The Vivo X80 packs pretty decent hardware like the MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SoC, a triple camera setup with Zeiss’s fusion and a big battery with 80W fast charging as well. Is Vivo X80 that premium? I tested it to find out.
Vivo X80 price in India
Vivo X80 The price in India starts from Rs 54,999, with the base variant with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage model. I had this variant with me for review. Its second variant comes with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage, which costs Rs 59,999. The company offers the phone in two colors – Cosmic Blue and Urban Blue.
Vivo X80 Design
The Vivo X80 is well designed and has all the elements that you can expect from a flagship smartphone. It has a large display with curved edges. It reminded me of the old Samsung flagship smartphones that featured a similar design. The frame of the X80 is made of metal which gives it a premium look. Power and volume buttons are given on the right side, and they are also made of metal. They give a solid and clicky feel when pressed.
The top and bottom of the phone have a flat frame. Sim-tray slot, USB Type C port, primary microphone and loudspeaker have been given in the bottom of the phone. Infrared emitter, secondary microphone and two words in English are written on the top – Professional Photography, which shows that the company has made a special focus on the camera.
The camera module given in the rear of the phone is quite large and it occupies a third of the rear panel. It is also a little protruding but being large in size 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 on the Urban Blue variant, Vivo has given it in a matte finish. This finish does not allow fingerprints to fall on it easily. The color of the phone is quite unique and the phone stands out from the rest of the competitors. If you do not like more bold colors then you can go with cosmic blue too. The company has also given a case inside the box which has a faux leather finish.
Vivo X80 is a big phone and comes with a weight of 206 grams. The weight of the phone is felt in use with one hand, but the company has balanced the weight well so it does not give much tiredness to the hand.
Vivo X80 Specifications and Software
Vivo X80 has a 6.78-inch AMOLED display with Full HD+ resolution. It has a refresh rate of 120Hz and touch sampling rate of 240Hz. It uses Schott’s Xensation Up glass for scratch protection. The phone also has an in-display fingerprint scanner.
Vivo X80 is the first smartphone to come to India which is equipped with MediaTek Dimensity 9000 processor. This chip is made on 4nm technology and with octa-core design. It has a single ARM Cortex-X2 core clocked at 3.2GHz, and three Cortex-A710 performance cores clocked at 2.85GHz. Apart from this, it comes with four Cortex-A510 efficiency cores which are clocked at 1.8GHz. The X80 has Vivo’s V1+ imaging chip. The company says that it has installed a large vapor cooling chamber in the phone, which keeps its temperature under control. In both variants, there is an option to use 4GB of storage as RAM.
Vivo X80 packs a 4,500mAh 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 band, Dual 4G VoLTE and NFC. It has been given 6 satellite navigation system along with NavIC. The phone is rated IP53 to protect against dust and water. The phone does not have wireless charging feature.
Android 12 based Funtouch OS 12 has been given in Vivo X80. My unit had security patch of May 2022. A variety of customization options are available in Funtouch OS 12, including custom themes. Its user interface is quite simple, but a lot of bloatware apps have been given in the phone which I did not 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 long.
An Ultra game mode has been given in Funtouch OS 12 for gamers. It can be accessed from the side bar by going to any game. It has a Frame Interpolation feature which helps in increasing the frame rate during gaming. It gets Eagle Eye View Enhancement feature which enhances the viewing experience during gaming. The phone also has an Esports mode that frees up the CPU for gaming by blocking UI gestures, notifications. With this, the company has promised to provide security patch updates for three generations of Android and three years.
Vivo X80 performance and battery life
Vivo X80 has all the features of a modern flagship smartphone. It has a punchy AMOLED display with good viewing angles. Stereo speakers have been given in the phone. I found the bottom firing speaker louder than the earpiece.
The phone performs well in everyday use. I didn’t have to wait long for the apps to load. I had the 8 GB RAM variant in which I got the RAM extension feature enabled by default. I didn’t face any problem while multitasking between apps. Even if you are a heavy user, this phone is not going to disappoint you.
Its in-display fingerprint scanner was able to unlock the phone in one go. The company also gives the option to customize the fingerprint animation. The face recognition feature also worked flawlessly.
Talking about the scores, it scored 983,481 points on AnTuTu. Motorola Edge 30 Pro And iQoo 9 Pro It had almost the same scores as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 SoC. In Geekbench 5 it scored 1250 points in single core and 4190 points in multi core test. It scored 71fps in GFXBench’s car chase test.
I played Call of Duty: Mobile in it and the game ran smoothly even on very high and high graphics. I played the game for 20 minutes after which the battery got reduced by 8 percent. The phone was not hot even after gaming sessions. This means that its cooling system worked well.
Along with performance, its battery life is also very good. It lasted for a day and a half for me which included camera usage along with social media apps and gaming. It ran for 15 hours, 42 minutes in our HD video loop test, which is a pretty decent amount of time. Its 80W charger is huge but Mi 11i HyperCharge Not as heavy as the 120W charger that comes with it. The phone got 80 percent charged in half an hour and it was fully charged in the next 10 minutes.
camera of vivo X80
The Vivo X-series phones are known for their camera performance and there is a lot to expect from the X80. The phone has a 50MP primary camera with optical image stabilization as well. It also gets a 12-megapixel portrait camera with 2X optical zoom. The third lens is a 12-megapixel ultrawide angle camera. It does not have gimbal stabilization, which is found in the portrait camera of Vivo X80 Pro.
Zeiss Portrait Styles and Zeiss Cinematic Video Bokeh Mode are available in its camera app. Vivo has given a nice T-coating on the camera lens in this to protect the lens from blurring or damage. For selfie, this phone has a 32 megapixel camera.
The camera app is very easy to use. Switching between different shooting modes is easy. By default watermark is available in the phone’s camera, you can also disable it if you want. Its day-light performance is very good and there is good dynamic range in photos. Distant objects are visible with good details even in landscape mode. By default the colors look a bit punchy but after enabling Zeiss Natural Colour, the colors look almost identical to the original scene. Its ultra wide camera gives a wide field of view but it shows a slight warm color tone. The photo quality is not the same as that of the primary camera.
Close up shots come out crisp and the photo background has a nice natural bokeh effect. Edge detection is good in photos taken with Portrait mode. In this mode, many options are available to customize the output. When the phone is near the subject, it automatically switches to the ultra wide angle camera. Due to the resolution of 12 megapixels, macro shots come out very well with details.
The phone surprised me with its low-light performance. This was capturing the scene quickly and getting the camera ready for low-light shots. The phone took three seconds to click the shot but the details came out very well. Things were easily recognizable in the landscape shots. When the scene becomes dark, the camera app automatically suggests to switch to night mode. I found that it handles the scenes well even in street lights.
It captures selfies in the default resolution of 32 megapixels. Apart from regular selfies, portrait mode selfies were also captured with details. In low light, the quality was quite good with the screen flash.
The primary camera in Vivo X80 can shoot 4K videos while the selfie camera can shoot videos up to 1080p. I wish its selfie camera also had the option of recording up to 4K video. Apart from daylight, videos shot in low-light were quite stabilized and there was a slight shake while walking while shooting in low-light. Horizontal Line Stabilization feature has been given in this phone of Vivo. Even when the phone is rotated 90 degrees, it keeps the horizontal line locked there. However, footage in this mode can only be recorded in resolutions up to 1080p.
our decision
If you are looking for a flagship Android phone and don’t want to spend too much, then Vivo X80 can be that smartphone. It does come a little costlier than the X70 Pro but the improvements made do full justice to its price. This Vivo phone comes as a complete package with strong performance, good battery life, fast charging and a strong camera. The MediaTek Dimensity 9000 SoC is quite powerful and can keep the users happy. Software is one area where there is little room for improvement. User experience can be better if preinstalled apps and less spam notifications.
I would recommend buying the base variant which gives better value for money at 54,999. Those who are looking for this option Realme GT 2 Pro Or go with Motorola Edge 30 Pro. Both offer almost identical performance, with a slightly lower price tag.