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Before I begin with my Vivo X60 review, I need to talk about something. 2021 is the year when smartphone cameras became good. And by “good”, I mean to say really good. We have smartphones that can now record in 8k and offer features that can shoot professional-level photos, with some caveats, of course.
When a product claims to be on the top in a sea of great camera smartphones, we obviously have high expectations from it. With similar expectations, I started using the Vivo X60 a few weeks ago. After several days of strenuous usage, here’s our review of the latest flagship from Vivo.
Vivo X60 Review: Upon First Look
Vivo X60 has a great power to weight ratio. Meaning it packs in powerful internals and yet remains thin in profile and light enough to use for long hours. At just 176g, it is one the lightest flagship-level phones out there and with 7.44mm of width, it is also one of the slimmest ones.
The camera array has a bigger than average bump, which makes using this smartphone without a case sort of difficult. However, Vivo X60 does have ample protection thanks to a Gorilla Glass 6 panel on the front and aluminium side strips. The back of the smartphone is made up of glass, but it has a metallic finish to it.
On top of the smartphone, the words “Professional Photography” are engraved adjacent to an extra mic. And down below, you’ll find the dual-sim tray slot, downward-firing speakers and a USB Type-C port. On the side, you’ll see a volume rocker along with a power button.
The 6.5-inch 120Hz AMOLED screen of Vivo X60 has a punch hole camera. It is very bright indoors and offers great visibility even under direct sunlight. Needless to say, the combination of all these factors make the Vivo X60 a well-built phone.
Vivo X60 Review: Performance Tested In Everyday Tasks
At the heart of Vivo X60 is a flagship-level Snapdragon 870 SoC which is the direct successor of Snapdragon 865 and 865+ launched last year. It features a prime core with 3.2 GHz of clock speed, the highest ever in a mobile phone.
The Snapdragon 870 isn’t as powerful as the SD 888 due to different fabrication process and other similar factors. While the SD 870 is based on the 7nm process, the SD 888 features the updated 5nm nodes. Most notably, the SD 870 SoC does not feature WiFi 6E found in SD 888.
Technical jargon aside, the important thing to note here is that the SD 870 is a very capable SoC. It proves its mettle in games like Call of Duty Mobile, Real Racing 3, Minecraft, and super-demanding titles like Genshin Impact.
We played all these games smoothly on the Vivo X60 with the highest graphics possible. The smartphone performed like a champ with minimal battery drain and heating issues.
The 4,300 mAh battery is enough to get you through the day. To get more battery life, you can turn ON the dynamic refresh rate option within the settings menu. Although the option does save a ton of battery life, it reduces refresh rate while scrolling within different apps like Chrome or Amazon.
Personally, I used the Vivo X60 with 120hz option full-time, and I was left with around 30% battery at the end of a day full of heavy usage. So you can choose either option without worrying too much.
Speaking of worrying too much, you wouldn’t be doing that when saving your photos or videos because the two variants of Vivo X60 offer 8 GB / 128 GB and 12 GB / 256 GB of storage, respectively.
The new SoC also offers a feature called the virtual RAM, which converts 3 GB of onboard storage into system memory. Vivo X60 users will have either 11 GB or 15 GB of RAM, depending upon their variant.
The World-Class Camera
High-class performance in a photography flagship smartphone is a welcome feature, but the real question remains, “How’s the camera?” Well, to answer it properly, let’s talk about each camera feature one at a time.
Starting with the videos. The phone features built-in optical image stabilisation. Vivo X60 features two levels of stabilisation, “Standard” and “Ultra-Stable” mode.
While using standard stabilization, you can walk up and down the stair or on a nearby sidewalk while recording and still receive stable footage. In ultra-stable mode, though, you can run, shake your hand vigorously and even jump down a flight of stairs while doing parkour, and your footage will only feature the slightest of shakes. The ultra-stable mode also introduces an image-crop, so for shooting indoors, I’d recommend using the standard-stabilization.
The good news does not stop there as the co-engineered camera lens by ZEISS clicks great photos. My only visual complaint with the photos would be skin whitening. I appear at least one skin tone fairer than I actually am. But the detail of my skin, including any dark spots, pimples or wrinkles, appears very clearly, so kudos to Vivo X60 on that front.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so there are a few shots taken from the ZEISS’ powered Vivo X60-
The thing which I liked the most about the Vivo X60 camera is its use of light. The lens lets in as much light as possible before clicking a picture, resulting in images that look sharp and detailed.
Particularly surprising was the level of detail captured in the Zoom mode. One can easily read faraway signs and boards captured in the image.
The 32 MP works equally well. Surprisingly, it does have a little bit of processing but still manages to capture most details of my face. Unlike other Android smartphones, the selfie camera on Vivo X60 works really well with social media apps – Instagram and Snapchat. The smartphone also features a number of built-in AR stickers similar to the filters found on Snapchat, which is great for a social media buff.
Verdict
With a starting price of Rs. 37,990, the Vivo X60 offers great value as a camera-focused smartphone. If you’re a solo vlogger, an amateur photographer, or a smartphone enthusiast in general, Vivo X60 will serve you well enough in all your endeavours.
