Always-On Navigation.
The device also has a 90W FlashCharge and 40W Wireless FlashCharge enabling a speedy charge. Upon personal testing, the vivo X300’s charge increased by 50% in roughly half an hour when using the dedicated charging brick and USB-C cable included in the box. This shows that recharging this device wouldn’t take too much of your time thanks to its fast charging technology.
For added convenience, the vivo X300 auto-activates its Battery Life Extender once the device’s battery goes low. Once this mode is enabled, 1% of charge could provide around 4 minutes of call time, which could be very convenient when you find yourself in these situations.
Verdict
Ultimately, the vivo X300 is a device that is capable of catering to your needs — whether that is a camera to snap memories, a tool to assist you with work or daily tasks, a device that keeps you connected, or something to keep you occupied for your entertainment. This could be a good contender if you want the same level of performance as its Pro model, with a capable ZEISS camera and battery, in a more compact design.
