Vivo's X500 Pro Max is another camera-focused smartphone with more video tricks

Mat Smith for Engadget

Vivo is one of several Chinese phone manufacturers rapidly iterating on high-spec camera smartphones. However, it remains less well-known than rivals like Xiaomi and Oppo. The X500 Pro Max features attachable telephoto lenses, cage grips and a partnership with lens maker Zeiss. Surprise, it's all about the cameras (again), but with a videography twist!

As we saw with Oppo's Find X10 Pro Max, Vivo faces the challenge of being compared to its existing, more premium smartphone, the X300 Ultra, at a time when phone prices are soaring. The X500 Pro Max is a major upgrade over the X300 Pro, and it even bests the X300 Ultra in some areas.

Mat Smith for Engadget

The biggest camera upgrade is a new 50-megapixel Sony Lytia 1/1.28-inch sensor with an f/1.6 aperture, which offers 17 stops of dynamic range (sound familiar?), due to the sensor's LOFIC technology. It also packs a 50MP ultra-wide camera with a 1/1.75-inch sensor, while the telephoto camera uses a higher-resolution (and larger) 200MP 1/1.4-inch sensor for lossless zoom up to 10x magnification.

Vivo goes hard on image stabilization again, with the main sensor using three-degree gimbal-grade stabilization — a clear highlight when I compared video footage against the Find X10 Pro — while the telephoto camera has CIPA 7-rated OIS. They're two versions of a similar thing: A three-degree rating measures the physical range of motion the camera hardware can compensate for, while a CIPA 7.0 rating measures the final anti-shake effectiveness in terms of exposure time.

The latter, found on the periscope telephoto camera, helps optimize long zoom and low light, when small movements and micro-tremors from your hand can affect capture. The "gimbal grade" three-degree OIS helps stabilize shots when you're shooting action and recording video on foot.

Video is once again a very important part of the X500 Pro Max's feature set. The "Pro Video Mode" supports users' custom LUTs, with a real-time preview of how it will look. Vivo's log format also supports the ACES workflow for video professionals working with a smartphone camera.

All the gimbal advances ensured that the video footage I recorded on the X500 Pro Max is some of the smoothest, judder-free footage I've ever captured without a dedicated gimbal (or a robot camera). In low light, the footage lacked the pulsing pixel effect that often happens when a camera struggles to stay in focus.

The pro camera interface looks professional, but on a 6.85-inch display, the on-screen buttons and readouts are a bit tiny. Notably, the X500 Pro Max lacks an open-gate recording option, which Oppo does have on its Find X10 Pro Max. (Score one, Oppo.) With an upgraded processor compared to the Ultra, the X500 Pro Max supports 4K recording at up to 240 fps, doubling the X300 Ultra's 120 fps cap.

Vivo's LOFIC camera sensor uses different technology to Oppo's DeepPix, but the result is broadly the same: 17 stops of dynamic range. The route is different, though. The LOFIC sensor adds extra capacitors to each pixel to catch and store overflow light charge. Meanwhile, Oppo's DeepPix redesigns the existing pixel setup inside a sensor, using FDTI (Front Deep Trench Isolation) to isolate pixels and expand capacity physically.

Photos from Vivo's new phone seem more vibrant, with a bit more contrast. However, highlight suppression can occasionally make scenes look too augmented, as if they've already been edited in Photoshop, making them look less realistic. By comparison, Oppo's Find X10 Pro Max seems to lean toward more accurate colors.

Mat Smith for Engadget

Vivo's X500 Pro Max supports both of its Gen 2 teleconverter lenses, co-produced with Zeiss. The Gen 2 Telephoto Extender adds 2.35x magnification while the Gen 2 Ultra cranks it up to 4.7x optical zoom, on top of a 200MP periscope telephoto sensor. The results between the X500 Pro Max and the older X300 Ultra are comparable, which makes sense since the hardware is the same and uses an almost identical camera sensor. It's a good and bad thing: While Vivo has improved its computational photography once again, the nightmarish swirl of text and human faces touched by AI interference — especially when using the telephoto attachments — is still very much present. To be honest, I think I'd be happier with a darker (or blurrier) but more accurate final image.

That said, it's also great that these existing lenses work with Vivo's newest phones, although you will need a new compatible case and mounting plate. I dove into using the lenses when they first arrived alongside the X500 Ultra and you can read more about them here.

Mat Smith for Engadget

Aside from the cameras, in terms of hardware design, the X500 Pro Max looks like any Vivo phone from the last 12 months. The new phone does have a new dot-matrix effect across the rear glass panel, which occassionally catches the light, unless it's in a case. 

Inside, the X500 Pro max has MediaTek's new Dimensity 9600 Pro 2nm processor and a massive 7,800mAh battery — in some territories. For context, Vivo's flagship X300 Ultra had a 6,600mAh battery. Fortunately, it supports high-wattage charging up to 90W with Vivo's own charger. It also supports bypass charging, which lets you continue to charge the phone during intensive activities like gaming or recording high-res video.

The X500 Pro Max also features a slightly larger 6.85-inch display than the X300 Ultra's 6.82-inch screen (both share the same 1,440 x 3,168 resolution), with up to a 144Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision, HDR10+ support and peak brightness up to 4,500 nits. The phone also boasts IP68 and IP69 dust and water resistance (submersion and high-intensity spray). Vivo phones often carry two ingress protection (IP) numbers as the tests are different for different types of water exposure. 

Mat Smith for Engadget

If there's a weakness to Vivo's X series phones, it's the software. Within the X500 Pro Max's custom skin, Origin OS 7, unsolicited tips appear too often, interrupting me to explain basic swiping gestures and many (mostly self-explanatory) features. This is on top of all of Vivo's software fluff, including its proprietary app store that tries to latch onto big apps like Netflix and WhatsApp. This pushes you toward the V-App Store, which is crammed with pop-up ads for ChatGPT, until you remove preinstalled apps and reinstall them through Google's Play Store. Sadly, you can't remove the V-App Store outright, and it's one of many moments when the phone's OS feels cluttered and chaotic.

Vivo's new mid-range flagship takes a similar approach to rival Oppo's Find X10 Pro Max, both in hardware upgrades and in where they're going on sale. While the company claims it's a global launch, Vivo is sticking to a similar list of countries and territories that sold the X300 Ultra. There's no US or UK availability, but it will launch in Spain, Brazil, India, Austria, Italy, Singapore, Hong Kong and many more areas. The company will announce pricing at a launch event happening right now, and we'll update this story when it's revealed.