Camera battle: vivo X200 Ultra vs X100 Ultra

The vivo X200 Ultra follows in the footsteps of vivo’s first-ever Ultra phone and one of the best camera-centric flagships of last year. Those are some big shoes to fill.

We like vivo’s approach – instead of going for the safe (and boring) refinement approach, vivo shook things up in a major way with the X200 Ultra. The impressive telephoto camera was the star of the X100 Ultra, so vivo gave it a brighter lens. The selfie shooter is seemingly the same.

The other two rear cameras bring massive changes and a new vision. The 1-inch 23mm main camera is gone, which a lot of people might see as a downgrade, but not so fast!

We’re here to tell you that the new 35mm main shooter with a still impressively large 1/1.28-inch sensor isn’t worse at all. And the new 14mm ultrawide with the same 1/1.28-inch sensor may very well be the highlight of this phone.

Let’s put sensor sizes aside for a second and talk lenses. Both the 24mm (23mm in this case) and 35mm focal lengths have a strong following in the photographic community. The 35mm is a classic reporter-style lens – wide angle, yet low-distortion, able to capture a lot of the scene, but has an intimate, candid look to its images. The 24mm is a more starkly wide-angle lens, lending itself to capturing more of the scene, bringing a dramatic sense to an image, heavier on distortion, especially if you bring your subject close to the lens.

We’d wager that some photographers would see the removal of the 23mm camera as a dealbreaker, while others might consider the new 35mm a reason alone to buy the X200 Ultra.

But here’s where the upgraded 14mm ultrawide comes in. Thanks to its main camera-sized sensor, it produces main camera-quality images. It’s much better than the old ultrawide, and the difference is visible even in good light.

So the vivo X200 Ultra is now a unique photographic proposition – it brings 14mm, 35mm, and 85mm lenses with flagship image quality – each of these cameras will capture nicer images than your iPhone, Galaxy Ultra, or Pixel’s main camera.

Now let’s look at how the new vivo flagship compares against its monumental predecessor.

Our first set of images is of the main cameras – the 1-inch 23mm f/1.8 on the left, the 1/1.28-inch 35mm f/1.7 on the right. The first thing you’ll notice is the difference in focal length. The numbers seem close, but they’re not – 23mm is a lot wider than 35mm. We expect that even experienced shooters will need a few days to readjust their eyes to the new normal.

Main camera: vivo X100 Ultra • vivo X200 Ultra

Main camera: vivo X100 Ultra • vivo X200 Ultra

The lower distortion is obvious when you look at the thumbnails. 35mm is considered a wide-angle lens in the photo world, but it’s the opposite in the smartphone world, which has adjusted to wider focal lengths on main cameras for years now.

With the 35mm images, subjects are closer and bigger. This means that the new main camera is also better for people shots. Of course, some people might miss the distorted look of the older main camera.

What impressed us the most was the image quality from the new 35mm main camera. It’s better at the per-pixel level than the 1-inch 23mm camera – detail rendition is less digital, fine textures are less oversharpened, and there’s more clarity in the 35mm images.

Colors from the two main cameras also differ significantly. The X100 Ultra has much more saturated colors by default (though you can tune that in the phone’s settings).

Main camera: vivo X100 Ultra • vivo X200 Ultra

Moving to the ultrawide, where we see a big difference in quality. The field of view is the same – 14mm, 116˚ – but the sensors and lenses are different. The old ultrawide has a 1/2.0-inch sensor and an f/2.2 lens. The new camera has a much larger 1/1.28-inch imager with a slightly brighter f/2.0 lens.

The new ultrawide is leaps and bounds better. Detail is much higher, and it’s rendered in a more natural way. The new camera can discern the smallest of textures, while the older camera struggles to render it all, leaving a smeared mess in places where the new camera renders fine grass.

The new camera is also better and color rendition and has an edge in dynamic range.

Ultrawide: vivo X100 Ultra • vivo X200 Ultra

Ultrawide: vivo X100 Ultra • vivo X200 Ultra

There isn’t a big difference in the 85mm images in good light, outside of the color rendition, which is a system-wide setting, rather than a per-camera setting.

Zoom: vivo X100 Ultra • vivo X200 Ultra

In the next few images, we used the vivo X200 Ultra’s new 14mm camera zoomed in to 23mm to see if you can get away with not having a native 23mm. The results are not far in good light, especially if you don’t pixel peep and use them for social media. But the 14mm on the X200 Ultra, improved as it is, can’t match the native 1-inch 23mm main camera on the X100 Ultra.

23mm vs 14mm zoomed in: vivo X100 Ultra • vivo X200 Ultra

We also tried the other scenario – using the vivo X100 Ultra’s 23mm camera, zoomed in to 35mm, to match the vivo X200 Ultra’s main camera. It’s a closer match, but the 1-inch camera isn’t as good at 35mm as the native 35mm.

23mm zoomed in vs 35mm: vivo X100 Ultra • vivo X200 Ultra

The main cameras are all excellent at night. Aside from the difference in color, we see equally great exposures, well-developed shadows, balanced highlights, no distracting noise, and the same, reliable detail capture. Top marks all-around!

23mm vs 35mm at night: vivo X100 Ultra • vivo X200 Ultra

We expected to see a big difference in the low-light performance of the zoom cameras – while the X200 Ultra’s 85mm zoom has the same sensor as the one on the X100 Ultra, it brings a brighter f/2.27 lens (vs f/2.67). But there isn’t a that much separating the two even in the dark. Yes, the new camera was able to keep ISO a bit lower, but we can’t see any pronounced digital noise on either zoom’s samples.

The new camera is a bit heavier on the sharpening, and it processed its shadows a bit darker.

Zooms at night: vivo X100 Ultra • vivo X200 Ultra

Overall, we’d say that vivo made a strong follow-up to one of the best cameraphones of last year. The new 35mm is polarizing for its focal length but excellent in terms of quality.

The 85mm zoom is just as transformative as it was a year ago, only with a slightly better lens!

We said the ultrawide may be the highlight of the vivo X200 Ultra, and we mean it! It’s without question the best ultrawide-angle camera on a phone. It renders images as beautifully as the main camera, which isn’t the case on any other phone out there.

Our next stop is to do thorough testing of the new camera in low light. Stay tuned for that!

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