Following a launch in China late last year, the Vivo X90 Pro is now setting sail and headed for markets anew, across Europe and Asia. While we don’t have an exact release date yet, this global announcement suggests the phone is coming very soon, and we do know pretty much everything else about it.
Highlights of the Vivo X90 Pro include a 50MP f/1.75 1-inch camera sensor, which is a larger size than you’ll find on most phones and may give it a photographic edge. That camera packs optical image stabilization (OIS), and it’s joined by a 50MP f/1.6 portrait camera with 2x optical zoom and OIS, and a 12MP f/2.0 ultrawide.
There’s also a 32MP camera on the front and the cameras are all support by an ongoing collaboration with optics specialists Zeiss, along with the company’s own V2 imaging chip; collectively enhancing the phone’s night photography and astrophotography skills, among other things.
Away from the cameras, the Vivo X90 Pro has a 6.78-inch 1260 x 2800 AMOLED screen with a 120Hz refresh rate, a 4,870mAh battery with speedy 120W charging (or 50W when wireless), a water resistant build, a MediaTek Dimensity 9200 chipset, a black vegan leather back, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage.
Those are all impressive specs, which could see this be a real alternative to the Samsung Galaxy S23, Galaxy S23 Plus, or potentially even the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, given the camera hardware here.
The Vivo’s chipset isn’t quite as good and the screen isn’t as high resolution as the S23 Ultra's, but those are about the only weak links on paper.
Of course, a lot will come down to price and we don’t know that yet, but for reference it costs MYR 4,999 in Malaysia, which converts to around $1,175 / £960 / AU$1,660, though as ever we wouldn’t expect the actual price in these regions to be an exact conversion.
We should know the price and release date soon though, as at the time of writing there’s a launch countdown timer on Vivo’s site, set to end at 6:30pm GMT / 10:30am PT / 1:30PM ET today (February 3), or at 5:30am AEDT on February 4.
Analysis: no sign of the Vivo X90 Pro Plus
The Vivo X90 Pro didn’t land alone in China – there was also a standard Vivo X90, which is set to hit other parts of Asia but currently nowhere else, and the Vivo X90 Pro Plus, which remains a China exclusive.
The standard Vivo X90 lacks the 1-inch camera sensor but is otherwise quite similar to the X90 Pro, while the Pro Plus uses a superior Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset and has a higher resolution QHD+ screen. It also sports a quad-lens camera, adding a 3.5x telephoto to the mix and replacing the 12MP ultrawide with a 48MP one.
So it’s a real shame this phone isn’t going global, as on paper that could easily rival the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and iPhone 14 Pro Max.
