vivo X200 Pro initial review: Reshaping the performance limit, imaging comparable to a large cup.

Preface: The flagship vivo X series once again achieves self-breakthrough.

In the entire flagship Android smartphone market today, the vivo X series is undoubtedly one of the most successful product lines in recent years.

On the one hand, in terms of image design, many competitors often only provide top-tier image hardware and experience in their "extra-large cup" models, while the image configurations of large and medium cup models often differ significantly from the "extra-large cup", so much so that once consumers have a limited budget, their experience is usually greatly compromised. In contrast, the vivo X series is one of the very few in the industry that is willing to equip custom large bottom main cameras and even periscope telephoto lenses on its "large cup" or even "medium cup" models.

Not to mention, based on its deep and continuous collaboration with MediaTek in recent years, Vivo has not only equipped the X series with flagship SoCs starting from the "Z1 Pro," but has consistently been leading the industry in terms of performance tuning. In addition, Vivo's self-developed "V" series image processing chips, combined with the integrated ISP and NPU in the Dimensity SoC, work together to further enhance the imaging and gaming experience of the Vivo X series.

Of course, this naturally brings up a question. That is, with such a solid foundation already established, how can Vivo take the X series to the next level? We attempt to find the answer to this question in the newly released Vivo X200 Pro.

Appearance: Continuation of mature family design, the "Zeiss Master Screen" is a highlight.

Looking back at the previous vivo X100 series models, it's easy to see that vivo's designers have gone through a refinement process in terms of appearance design. With the X200 series this time, its design indeed appears more mature.

For example, in terms of the body color scheme, the X200 Pro that we received this time, as well as the "mid-range" X200 in this series, are both in titanium color style, which is a new color scheme introduced by Vivo in the previous flagship X100 Ultra. They have a very delicate touch AG frosted glass back, and also feature a stylish straight metal frame with a brushed texture.

At the same time, in the upper half of the phone's back, the vivo X200 series this time comes with a larger and more atmospheric "waterdrop lens" and "water ripple cloud stage" rear camera design across the whole series. Their rear camera lenses have delicate rounded edges, complemented by a concave streamlined metal lens ring, forming a dynamic rear camera module design resembling water ripples.

On the front of the body, the Vivo X200 series also features the trendy "four-curved equal-depth micro-curve" screen design.

Taking the X200 Pro as an example, it features a "Zeiss Master Color Screen" with a 6.78-inch size, a resolution of 2800*1260, and supports adaptive dynamic refresh rates from 0.1 to 120Hz. It also achieves a global peak brightness of 1800 nits and a local peak brightness of 4500 nits, ensuring clear and vibrant viewing even under sunlight.

Since it is known as "ZEISS Master Color," the screen of X200 Pro naturally implements the full-link ZEISS natural color from the camera to the system, and then to the screen inside the system, which ensures the accuracy of screen color in shooting, playback, editing, and other scenes. At the same time, the industry's first 2160Hz full-brightness high-frequency PWM dimming also solves the brightness "jump" caused by the traditional 8T LTPO screen material when switching dimming methods near 90nit, making this screen comfortable to view at any brightness.

In conclusion, as a flagship model that clearly focuses on the visual experience, the vivo X200 Pro, equipped with a top-tier SoC, a 6000mAh large-capacity battery, and a full-focus range triple-camera setup, manages to keep its body thickness at only 8.49mm. Furthermore, the weight of 228g is just right for a flagship phone of this size. In addition, the protrusion of the rear camera module is significantly smaller than the previous X100 Ultra, making the grip experience of the X200 Pro more balanced and better in feel compared to the previous generation's "super large cup."

Image: All new custom large sensor solution, with a 200-megapixel periscope telephoto lens, the same as Ultra.

Some friends may find it a bit strange when they see the comparison earlier. Isn't the positioning of the vivo X200 Pro a "large cup"? Why compare the feel with the previous "extra-large cup" X100 Ultra model?

This is because according to vivo, the X200 Pro has debuted the new large bottom CMOS LYT-818 jointly developed with Sony. It features a 22nm advanced process and a 1/1.28-inch large bottom, along with VCS bionic spectrum 3.0 technology and vivo's self-developed precision transition algorithm. This makes it significantly superior to the previous 1-inch flagship bottom solution IMX989 in color perception ability, long-term shooting power consumption, video recording specifications, and other aspects.

Moreover, due to the CMOS size of "only" 1/1.28 inches for LYT-818, this allows the X200 Pro to use a larger aperture f1.57 lens, and under the condition of improving the quality of the wide-angle lens, making the entire module thinner.

From our actual sample shots, the wide-angle main camera of the X200 Pro, with the support of a new sensor, large aperture, and precise transition algorithm, achieves a natural background blur effect that is on par with flagship solutions with 1-inch sensors.

And this time on the X200 Pro, vivo has also replaced the main camera with a new deep absorbent blue glass filter. From our deliberately intense backlit scene test samples, it is clear that the new main camera of the X200 Pro has indeed reached the top level in terms of optical quality in the industry.

At the same time, vivo has also equipped the X200 Pro with the Ultra version of the Carl Zeiss APO super telephoto lens solution. It is built on the Samsung HP9 200 million pixel sensor, featuring a rare 1/1.4 large sensor among current periscope-style telephoto lenses, a large f/2.67 aperture, and an equivalent focal length of 85mm. Additionally, this lens is made of 1G+5P glass and plastic composite lens materials and supports the highest level of CIPA 4.5-grade stabilization capability in the industry so far.

In terms of the specific tests on the zoom capability, the X200 Pro can still maintain sharpness and resolution in the image at an equivalent focal length of 20 times. Even in scenes with up to 60 times zoom, the image still retains a considerable level of usability.

According to the official information released, this is because the X200 Pro has introduced the AI-based long-focus image enhancement technology for the first time in vivo phones. It will be triggered in scenes with a zoom level of 20 times or higher, significantly enhancing the detail rendering of the image.

Some friends may say that although the X200 Pro has very strong "telephoto" capabilities this time, even stronger than some "super large cups", what is the practical significance of it in real use?

Image: Telephoto portrait revolutionary experience, landscape mode greatly reduces the threshold.

In simple terms, whether it's the main camera with outstanding quality in the new design, or the 200-megapixel periscope telephoto camera, or the 50-megapixel JN1 ultra-wide-angle camera, the X200 Pro is equipped with these three high-resolution, high-quality Zeiss imaging solutions. In our actual experience, rather than pursuing a "numerical lead," it's more meaningful to say that they bring much greater freedom in daily photography.

This point is particularly evident in the portrait shooting scenes of the vivo X200 Pro. As you can see, because the X200 Pro can provide very clear and excellently stabilized long-focus portrait shooting capability, this significantly reduces the difficulty of composition when taking portraits.

Moreover, due to the 200-megapixel periscope telephoto lens, objectively, it has a larger aperture and a larger sensor area compared to similar competing products. This allows it to complete the shooting with shorter exposure times, enabling the X200 Pro to achieve a capturing effect similar to candid shots even in "telephoto portrait" mode. Many times, there is no need for the subject to pose in advance, instead, it can more naturally and less aggressively capture their dynamic and natural moments.

In addition, an interesting feature of the X200 Pro camera this time is that it has integrated the previous night scene, moon, starry sky, long exposure, and other modes into the "scenery mode." Unlike before, it is no longer only suitable for low-light scenes, but relies on AI judgment and is applicable to a wider range of scenery photography needs.

From the real samples we have taken, the first impression of the night scene photos taken by the X200 Pro is "clean." It has extremely strong noise reduction, and the high-quality Zeiss lens also minimizes environmental light pollution factors. The entire sky not only has pure colors but can even see the faint starlight that is invisible to the naked eye. At the same time, the light source of the main subject in the picture is also presented very appropriately, not excessively suppressed, and completely avoids overexposure.

What's even more remarkable is that with the support of the super large-aperture periscope telephoto lens, the X200 Pro can provide clear images with at least 10x zoom in night scenes, significantly improving the usability of "long distance shooting at night". Furthermore, we have also found that its 200-megapixel telephoto lens can excellently meet extreme demands such as "night scenes + telephoto + macro photography". It can be said that the convenience for creation that the X200 Pro can provide is indeed something that many other flagship models are unable to achieve.

Interesting, compared to nighttime scenes, the "Scenic Mode" of X200 Pro seems to have a different color strategy in high-contrast and indoor environments. It will noticeably increase the saturation and contrast of the entire picture, making the colors more prominent, ultimately giving the image a distinct "high dynamic" appearance. Therefore, even people who are not familiar with the technical details can see at a glance that the "Scenic Mode" of X200 Pro is very visually appealing. At the same time, this also means that for ordinary consumers, X200 Pro significantly reduces the threshold for them to "take good photos" in terms of usable focal length, color science, and ease of use.

Performance: Debut with the Dimensity 9400, top configuration exclusively features ultra high-frequency memory.

Next, let's talk about the performance design of the vivo X200 Pro. As usual, vivo continues to collaborate with MediaTek and has customized the latest flagship SoC Dimensity 9400 for this new model.

Moreover, according to the information released by Vivo, this time they even achieved deep exploration of the chip's underlying microarchitecture and cache slicing strategy through collaboration with ARM's joint lab.

From the results, it can be seen that the Dimensity 9400 equipped with the X200 Pro has returned to the classic "1+3+4" CPU architecture. It uses a Cortex-X925 with a high frequency of up to 3.62GHz as the "super large core," three 3.3GHz Cortex-X4 "super large cores," and four Cortex-A720 cores with high density as the "big cores". Obviously, it is still the popular "all big core" CPU solution that everyone loves to see.

In addition, we noticed that according to the flash memory speed test results by the AnTuTu evaluation, vivo has equipped this 16GB+1TB version of X200 Pro with an extremely outstanding UFS4.0 flash memory. Its sustained read and write performance as well as random performance have reached the top level in the industry, while its AI read and write performance is also more than four times higher than other models. This seems to indicate that it uses TLC flash memory instead of QLC, so its flash memory lifespan will be much longer than those models with only large capacity but not high positioning.

Moreover, according to vivo's technical information, the top-of-the-line version of the X200 Pro actually hides a performance "Easter egg," which is the exclusive "LPDDR5T Ultra Pro" memory. As expected, its effective frequency should be as high as 10.7GT/s, similar to the Dimensity 9400 engineering machine we tested before. With such high memory frequency, it will naturally provide additional data bandwidth boost to the new Immortalis-G925 MC12 GPU and NPU. In other words, the CPU, GPU, and even AI performance of the top-of-the-line version X200 Pro will be slightly better than other versions.

In the end, for this top-of-the-line 16GB+1TB satellite communication version X200 Pro we have on hand, it scored 2,965,414 points in the AnTuTu benchmark V10.3.4. Undoubtedly, it has achieved the highest score among mass-produced flagship models to date.

Furthermore, if you compare it with last year's X100 Pro, you will find that compared to the CPU part, it seems that the X200 Pro has made more significant progress in the GPU aspect this time. This has aroused our curiosity - can it achieve both top-level imaging and flagship gaming experience this time?

Game: Tested mainstream games can achieve full frame rate, and the average power consumption has hit a new low.

This time we installed four very common mobile games on the vivo X200 Pro, and quickly found that it does indeed have some features that only "top gaming phones" possess.

You can see that the X200 Pro provides detailed options including game frame insertion, game visual enhancement, game super-resolution, and game sound adjustment.

"King of Glory" average frame rate: 121.9, average power consumption: 2739.1mW.

《王者荣耀》超分 (Ultra HD) Average frame rate: 122.1, Average power consumption: 2937.8mW.

"King of Glory: Super Resolution + Inserting (144) Frames, Average Frame Rate 70.2, Average Power Consumption 2737.5mW."

According to the test results of "Honor of Kings" on the X200 Pro, this new flagship model is already able to maintain a frame rate limit of 120FPS throughout the game without enabling frame interpolation. At the same time, it maintains an average power consumption of less than 3W, at an extremely low level. Even when enabling frame interpolation, the power consumption of the X200 Pro in "Honor of Kings" remains remarkably low.

Interesting fact: In the current system version, the interpolation mode for "King of Glory" is 72 frames interpolated to 144 frames. However, as we mentioned earlier, the screen's maximum refresh rate of the X200 Pro is 120Hz, so there will likely be further optimization in the future, changing it to 60 frames interpolated to 120 frames. In this case, power consumption is very likely to see further reductions.

"Diablo Immortal" has an average frame rate of 59.89 and an average power consumption of 3154.1mW.

"Diablo Immortal: Immortal" ultra high definition + interpolation (90 frames) average frame rate 46.6, average power consumption 3477.8mW.

In this visually stunning ARPG game "Diablo Immortal," the X200 Pro's average power consumption has slightly increased. Additionally, in this game, its super-resolution frame interpolation mode first lowers the rendering frame rate to 45FPS before interpolating it to 90FPS. The results show that the performance remains very stable, and despite a slight increase in power consumption, it is still significantly lower than the previous generation flagship devices.

"The Scroll of the Sky" average frame rate is 60.2, with an average power consumption of 3370.8mW.

"天谕" inserted 90 frames, with an average frame rate of 45.1 and an average power consumption of 4200.8mW.

"Honkai Impact 3rd: Star Rail"
Average frame rate: 59.8
Average power consumption: 5252.4mW

"《崩坏·星穹铁道》插（90）帧 平均帧率45.0 平均功耗4877.2mW" translates to:
"In 'Honkai Impact 3rd: The Rail of Starlit Sky' Insert (90) frames average frame rate 45.0, average power consumption 4877.2mW."

The last two games tested are projects with high image quality, high special effects, and a large number of teammates (or NPCs). Obviously, they did not pose a challenge to the X200 Pro, even the project with the highest average power consumption was only slightly over 5 watts. In other words, the Dimensity 9400 is indeed very strong this time, and it seems that the mobile gaming industry needs to work harder and launch new games with higher image quality.

Fast charging: 6000mAh blue ocean battery, 90W fast charging is stable and fast.

With top-notch imaging experience and superior benchmark scores and gaming performance compared to previous models in the same category, for the vivo X200 Pro, a durable battery and fast charging technology are essential.

In terms of results, the X200 Pro clearly continues vivo's research and development achievements in the field of mobile phone batteries in recent years. It features a built-in 6000mAh vivo "Blue Sea Battery" utilizing the industry's first third-generation silicon anode technology, achieving a high energy density of up to 838Wh/L. This maintains the thickness of the phone while increasing the battery capacity.

Based on our test results, when using the original 90W fast charger and charging cable to charge, the X200 Pro exhibited a surprisingly fast short-term charging strategy. It was able to charge 30% of the battery within the first 10 minutes of charging.

Afterwards, the charging speed of X200 Pro did not experience a significant decrease. It charged 26% in the second 10 minutes and 23% in the third 10 minutes.

In the end, it took us 42 minutes to complete the charging process from 1% to 100% with the X200 Pro we had at hand. For a model equipped with a 6000mAh battery and a built-in charger with a peak power of less than 100W, this is already a very, very impressive charging speed. Honestly, we are delighted with this charging strategy of the X200 Pro because it demonstrates a more "practical" approach than merely pursuing a high peak power in name, and it is truly beneficial to consumers in terms of product design philosophy.

Summary: Comprehensive upgrade in configuration, the flagship "large cup" has no regrets anymore.

It's not difficult to see that the design concept of vivo X200 Pro this time is very clear.

First of all, by continuing the highly refined appearance design from before, coupled with advancements in battery technology, vivo has successfully given the latest "Big Cup" model in the X series a set of looks that are more in line with popular aesthetics, while at the same time not being bulky.

Next, through another joint launch and deep optimization of the flagship SoC Tianji 9400 at the instruction set level, vivo has successfully reestablished the top performance benchmark of "imaging flagship." Especially, it runs mainstream high-quality mobile games perfectly, with almost all achieving full frame rates, and the additional frame interpolation and super-resolution features have broken the inherent impression of "imaging flagships not being good at gaming" in the past. To a certain extent, it has successfully shaped a new image of "all-around flagship."

Of course, the most important thing is that, with the support of the newly designed custom wide-angle main camera, the Ultra-same 200 million pixel large bottom periscope, and the self-developed V3+ image chip, the experience of the Zeiss imaging system on the X200 Pro has also reached a new level. This allows the "Pro" level model to be fully comparable to the "Ultra" level super-large cup in terms of imaging functions and scene adaptability, while also avoiding the usual heaviness and high price factors of the super-large cup.

In this way, this is actually equivalent to vivo successfully achieving a "decisive blow" in terms of performance, user experience, and even cost-effectiveness in the big-cup flagship market through a series of self-developed, first-launched, and cooperative technologies.

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