Vivo X300 Ultra

GSMTechTok analysis

Who it's for

The X300 Ultra is for a buyer who wants vivo's traditionally natural, true-to-life ZEISS color science rather than Oppo's punchier Hasselblad tuning — a genuine processing-philosophy difference, not just a spec-sheet one, and the first time vivo has sold its Ultra flagship outside China at all. GSMArena's verdict is direct that it's "one of the most complete camera phones ever made." It also suits anyone who wants a genuine all-rounder rather than a camera-only device — Digital Trends found it handled competitive mobile gaming, including BGMI running flawlessly at a stable 60FPS on Extreme settings, just as capably as its photography. It's a weaker fit for anyone who leans on a dedicated camera shutter button day to day, or who rates video quality above stills.

Standout features

The core camera system earns consistent, specific praise — GSMArena's pros list cites an "outstanding and versatile camera system with excellent daylight photo quality," and Digital Trends called the ultrawide and telephoto combination good enough to produce "some of the best photos I've captured on a phone this year." Battery life genuinely improved generation-on-generation too: GSMArena's own testing found the jump from 6,000mAh to 6,600mAh translated into an Active Use Score of almost 16 hours, paired with a proper 100W charger included in the box. The 6.82-inch LTPO display earned its own separate line in GSMArena's pros list for "very high brightness and Ultra HDR support," while Yanko Design's review singled out the 14mm ultrawide specifically, describing it as ambitious enough to function as a "main-camera-grade lens" rather than a typical afterthought wide-angle.

Trade-offs

The most repeated, specific complaint is the loss of the physical camera control key that appeared on prior X-series models — GSMArena calls its removal "a downgrade no matter how you look at it," and Digital Trends independently flags the same change as feeling "like a step backwards." Digital Trends is also honest that video quality, while genuinely strong, "still trails the very best from Apple" — a real, comparative gap rather than a vague complaint, even though Digital Camera World calls it a genuine video challenger to the iPhone overall. Both camera apertures narrowed this generation: the main camera is now f/1.9, down from the brighter f/1.7-equivalent setup on the outgoing X200 Ultra, and GSMArena's own testing found the telephoto reverted to f/2.7, down from the X200 Ultra's f/2.3 and back in line with the older X100 Ultra — real optical trade-offs bundled with the larger-sensor upgrades. Sustained thermal performance is a genuine, measured regression, not just a caveat: Notebookcheck's own testing recorded the underside reaching 51.3°C against a 34.1°C comparable-phone average, and found Wild Life Stress Test stability of 110.7% actually trailing the X200 Ultra's own 118.9% result in the same test. Speaker quality is a real, disclosed weak point too — Notebookcheck found bass nearly imperceptible and 24.7% below the median for comparable phones, and the new 12-channel color-sensing camera is, in Notebookcheck's own words, not yet convincing. And as with its closest rival, the Find X9 Ultra, this remains a genuinely large, heavy device (163.0 x 76.8 x 8.2mm, 232g) built around its camera module — not a phone anyone would call compact or pocket-friendly.