The Vivo X80 packs great hardware like the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SoC, a triple camera setup with Zeiss pairing, and a massive battery with 80W fast charging. Is vivo X80 so premium? I tested it to find out.
Vivo X80 Price in India
Vivo X80 price in India starts from Rs.54,999 for the base variant with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. I had this variant for review. Its second variant comes with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which costs Rs 59,999. The company offers the phone in two colors: Cosmic Blue and Urban Blue.
Live Design X80
The Vivo X80 is well designed and has all the elements you would expect from a flagship smartphone. It has a large screen with curved edges. It reminded me of the old Samsung flagship smartphones that used to have a similar design. The X80’s frame is made of metal, giving it a premium look. The power and volume buttons are located on the right side and are also made of metal. They give a solid, clicky feel when pressed.
The top and bottom of the phone have a flat frame. The SIM tray slot, USB Type-C port, main microphone and speaker are located at the bottom of the phone. An IR emitter, a secondary microphone, and two English words: Professional Photography have been written on the top, indicating that the company has paid special attention to the camera.
The camera module found on the back of the phone is quite large, taking up a third of the rear panel. It also sticks out a bit, but due to its large size it does not affect the stability of the phone. The module houses three camera sensors along with laser autofocus hardware and a dual-LED flash.
The back panel of the phone is made of glass and Vivo has given it a matte finish in the Urban Blue variant. The finish does not allow easy fingerprinting. The color scheme of the phone is unique and makes the phone stand out from the rest of the competitors. If you don’t like too bold colors, you can also opt for cosmic blue. The company has also provided a case-in-the-box that is finished with faux leather.
Vivo X80 is a large phone and it comes with a weight of 206 grams. The weight of the phone is felt when used with one hand, but the company has balanced the weight well so that it doesn’t cause a lot of hand fatigue.
Vivo X80 Software and Specifications
Vivo X80 has a 6.78-inch AMOLED screen, which has a resolution of Full HD Plus. It has a 120Hz refresh rate and a 240Hz touch sampling rate. It uses Schott’s Xensation Up glass for scratch protection. An in-display fingerprint scanner is also provided in the phone.
Vivo X80 is the first smartphone of its kind in India to be equipped with MediaTek Dimensity 9000 processor. This chip is built on 4nm technology and comes with an octa-core design. It has a single 3.2GHz ARM Cortex-X2 core and three Cortex-A710 performance cores clocked at 2.85GHz. Apart from this, it comes with four Cortex-A510 efficiency cores running at 1.8GHz. The X80 it works with Vivo’s V1+ imaging chip. The company says that it has installed a large vapor cooling chamber in the phone, which keeps its temperature in check. In both variants, there is the option to use 4 GB of storage as RAM.
Vivo X80 has a 4500 mAh battery and supports 80W fast charging. The charger is available in the box itself. For connectivity, it has Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi 6, 9 5G bands, Dual 4G VoLTE and NFC. It has been given 6 satellite navigation system with which there is also NavIC. The phone is rated IP53 for resistance to dust and water. There is no wireless charging feature on the phone.
Funtouch OS 12 based on Android 12 has been provided on Vivo X80. My unit had the May 2022 security patch. There are many kinds of customization options available in Funtouch OS 12, including custom themes. Its user interface is quite simple, but a lot of bloatware apps have been packed into the phone, which I didn’t like. Most of these can be uninstalled. Vivo’s own apps like browser etc annoyed me a lot. I kept getting spam notifications all day.
For gamers, an Ultra game mode has been provided in Funtouch OS 12. It can be accessed from the sidebar in any game. It has a frame interpolation feature that helps to increase the frame rate during gameplay. You get the Eagle Eye View enhancement feature that enhances the viewing experience while gaming. The phone also has an Esports mode that blocks UI gestures, notifications, and frees up the CPU for gaming. With this, the company has committed to offering three generations of Android and security patch updates for three years.
Vivo X80 performance and battery life
Vivo X80 has all the hallmarks of a modern flagship smartphone. It has a striking AMOLED screen with good viewing angles. Stereo speakers are provided in the phone. I found the bottom speaker to fire louder than the earpiece.
The phone works well in daily use. I didn’t have to wait long for the apps to load. I had the 8 GB RAM variant in which I had the RAM expansion feature enabled by default. I had no problem multitasking between apps. Even if you are a heavy user, this phone will not disappoint you.
Its in-screen fingerprint scanner unlocked the phone in one go. The company also gives the option to customize the fingerprint animation. The facial recognition feature also worked perfectly.
Talking about the scores, he scored 983,481 points on AnTuTu. Motorola Edge 30 Pro and iQoo 9 Pro got almost the same scores where the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC is available. In Geekbench 5, it scored 1250 points in single core and 4190 points in multi-core test. It scored 71 fps on GFXBench’s Car Chase test.
I played Call of Duty: Mobile on it and the game ran smoothly even at very high and high graphics. I played the game for 20 minutes, after which the battery dropped to 8 percent. The phone did not get hot even after gaming sessions. This means that your cooling system did a great job.
Along with performance, battery life is also very good. I had it for a day and a half which included social media apps and games as well as using the camera. It lasted 15 hours, 42 minutes in our HD video loop test, which is a pretty good time. Its 80W charger is quite large but not as bulky as the 120W charger that comes with the Mi 11i HyperCharge. Within half an hour the phone was 80 percent charged and within the next 10 minutes it was fully charged.
vivo x80 camera
Vivo X series phones are known for their camera performance and expectations are high for the X80. The phone has a 50MP main camera in which optical image stabilization is also available. You also get a 12MP portrait camera with 2X optical zoom. The third lens is a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera. Gimbal stabilization, which is found in the Vivo X80 Pro’s portrait camera, is not provided.
Zeiss Portrait Styles and Zeiss Cinematic Video Bokeh modes are available in your camera app. Vivo has applied a juice T-coating on the camera lens so that the lens can be protected from fogging or damage. A 32-megapixel camera is available on this phone for selfie.
The camera app is very easy to use. Switching between different shooting modes is easy. By default, the watermark is available on the phone’s camera, you can also disable it if you want. Its performance in daylight is very good and the photo has a good dynamic range. Distant things are visible in good detail even in landscape mode. By default, the colors look a bit garish, but after enabling Zeiss Natural Color, the colors appear almost similar to the real scene. Its ultra-wide-angle camera offers a wide field of view but shows a slight warm color cast. The photo quality is not the same as that of the main camera.
The foregrounds are quite sharp and the background of the photo has a nice natural bokeh effect. Edge detection is good on photos taken in portrait mode. In this mode, many options are available to customize the output. When the phone gets closer to the subject, it automatically switches to the ultra-wide camera. Due to the 12-megapixel resolution, macro shots are very good with details.
The phone surprised me with its low light performance. He was able to read the scene quickly and prepare the camera for low-light shots. It took three seconds for the phone to click into the shot, but the details were very good. Things were easily recognizable in landscape shots. The camera app automatically suggests switching to night mode when the scene is dark. I found that it handles scenes well even in street light.
Capture selfies in the default 32-megapixel resolution. In addition to normal selfies, portrait mode selfies with details were also captured. In low light the quality was quite good with the screen flash on.
The main camera of the Vivo X80 can record 4K video, while the selfie camera can record up to 1080p video. I wish your selfie camera also had the option to record video up to 4K. Other than daylight, videos shot in low light steadied quite a bit, and while shooting in low light, there was a slight jolt when walking. Horizontal line stabilization feature has been provided in this phone from Vivo. It locks the horizontal line there even when the phone is rotated 90 degrees. However, images in this mode can only be recorded in resolutions up to 1080p.
our verdict
If you are looking for a flagship Android phone and don’t want to spend a lot, then the Vivo X80 may be that smartphone. It’s a bit more expensive than the X70 Pro, but the improvements made do justice to its price. This Vivo phone comes as a complete package with great performance, good battery life, fast charging, and a powerful camera. The MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SoC is quite powerful and should keep users happy. Software is one area where there is little room for improvement. User experience can be better if pre-installed apps and spam notifications are less.
I would recommend buying the basic variant which offers better value for money at Rs 54,999. Those looking for an alternative can go for the Realme GT 2 Pro or the Motorola Edge 30 Pro. Both offer almost the same performance, with a slightly lower price.