Vivo might have started out with smartphones featuring high-end audio chips, but the company came to its fore with the release of the camera-centric X series models. The X-series is what earned the brand its place on the table with other major players in the market. The Vivo X70 Pro+ continues the legacy as Vivo is debuting its V1 professional imaging chip, which as per the brand, can achieve real-time preview thanks to its high-speed data processing and 50 percent less battery consumption.
Also read: Realme GT 5G review: turbo-charged performance with a few compromises
Apart from the cameras, the Vivo X70 Pro+ boasts the Snapdragon 888+ chipset, a curved QHD+ AMOLED display and fast wired as well as wireless charging. However, it’s asking price of Rs 79,990 is steep even by Android flagship standards. To find out if the smartphone is worth the price, I have been using the device for the past week, and here’s what I think.
Design and display
- 164.54 x 75.21 x 8.89mm, 209g
- 6.78-inch AMOLED QHD+, 120Hz refresh rate, P3 colour gamut, 1.07 billion colours, 517 ppi, LTPO, Samsung E5 panel, 1,500 nits peak brightness
The Vivo X70 Pro+ is the top-end flagship smartphone from the brand and it looks the part. The X70 Pro+ comes with a unique Zeiss optics-branded quad-camera rectangular module, which extends horizontally in a slab of ceramic material. It serves no other purpose apart from adding aesthetics and as a selfie mirror, thanks to its highly glossy surface. However, it has resulted in a heavier weight of 209g, as compared to the Vivo X60 Pro+’s 190g. The weight is evenly distributed though for a good in-hand feel.
The back panel of the single Enigma Black variant launched in India has frosted glass. This finish looks sophisticated and goes well with the glossy camera module. Moreover, Vivo X70 Pro+ is the brand’s first smartphone to come with IP68 certification, which means its waterproof.
You’ll find a fair bit of branding on the smartphone. The rectangular camera module has the Zeiss logo, Pro+ and Vivo-Zeiss co-branding on the extended window, the Vivo logo at the bottom edge of the rear panel, and “Professional Photography” etched on the top edge. Other elements include physical buttons for power and volume on the right, an IR sensor with a noise-cancelling mic on top, and the SIM tray, Type-C port, as well as speaker grille at the bottom. For security, there’s an in-display fingerprint scanner, which was fast and accurate.
Coming to the display, the Vivo X70 Pro+’s screen is among the best I’ve seen on a smartphone this year. The hardware is a 6.78-inch Samsung E5 light-emitting AMOLED panel with 2K resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, and support for LTPO dynamic refresh rate technology. The panel offers punchy colours, inky blacks, and sharp text even when zooming in on web pages. Moreover, the screen has a peak brightness of 1,500 nits, which means you can use it under even direct sunlight without squinting.
Lastly, the phone comes with support for Widevine L1 certificate and HDR10+, which means you can stream high-resolution content on supported OTT platforms. I watched the 6 Underground on Netflix and the high-octane action scenes were particularly enjoyable. If I had to nitpick though, there’s a green tint to the screen when looking at it from the sides due to the curved panel.
Camera
- Rear: 50-megapixel primary GN1 sensor 48-megapixel ultra-wide IMX598 sensor, 12-megapixel portrait sensor, 8-megapixel periscope lens
- Front: 32-megapixel sensor, f/2.45
In the camera department, Vivo offers one of the most versatile sets of lenses I have seen so far. The primary camera is a 50-megapixel f/1.57 Samsung GN1 sensor. It is accompanied by a 48-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide lens backed by Vivo’s micro gimbal tech, the new Sony IMX663 12-megapixel f/1.6 portrait lens, and an 8-megapixel periscope lens. In the front, there’s a 32-megapixel f/2.45 selfie camera housed inside the punch-hole cutout.
The X70 Pro+ is the world’s first smartphone to offer optical image stabilisation (OIS) in all four rear cameras. These lenses feature Zeiss optics and a Zeiss T* lens coating. The primary 50-megapixel shooter gets an additional SLR-grade high-transmittance glass lens, which claims to reduce chromatic aberration. Additionally, the X70 Pro+ also debuts Vivo’s V1 imaging chip, which provides better noise reduction in low-light video recording and imaging. The dedicated chip also improves imaging computation while reducing power consumption. Vivo X70 Pro+ offers four Zeiss-developed bokeh effects – Biotar, Distagon, Planar, and Sonnar, inspired by Zeiss lenses.
Coming to the actual imaging, the Vivo X70 Pro+ captures real-life colours with sharp details and balanced dynamic range. There’s a dedicated Zeiss colour mode, which further improves the colour balance to capture accurate colours, but pictures were slightly muted for my liking. As for the ultra-wide lens, the 48-megapixel camera captures excellent wide-angle shots with good details and no visible colour shift. However, you may notice a slight watercolour effect around the edges in some cases.
Moving on to the portrait mode, the Sony IMX663 12-megapixel captures stunning portrait shots with accurate edge detection and aesthetic blur. Thanks to the larger sensor the portrait shots have reduced noise even in low-light situations. The Zeiss bokeh effects are an added bonus and give an aesthetic touch to the shots. The 8-megapixel periscope lens with 5x optical zoom performs well, but as expected, the quality degrades progressively as you increase the zoom level. At 60x zoom, the images are pretty unusable.
It’s when the sun goes down that the Vivo X70 Pro+ comes into its element. The standard mode takes good pictures on its own but details are slightly smudged in shadows. Toggle on the night mode and the camera is able to pull more details from the darker areas. However, I noticed that the colour science tends to shift to a cooler tone in the dedicated night mode. The star of the show is the V1 imaging chip in the X70 Pro+. Vivo claims that the chip shows the real-time preview of the low-light shot. To explain, most smartphones with night mode on will still show a very dark frame on the viewfinder and it’s only after the image is processed that you see the finished shot with boosted exposure, which sometimes makes it hard to frame the shot.
However, with the Vivo X70 Pro+, you get what you see. To illustrate, the picture above was clicked at close to midnight, in pitch darkness with the only source of light being the faint streetlight at the end of the street. The dark cars in the foreground were silhouettes at the most, to the naked eye. However, the shot as you see here, is what you will see on the viewfinder with slight differences in white balance. For instance, in the above shot, the highlight clipping at the end of the street where the light is was not visible on the viewfinder.
Coming to the selfie camera, the 32-megapixel shooter was impressive. It offers accurate colours and good details, and the portrait shots turn out well too. However, I would recommend turning off the beautifying mode to avoid looking like a porcelain doll. Vivo has also included multiple selfie filters if that’s your thing.
Performance, software, and battery
- Android 11 with Funtouch OS 12
- Snapdragon 888+ with Adreno 660
- 12GB + 4GB RAM and 256GB storage
- 4,500mAh battery, 55W Flash Charge fast charging, 50W wireless Flash Charge fast charging
Performance-wise, the Vivo X70 Pro+ is equipped with the Snapdragon 888+ chipset, a first in India. The processor is accompanied by Adreno 660 GPU for graphics rendering. Furthermore, the phone offers 12GB LPDDR5 RAM with support for 4GB virtual RAM and 256GB UFS3.1 storage. The combination of the 120Hz display, Snapdragon 888+ SoC, and UFS 3.1 storage is formidable as the smartphone feels super slick in its operations. During my stint, I pushed the X70 Pro+ to its limits with at least 15 apps running in the background. I also switched between Netflix and BGMI and the phone didn’t break a sweat.
Coming to gaming, I played the obvious BGMI along with some of my favorite titles like Forza Street, Badlands, and Alto’s Odyssey. The last three run like butter on the Vivo X70 Pro+. As for BGMI, the smartphone runs the game with HDR graphics and Ultra frame rate by default. With these settings, the gameplay was smooth with zero frame drops and the CPU didn’t throttle much either. However, when I bumped up the settings to Ultra HD graphics (requires an additional resources download) the graphics were exemplary but the phone’s temperature shot up almost instantly.
I was also disappointed to see no 90Hz gameplay in Smooth settings, especially given the phone’s premium pricing. I hope Vivo will roll out an update to fix this in the future. There’s also a dedicated game mode that enables features like 4D Game Vibration, Esports Mode, voice changer, Eagle Eye View, and gaming modes like battery, balanced, and performance.
Out of the box, the Vivo X70 Pro+ boots Funtouch OS 12 based on Android 11. I quite like the way Funtouch OS has evolved and is more stock-like in its current iteration. However, the homescreen layout still shows all icons even when you have the app-drawer enabled. While I didn’t expect to find bloatware on a premium flagship offering like this, the infamous Hot Apps and Hot Games folders make an appearance on this device. On the bright side, you can disable these folders from the settings.
The Vivo X70 Pro+ is powered by a 4,500mAh battery, which comes with support for 66W wired charging and 50W wireless charging. During my stint with the smartphone, with heavy usage, display set to 120Hz, and on Wi-Fi network throughout, I needed to plug in to the charger a few hours before bedtime on most days. The 55W charger provided with the smartphone tops up the battery from zero to 100 percent in near about 50 minutes, which is impressive.
Bottomline
I didn’t get the opportunity to review the last year’s Vivo X60 Pro+ but the smartphone fell short of its closest competitors with the lack of an IP rating, no wireless charging, and the lackluster mono speaker. Vivo has certainly taken care of these shortcomings. Not only is the X70 Pro+ the first Vivo device to sport IP68 certification but it also supports 50W fast wireless charging and has a secondary speaker in the earpiece. Vivo has also upgraded the imaging prowess significantly with the inclusion of the V1 chip.
If I had to pick one contender that takes on the X70 Pro+, it would be the OnePlus 9 Pro (review) plainly because of the Oxygen OS. But with the announcement of OPPO and OnePlus coming up with the unified OS for global devices next year, I am not too sure anymore. Another great option would be the Mi 11 Ultra (review), which is priced similarly and offers a premium ceramic build, quad-curved 120Hz WQHD+ AMOLED display, secondary rear display, Snapdragon 888, and good cameras. However, the bulky build of the smartphone might not be to everyone’s liking.
To cut the long story short, if you are in the market for a premium flagship in the Rs 70k – Rs 80k bracket in India with excellent cameras, the Vivo X70 Pro+ is an easy recommendation.
Pricebaba rating: 8.5/10
What works
- Stunning display
- Excellent cameras
- Powerful performance
- Fast wired and wireless charging
- IP68 rating
What doesn’t
- Average battery life
- Some bloatware in FunTouch OS