Here comes Vivo’s latest flagship smartphone – the X90. This new X90 family of smartphones are split into a total of 3 different variants – the X90 base model that we have here, the X90 Plus, and also the X90 Pro+. I’m really glad that Vivo Malaysia sent us the base model of the X90 because I think this phone is adequate enough to be compared with many other high-profile phones in the market.
So, let’s begin.
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Design
Starting off, I want to talk about the design. It has a curved edge design from bot the front and the back, making it supremely comfortable to hold. The curvature is just nice to the point that it still makes the volume and power buttons easy to press and not too sharp. That Breeze Blue color is also stunning, and that matte finish just makes the phone look so much more unique.
However, I really don’t like that “XTREME IMAGINATION” tagline. Makes the entire phone looks so tacky and ruins the aesthetics.
Of course, we have the ZEISS logo and the specs of the lens printed somewhere along this corner too.
Cameras
With that, we should talk about the cameras. The Vivo X90 comes with a total of 3 cameras. Yes, only 3 even though there are 4 camera holes housed in this big circular camera cutout.
At first, I was surprised that the telephoto does not have autofocusing. That means it is meant for landscape and super long-range shots only as the focus is fixed at infinity.
Either way, the Vivo X90 does have a lot of features in the photo app. We’ll go through the most basic first by not having anything extra turned on.
To have a look at all the pictures, watch our video at the top of this review. We talk about the videography too.
Screen
To view all of the pictures and videos taken, we have a 6.78-inch AMOLED screen with 120Hz refresh rate maximum and the native resolution of 2800×1260 but Vivo lock it down to 2400×1080 out of the box. No idea why – just something for you to take note of.
The screen in itself is actually great – covering 99.96% of sRGB and 98.29% of DCI-P3 color gamuts with a maximum Delta E number that’s less than 2.
The maximum brightness is at around 530 nits which is adequate for day-to-day use indoors but under direct bright sunlight, it might be difficult to see what’s happening on the screen.
What I don’t like about this display is the location of that under-display fingerprint scanner. They placed it way too low on the display and that’s just not ergonomic.
Performance
One great thing about this phone is the chipset. Powered by the latest and greatest MediaTek Dimensity 9200, this phone is amazing. In our gaming test, we showed that this phone – even though there are some occasional hiccups that I think are due to the game itself – managed to maintain a high frame rate throughout the entire Genshin Impact playthrough at the highest graphical settings. It even managed to maintain at around 40°C in an air-conditioned room of 27°C ambient – and that’s amazing.
Battery life
And the efficiency, well, that 4,810mAh battery managed to surprise me. We use the PCMark battery life test with the phone’s brightness locked down to 100 nits brightness – and we did this test twice. First with the lowered resolution of 2400×1080 pixels and the second time at 2800×1260 pixels. Like what we found out years ago, the resolution doesn’t affect the battery life that much and we got about 16 hours through this test. 16 hours! That’s insane and has never been achieved by high-performing chipsets before.
Charging
The Vivo X90 also comes with a 120W charger and we’re using our new charging test methodology for this phone too.
We are able to get the exact voltage level of the battery to determine its percentage alongside the temperature while charging. The result is that the battery from 15% to 100% in about 40 minutes. The maximum temperature is slightly above 40°C during fast charging, and that’s still very safe.
Unfortunately, the Vivo X90 does not support USB-PD charging standard – so our Ugreen 100W GaN charger only charges this phone at 18W maximum – and it took about 65 minutes to fully complete its charging from 15%.
Software
Finally – the software. The Vivo X90 is running on Funtouch OS 13 on top of Android 13. I do think that Funtouch OS is underrated as the settings menu navigation and the overall look and feel is actually quite good.
The camera UI, even though it has a lot of features and options packed in, doesn’t feel overwhelming. I think they managed to space things out nicely.
There’s a bunch of pre-installed apps including the Hot Games and Hot Apps that stemmed out from Vivo’s own app store called the V-Appstore. And this V-Appstore also pushes out a lot of ads via notifications too.
A few more things to mention
And here are a few more things that I want to point out before ending this review. The Vivo X90 in particular uses a USB 2.0 port at the bottom. From what I can find out, the X90 Pro and X90 Pro+ use USB 3.
But since this phone is using a USB 2.0 port, that means no HDMI output via USB-C too.
This phone also does not have microSD card support and no audio jack like many other phones – but it does have IP64 rating.
Should you buy the Vivo X90?
Okay, conclusion time – Well, the price of the Vivo X90 is at RM3,699 and I honestly have to say – it’s actually a good price. It’s a slight increase over the X80 from last year, which I think is reasonable, to be honest.
It has a unique camera system, a great chipset with exceptionally good battery life – and a great design. Just drop the “XTREME IMAGINATION” and it’ll look even better.
Where to buy? (Affiliate link)
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