The Vivo X100 Ultra Is Official And The 200MP Telephoto Lens Is The Star Of The Show
The Vivo X100 Ultra is the latest premium flagship from the Chinese manufacturer and I’ll get ahead of myself to tell you that it ticks essentially every box that you’d want it to tick, especially with the monster of a camera setup that it has.
The Design
First off, if you ignore the massive camera module on the Vivo X100 Ultra, it has a relatively simple design. The back panel is glass and mostly flat, curving at the left and right edges. The same applies to the screen, which is curved at the sides. It doesn’t have a flat frame thanks to all the curvature going on at the sides, which bucks the modern trend.
The huge camera module houses three lenses though there’s a fourth spot without an actual camera behind it, and the flash finds its home in the upper right corner. The phone is available in White, Titanium, and Grey colorways. The phone also has IP69/IP68 dust and water resistance.
The Screen
The display maxes out as you might expect it to. It’s a 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED module with a peak refresh rate of 120 Hz and a maximum resolution of 3200 x 1440. It also has a maximum brightness of 3,000 nits, so overall, this is one of the better mobile displays on paper. There’s almost no room for improvement.
The Hardware
Of course, as a phone model proudly carrying “Ultra” around, the spec sheet of internal hardware is unsurprising. There’s a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 as the driving force of this smartphone and it maxes out in a very impressive 16GB/1TB configuration, with UFS 4.0 storage. You can get it in a base 12GB/256GB variant as well as 16GB/512GB.
The battery is a nicely-sized 5,500 mAh unit, which supports 80W of wired charging and 30W of wireless charging. It also has 5.5G support and satellite connectivity, though it’s only users in China who will be able to take advantage of that. On the software side of things is Android 14 running on OriginOS 4.
To round things up on the hardware side of things, you get Bluetooth 5.4, Wi-Fi 7, NFC, an IR blaster, and USB Type-C 3.2.
The Cameras
Now, this is probably what you’re here for. The cameras. And with the Vivo X100 Ultra, there’s a whole lot that can be talked about. This is the first phone to use Vivo’s BlueImage algorithm and it also has the company’s V3+ imaging chip. First off, before I get to the star of the show, which is the telephoto lens, I’ll talk about the primary camera and the ultrawide camera.
The primary lens is a 50MP unit using a one-inch LYT-900 sensor with gimbal OIS for improved stabilization, and the ultrawide is a 50MP LYT-600 unit with a 116˚ FOV. All the cameras come with Zeiss T* coating on the lenses, which helps reduce glare. The selfie camera is a 50MP lens as well.
Now, despite such an impressive primary lens, the real showstopper is the 200MP 3.7x periscope telephoto lens with CIPA 4.5 stabilization. If I’m not mistaken, this should be not only one of the highest megapixel counts seen on any smartphone camera, but the absolute highest megapixel count for a telephoto lens. 3.7x zoom might not seem that great, but paired with sensor cropping on a 200MP sensor, Vivo has said you should be getting clear shots at up to 20x.
You can also use the telephoto lens for up to 20x macro, high-reoslution portrait shots, and apparently, its “Telephoto Stage” feature will improve your image quality at 10 to 30x magnifications, perfect for concerts. You’ll also get a bunch of high-end videography options, like 8K/30fps video recording, 4K/120fps slow-mo recording, 4K/60fps Dolby Vision recording, and even a 4K cinematic portrait video mode.
Pricing And Availability
For now, the Vivo X100 Ultra is only available in China and it will start selling on May 28th. However, the device will start at the equivalent of about $900 for the base model. That’s very impressive considering what the company brings to the camera department and the other high end specs.
