Vivo X300 Pro long-term review: A Pro Camera Disguised As An Android Smartphone

Are you a photography enthusiast looking to buy a camera that also doubles as a mobile phone for calls and messages? Recently, the lines between a DSLR and a smartphone have been blurred, and thanks to Vivo, the gap is almost non-existent, at least for the enthusiasts out there. Let me explain.

With the X300 Pro, Vivo is making photography far more accessible to the average consumer and bridging the gap between amateur smartphone photographers and professional DSLR photographers. This is, in part, thanks to the second edition of its photography kit, which comes with a 2.35x telephoto extender lens.

But, alas, I’m here to talk about the smartphone as a whole, and not just wax eloquently about the photography chops for the entire review.

Let’s dive in.

It’s now been almost two months since the launch of the Vivo X300 series. I called the vanilla X300 ‘love at first sight’. It genuinely blew me away. It was lightweight, compact, good for one-handed usage, and fit the bill in almost every department. It even exceeded my expectations in the camera department. While I can’t say the same ‘love at first sight’ for the X300 Pro, the smartphone has grown on me as I use it more and more on a daily basis.

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

For 2025 (and thankfully), Vivo applied the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" formula to the X300 Pro. Yes, the X300 Pro doesn’t differ much from its predecessor, the X200 Pro, and that’s a good thing. The X200 Pro was a camera beast, and I had personally recommended it to at least five friends who went on to buy it and click well over 3-4 thousand photos.

There were only two smartphones - Vivo X200 Ultra and Oppo Find X8 Ultra - that blew it away in terms of its camera performance.

The design has remained much the same, with only the internals upgraded. So, it comes with familiarity and a bump in its raw performance. That’s not at all a bad thing. Consistency is sometimes good (unless you’re Samsung), and with the X300 Pro, you’re getting a smartphone with a giant circular camera island on the back.

The icing on the cake is that the X300 Pro doesn’t wobble as much as the X200 Pro did. It’s got a matte texture for the mid-frame and rear glass, and the grip is much more pronounced this time. The smartphone hardly slips anymore.

The only downside is the lack of imagination in the X300 Pro's colour options. There are only two options here in India - Elite Black and Dune Gold - and frankly, I would have liked a sprinkle of the VIBGYOR colour spectrum, like other companies (look, even Apple played around with colours this time) are doing.

The X300 Pro features a 6.78-inch LTPO AMOLED display (1260x2800 resolution and 452 PPI) with a 120Hz refresh rate and 2160Hz PWM dimming. It supports Dolby Vision, HDR10+, Widevine L1, and TÜV Rheinland Flicker-Free Certification. The device also has 4500 nits of peak brightness, more than enough for outdoor legibility.

The large circular camera island is necessary for the telephoto extender lens, and while some haven’t taken well to it, I don’t mind it. It’s practical, and it means I can get better shots (even without the kit) than ever before. I’ll take that!

Raw performance and great battery life

I don’t even need to go into the details of the X300 Pro's performance because it is that good. There’s MediaTek’s flagship Dimensity 9500 processor, paired with up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and up to 1TB of UFS 4.1 storage. The smartphone has IP68 and IP69 ratings for dust and water resistance. Furthermore, there’s a 6,510mAh silicon battery under the hood.

Performance is top-notch, and there is nothing to complain about there. Opening and closing apps is a breeze. A power-packed performance is what the X300 Pro truly delivers. Even with this much raw performance, the X300 Pro doesn’t heat up (unless you’re gaming for an hour or more at a stretch). One big upgrade for the X300 Pro is the vibration motor. You can truly feel the difference in daily usage.

While Oppo and OnePlus have Vivo beat, it doesn’t mean the X300 Pro is a slpouch. With a 6,510 mAh battery, the smartphone will last a day and a half at the bare minimum on a single charge. Vivo is using the 4th-Gen Silicon Negative Electrode Technology, and it’s quite good. I easily get about seven hours of screen-on-time (SoT) with the X300 Pro. With the bundled 90W charger, you only need about an hour to juice it up from 0-100 percent.

I keep coming back for those cameras

The smartphone is, and will always be, about the giant camera island on the back. The X300 Pro is a camera beast, and there’s no two ways to put it. While the vanilla X300 blows away the Oppo Find X9 (one of its main competitors), the X300 Pro trades blows with the Oppo Find X9 Pro (and solid competition is always welcome).

The X300 Pro is one smartphone that takes good photos across the board. There’s the brand-new 50MP Sony LYT-828. Then there’s the 200MP Samsung HPB telephoto lens, also an upgrade from the X200 Pro. Finally, the 50MP JNI wide-angle lens is the same as on the X200 Pro.

Predictably, it’s the 200MP telephoto lens (85mm periscope camera) that is my favourite of the three rear cameras. It’s got an extremely fast shutter speed, captures sharp, detailed, crisp shots, and allows usable shots up to 20x (though 10x is ideal). The shallow depth-of-field feels more natural than on other smartphones. The only downside is that subject segregation wasn’t always spot on. I found inconsistencies in some of my photos. But nothing a software update can’t fix.

The colours pop even on the main camera. Good daylight photos stand out the most, with good vibrancy and white balance. Even in challenging conditions, the cameras can eke out greater details.

This year, though, with the X300 Pro, it’s all about the low-light photography. The amount of detail the photos retain is pretty damn good. The wide-angle lens, though my least favourite of the three, still does a good enough job.

Even though I capture way more photos than videos, my attention was stolen by the X300 Pro's videography capabilities. Yes, the X300 Pro can shoot 4K 120 Dolby Vision footage. You get cleaner and crisper videos with far better stabilisation than ever before.

By default, the X300 Pro will take photos in Vivid mode. There’s also Zeiss Natural mode, Textured mode, and a bunch of other filters. It’s fun to use the cameras of the X300 Pro, no doubt.

Verdict: One of the best flagships out there?

The Vivo X300 Pro is a reliable, everyday shooter. The smartphone features of this camera are all secondary.

Vivo definitely has gone all-in on the camera for the X300 Pro, and it shows. It’s a versatile camera setup, and for the most part, it exceeds the hardware it's built on. With that said, the smartphone is pretty capable in its own right. It’s got a clean and dependable design, a high-quality AMOLED panel, all-day battery life, and better software than ever before.

With the Oppo Find X9 Pro also lying around in my bag, I’m always in two minds as to which to take out for that perfect shot. E