In one fell swoop, vivo unveiled the first phone with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset and the first phones with the Dimensity 9200 SoC. We are of course talking about the vivo X90 series, which will go on sale in China in the coming weeks.
And while it’s exciting to see the new chipsets in action, the main focus of the X90 series is on the best camera phones on the market. The two Pros feature the 1-inch Sony IMX989 sensor with bright f/1.75 apertures and OIS, not to mention all the work Zeiss has done on the lenses.
Of course there can only be one the best and that honor goes to the vivo X90 Pro+. This is the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phone we mentioned, but it also has exclusive periscope and ultra-wide modules. The ultra-wide camera doesn’t have the widest field of view (114°), but the lens is designed for low distortion, meaning less digital perspective correction is needed.
As for the periscope lens, it has a focal length of 90mm, which means 3.5x optical magnification and up to 100x digital zoom. The high-resolution 64MP sensor helps squeeze out extra detail. There’s another telephoto lens on board, a 50mm portrait camera with a 50MP sensor and a bright f/1.6 aperture.
The vivo X90 Pro has the same main and portrait cameras, but loses the periscope and the ultra-wide module is relegated to a 12MP sensor and 108° lens.
The vanilla vivo X90 takes another step back – it loses the main IMX989 sensor and gets a 1/1.49-inch 50MP sensor instead. Also, the 50mm camera drops to a 12MP sensor. Still, it has a powerful chipset and the help of the vivo V2 ISP to do the image processing just like the other two.
There are a few other reasons to choose the Pro+ over the others. All three have 6.78-inch 120 Hz AMOLED displays, but only the Pro+ has an LTPO4 panel with a resolution of 1,440 x 3,200px. The other two skip LTPO and fall back to 1,260 x 2,800px resolution. And they use the Dimensity 9200 chipset, if that wasn’t obvious, but we still haven’t tested it with the Snapdragon (we’ve only seen leaked benchmarks so far).
There are also differences in charging. The battery capacity is about the same, but the X90 Pro has the fastest charging support: 120W wired (0-50% in 8 minutes) and 50W wireless. The Pro+ is slower with 80W wired charging (and still 50W wireless). The vanilla model holds its own in the wired race with 120W support, but lacks wireless charging (the USB-C port also drops to v2.0, in case video output is important to you).
One last thing – the pricing. vivo has only announced plans for the China rollout for now, so those are the prices we have to work with. The vivo X90 and X90 Pro are available to pre-order now for CNY 3,700 ($515/€500/₹42,000) and CNY 5,000 ($700/€675/₹57,000) respectively. They will be available from December 6.
The vivo X90 Pro+ starts at CNY 6,500 ($905/€880/₹74,000) once it’s up for pre-order on December 28 (it’s also scheduled for release on December 26).
vivo X90 series prices for China
These three have no competition because they are the first with their chipsets. More Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 and Dimensity 9200 phones are on the way, we should see a few before the year is out. However, we can only speculate on their prices and only speculation speculation, so we’ll save that for now.
We will only mention the Xiaomi 12S Ultra – it has the same 1″ IMX989 sensor, as well as a 48MP 120mm periscope and a 48MP 128° ultra-wide camera. However, it does use the older Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset and the 6 .73-inch QHD+ display is “only” LTPO2 (still 120 Hz). The 12/256 GB version costs CNY 6,500, the same as the X90 Pro+ (there’s a slightly cheaper 8/256 GB model for CNY 6,000).
Xiaomi 12S Ultra
Note: We’re familiar with the Sharp Aquos R7 and the Leica Leitz Phone 2, but those are boutique devices that are impossible to buy outside of Japan.
Assuming it goes international, will you buy the vivo X90 Pro+? Leaks suggest the 1″ IMX989 will be used in even more phones. Would you rather wait for them? Or is the camera not the most important factor for you? Vote below or use this page. All this assuming the Pro+ will be available near you, of course.
What about the vivo X90 Pro? It’s not great for zooming in, but it could turn out to be better value for money – vote below if you’re interested (or take advantage of this page if that does not work).
Finally, the vivo X90 – are there fans? Vote below or use this page.
