Vivo just announced their flagship Vivo X200 series in China today at the famous Water Cube, a.k.a. the National Aquatics Centre, in Beijing. We got the device a couple of days in advance, so our team had some time to play around and test it before an in-depth review.

In case you were wondering how the phone feels in real life, here’s a quick first impression of the Vivo X200 Pro.

The Vivo X200 Pro is Sleek but Chunky

The X200 Pro feels premium right out of the box. With its flat edges and metal frame, it gives us some serious flagship vibes. We’ve got the Blue Sapphire model, which mimics the ocean waves under light. I’m not sure if everyone would love this, but it definitely stands out.

The almost-flat display is a refreshing change from the curved screens we’ve been seeing everywhere. It’s got a nice heft to it, striking a balance between solid and comfortable—that is, until you get to the camera bump.

So let’s address the elephant in the room: that camera island is huge if we still take it as a Pro model. It’s big enough to be called an “ultra,” dominating the back of the phone, especially when we learned that the camera also inherited quite a lot from the X100 Ultra. While it houses a triple-lens setup, there’s an extra ‘lens-like’ circle up top that’s more for show than function. It balances out the look, but don’t be fooled — it’s not a fourth camera.

Camera App goes all in on AI

The camera app on the X200 Pro has gotten a serious glow-up. Vivo has added a bunch of AI features that make shooting a breeze. But note that almost all the fantastic custom features were developed for domestic users with various Chinese applications. For overseas markets, the brand has to work with Google’s Gemini. But there’s no doubt that OriginOS 5 intrigues me significantly more.

What if add some AI features to portrait mode? The X200 series gives you the answer. There’re four-season styles plus a Chinese style for auto post-modification. It makes the camera look fun, but only if you wait a minute or two.

The portrait mode is smarter than ever, and the landscape mode? It’s like they took the best bits of all the modes related to non-figure photography such as super night mode, pano mode, and star trails mode, and mashed them together. The software manager’s logic I guess is that they want to differentiate the custom modes into two categories, one for portrait and one for landscape. They’re like two folders, with the benefit of being easy to tell apart. The downside is that you have to ‘open’ them first (switch to them) – a step that may already be difficult for average users. One of my favorite features among the upgrades is the Zeiss Perspective Correction. When you look up a bit to shoot certain scenes, especially like architecture, you’ll always be annoyed by the perspective. On the X200 series, it would automatically crop and generate a horizontal perspective for users in real-time. It can instantly enhance the look and composition of your photos.

Further, video capabilities have taken a giant leap forward, especially in dark environments. We’re talking 4K at 120fps and even 8K at 30fps, which are all working well for dark scenarios. And for all you vloggers out there, there’s a new portrait video mode that’s bound to up your game. Initial quality of the videos was quite impressive but we want to test out the camera in detail for our final verdict. More importantly, it has a lot of fun that we couldn’t experience all in a moment.

The main camera is shifted to a brand-new sensor, SONY LTY818, sized at 1/1.28″. It’s claimed to have even better video-shooting capabilities. The 3.7x (85mm focus length & F/2.67) telephoto lens comes with the same setup as the vivo X100 Ultra’s – the impressive Zeiss 200MP APO telephoto lens.

Under the Hood: Dimensity 9400 Powerhouse

Powering all this goodness is the latest MTK Dimensity 9400 chip. We’re still running some benchmarks (Antutu Benchmark: the first mobile chipset exceeds 3,000,000), so stay tuned for the nitty-gritty performance details. But so far, the phone has been very smooth, we can expect the chip to deliver.

One of the coolest features we’ve played with on the phone is the BlueLM AI large model. You can actually download the local algorithm package for offline use, such as Image Stylization and Document Summarization, which is pretty neat. We’ve been having a fun time with image generation, text recognition, and instant translation. Another new software feature that caught my interest is ‘Circle to Search’. Just circle any objects or items on the display to search for their information. It can be triggered in any app while just holding two fingers on the screen for a few seconds. The results? Surprisingly accurate most of the time.

If you missed our X200 launch article, let me remind you that there’s a Pro Mini model as well. It has a very unique placement (compact in size), which is a refreshing change from all the Ultras and the Pro Maxes we’ve been seeing. We also have a detailed article explaining the entire Vivo X200 series, which will be out very soon.

In addition, Vivo and MediaTek have jointly developed and globally premiered the kilometer-level network-less communication technology, which realizes point-to-point and long-distance communication through Bluetooth connection in a network-less and signal-less environment. Supports SOS text broadcasting, one-to-one voice/text intercom, map location display, etc. Within a certain distance, you can form a local network of communication with other Vivo users by turning your phone into a walkie-talkie.

To sum up, the Vivo X200 Pro is shaping up to be a serious contender in the high-end smartphone market. With its focus on photography, powerful chip, and AI capabilities, it’s clear Vivo is gunning for the top spot. Sure, that camera bump is huge and might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if you’re all about that photo and video life, this is definitely a phone to check out.

As for the battery, I would draw my conclusion first here – it feels like the premium phone with the longest battery life I’ve ever used. More details will be revealed in our in-depth review.

Please stay tuned for our full review, where we’ll dive deeper into the benchmarks, battery life, and how it holds up in day-to-day use.

In the meantime, what feature of the X200 Pro are you most excited about?