Device class S ("Mercedes" scale A, B, C, E, S)
Rating scale 1-6 (6-targeting)
We begin
vivo is one of the few manufacturers that has an uncompromising approach to the smartphone camera set and at the same time does not target the "ultra-premium" price target, such as the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra and Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra. The manufacturer succeeded in this treatment, because in a phone costing PLN 3699 we get many unique photo and video functions, and a great screen and very good specification. It is difficult to find direct competition, because this one is either more expensive, or comes from several generations (P30 Pro), or simply cannot compete with the vivo X60 Pro. This is the smartphone closest to my preferences that I have tested recently, although, as usual, a few compromises could not be avoided.
The main advantages and disadvantages of the vivo X60 Pro
Advantages of the vivo X60 Pro
Disadvantages of the vivo X60 Pro
How do we rate design? - 5th grade
vivo X60 Pro is one of the slimmer smartphones on the market - its thickness is only 7.6 mm and the weight is 179 grams. This is slightly less than the previous vivo X51 model we reviewed. You can see and feel this slimness in your hand and pocket. The design has remained very similar to its predecessor with vertical edges rounding both from the screen side and the back of the phone - both glass panes are made of Gorilla Glass 6. I like the matte, satin finish of the housing glass, which creates an interesting visual effect and hides traces of touch. The camera island is quite large, but it protrudes slightly above the housing and is associated with good design among cameras.
The phone can be unlocked with a fingerprint reader hidden in the screen, and by using your face. Both methods work quickly and I have no objections to them.
I have a few other comments for this. The loudspeaker in the vivo X60 Pro is mono, placed on the lower edge and completely average. Such a successful phone deserves good stereo speakers. There is also no headphone jack or official housing seal standard, although you can find a red seal on the SIM tray. The phone also does not support memory cards.
What do we think about the display? - grade 6
The vivo X60 Pro screen has a diagonal of 6.56 inches, FHD + resolution 2376 x 1080 pixels, was made in AMOLED technology and offers a refresh rate of 120 Hz. It supports HDR10 + standard and the pixel density is 398 PPI. Relative to vivo X51, the refresh rate increased from 90 to 120 Hz, and the rest of the parameters remained unchanged.
The vivo display makes a great impression - it has high maximum brightness, clean and saturated colors, very good viewing angles and is super smooth at 120 Hz. This is a screen worthy of a flagship, with no compromises.
The settings include the eye protection mode, the dark mode, the ability to change the color mode, as well as adjust the color temperature. There are no advanced options here to improve the quality of videos and photos, but I don't feel a lack of them either. The screen itself looks beautiful.
Specification and operating system - 5+ rating
There was a significant change in the specification compared to the vivo X51 model, which had a mid-range Snapdragon 765 processor, because the vivo X60 Pro received a Snapdragon 870 clocked at 1 x 3.2 GHz + 3 x 2.42 GHz + 4 x 1.80 GHz. The processor supports as much as 12 GB RAM and 256 GB for the system and files (X51 had 8 GB RAM). There is also support for dual SIM.
It is true that the Snapdragon 870 is not the flagship 888, but comparing another phone with this processor, I notice that the difference in performance is marginal, while phones with the 870 processor run noticeably longer on the battery than those with 888 processors and they heat up noticeably less. From this point of view, for some recipients, Snapdragon 870 may be the most attractive choice on the market, because no one will notice the difference in performance, but longer battery life is.
The benchmark results are as follows:
vivo X60 Pro has the fastest memory of all smartphones I have tested recently, and the performance of a single core in Geekbench 5 is higher than in the 888 processor due to the higher clock speed of the fastest core. In short, although formally the processor is not top of the line, in some respects it has even better performance, and in practice it is very comparable.
The connectivity package includes 5G, WiFI ac, Bluetooth 5.1, and NFC. To the full happiness of the latest standards, WiFi 6 was missing. The location is carried out using GPS, GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO, QZSS and NavIC. The sensor suite includes an accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity sensor, light intensity sensor, digital compass, and a color spectrum sensor.
The smartphone works under the control of Android 11 with security updated on May 1, 2021 with the Funtouch OS 11.1 system overlay. I am pleasantly surprised by the quality of the system overlay. Although vivo is not available on the Polish market for a long time, I have not encountered any problems with the translation into Polish. Funtouch is not overcomplicated and gives the impression of a very mature project. Not once have I encountered a problem with the operation of the system.
Among the noteworthy features, we can find a wide range of screen recording options - from video recording, to long - scrolling screenshot, its clipping, and the ability to create a GIF. The overlay is also distinguished by the ability to configure dynamic effects. You can choose the look and feel of the fingerprint icon, the fingerprint recognition animation, the face recognition animation or while charging, with USB connected, etc. You can personalize the look of the effects, but they are all fine-tuned and polished, and subtle enough.
There is an ultrasound mode that includes a number of optimizations for players, including the ability to leave the game active with the screen off. The system also allows you to expand the 12 GB RAM memory with an additional 3 GB allocated from the memory for files, although with such a large RAM I do not see such a need. The vivo X60 Pro is pleasant and comfortable to use, and the combination of a strong specification and a 120 Hz screen gives a feeling of super fluidity.
What kind of photos does he take and what films does he record? - 5+ rating
We come to the nail of the program, i.e. the vivo X60 Pro cameras. This time, vivo can boast a partnership with the legendary optics manufacturer - the Zeiss company, whose logo was placed directly on the camera island. The cameras used are:
Let's start with what has changed compared to the already reviewed vivo X51. The main camera aperture is brighter - F / 1.48 - this is the brightest aperture on the smartphone market. The Samsung S10 series offered an equal F / 1.5 aperture and I have not come across a lower value so far. The manufacturer decided to give up x5 optical magnification. However, the resolution of the ultra wide-angle camera increased from 8 to 13 megapixels. The selfie camera and the one with double optical magnification remained unchanged.
What distinguishes the main camera in the vivo smartphone is the stabilization, which the manufacturer calls a gimbal. Regardless of the name, you can see that it is not only about marketing - when we turn on the camera applications and look at the lens while moving the phone, we will see that the entire camera module moves to a large extent - much greater than in other phones with optical stabilization. Not to mention the fact that today you can find phones for PLN 3,000 that do not have any optical or mechanical stabilization. In vivo X60 Pro, stabilization works efficiently in all modes and therefore allows you to record stabilized video even in 4K60p. If we are not deliberately trying to damage the photo, there is practically no chance that it will come out agitated. Gimbal vivo brilliant technology.
vivo decided to make the most of its devices. There are many different camera modes in the app that make use of the hardware's strengths. There are 6 slow shutter modes, which most often require the use of a tripod, but in vivo X60 Pro, thanks to the stabilization, some of them can be done hand-held, for example the effect of blurry water or blurry due to the movement of people on the street.
I really like that the manufacturer also decided to modify the panorama mode - we have the option of making a simple, fast panorama in which we simply turn with the phone in our hand and the phone automatically folds the panorama in front of our eyes. On the other hand, we can make a panorama, where we have to stop with each photo separately, and then effective stabilization allows you to use the HDR effect during the day, or take photos in the night mode and then combine them into a full-fledged panorama with a larger tonal range.
I was also very impressed with the portrait mode, in which cooperation with the Zeiss played the most important role - blurring the background simulates the effect achieved by the Zeiss Biotar lens. Of course, no simulation can replace the effect achieved optically, but vivo does some of the nicest portraits I have had recently for the reading room and the bokeh is actually very pleasant to receive. Portraits can be taken with the main camera, then the background blur is more subtle or at x2 magnification, with a telephoto lens, then the separation from the background is much stronger, but still looking natural.
When we bring the phone closer to the object at a short distance, the smartphone automatically switches to the macro mode supported by a wide-angle lens, which can focus. The effects are surprisingly good, because the magnification is almost the same as in the case of the dedicated macro camera in Mi 11 or Poco F3, and the resolution of the wide-angle camera is higher because instead of 5 it has 13 megapixels. We can say that although we have 3 cameras on the back of the housing, it is functionally like we would have 4 cameras.
The quality of photos from all three cameras is very good and in addition, vivo managed to achieve color consistency between all cameras - in this respect they are indistinguishable, which is quite an achievement. We also managed to break this quality border, where the photos still look natural, but have that something - their own character and the final touch. Is this a level that can rival the best of the best? In my opinion, it is quite close - closer than many smartphones that aspired to be a photography master.
Naturally, the night mode works best on the main camera, which has advanced stabilization. After switching to one of the other cameras, the effects will be noticeably worse. It is worth noting that vivo makes night photos very bright, which not everyone likes. Qualitatively, I have nothing to complain about. The quality of the selfie is also quite good, although by default the camera bends with the improvement of beauty, making the final effect not very natural. I would also like to emphasize that the camera works in all modes without hesitation, quickly and without problems. He did not cause me any problems.
Video recording in vivo X60 Pro is also great - we have all the possible available modes up to 4K60p and FHD 240p, including, and each of them is stabilized by a gimbal. This works really well even when walking and recording in modes that normally don't offer stabilization or are limited due to the CPU power reserved for high definition or high frame recording. Some limitations, however, have remained. When we want to record in 4K, only the main camera is available, and the double zoom is carried out by digital zoom, not changing the camera. All three cameras are only available in FHD resolution and then you can seamlessly switch between them while recording. The combination of gimbal and high-range digital stabilization is also only available in 1080p. The reason for this is the need for high resolution cropping. Then the degree of stabilization achieved is exceptionally high.
Sample photos - main camera:
Sample photo - macro:
Sample photo - portrait mode:
Sample photo - wide angle:
Sample photo - telephoto lens:
Sample video:
How long does the battery last? - 4+ rating
vivo X60 Pro has a 4200 mAh battery. Recently, 5000 mAh batteries are the standard. Fortunately, the Snapdragon 870 works here in favor of the battery, which is more energy-efficient than the 888. The vivo charger has a power of 33W - it charges the phone fully in less than an hour, and after half an hour it approaches 70%. This is not a record, but a very good result - enough not to be stressed by the need to recharge your phone before leaving home. Unfortunately, there was no wireless charging.
vivo does a great job of conserving energy while playing videos - 7 hours of YouTube playback with screen brightness set to half drain the battery by just one-third. You can count on 20 - 21 hours of continuous playback, which is a very good result. However, while browsing the internet and other tasks, the battery drains faster and here you can count on a little more than half the time of the video played. In practice, I rarely ended my day with less than half the battery, which is a good result for me.
Our final assessment
vivo X60 Pro has found a suitable place on the market - it targets demanding enthusiasts of mobile photography, offering practical and unique features, such as super effective stabilization, and at the same time it does not cost as much as the S21 Ultra or Mi 11 Ultra. It is true that it does not offer such extreme magnification as Samsung or such large matrices as Xiaomi, so it is not a direct replacement for them, but it differs enough from the competition at a similar price and can satisfy a really demanding amateur of photography.
We add a very good screen to a great camera, almost top performance, but virtually no heating or fast battery consumption, beautiful design, refined system overlay and we have a very successful device. You can mainly attach to the lack of an official standard for sealing the housing and stereo speakers and support for a memory card. However, these are not the key ailments.
Currently, the vivo X60 Pro costs PLN 3699 and is offered in the promotion with the vivo Y20s smartphone worth PLN 599 in the set. If, instead of a second smartphone, its price was PLN 599 lower, I would recommend it blind to every fan of mobile photography. Even in the current promotion, it's a phone that has no direct competition.
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