vivo X80: Creating a multi-device collaboration experience that goes beyond the Apple ecosystem, a flagship imaging device

While many Android manufacturers regard taming dragons as the most important task for their new phones, Fa Ge (MediaTek) chose to step on a tube of toothpaste and burst it, shouting with strength: "I want to take back what I lost myself!"

Facing the strong rise of the Dimensity series chips, some netizens joked about the "small factory in Zhuhai": "MediaTek met the best Meizu, but Meizu did not meet the best MediaTek", which profoundly interpreted the sense of fate of "time and fate" for the technology circle. However, if we want to say who "met each other" with MediaTek at the best time, it may be the "blue factory" vivo.

At the peak period of new phone releases at the beginning of the year, vivo launched a "saturation" attack on the mobile phone market with a number of new flagships focusing on folding screens, business, and imaging, bringing a new air to the slightly dull mobile phone circle.

Among them, the most popular one is undoubtedly the official flagship X80 of the X series, which is marked by imaging and performance. With an affordable price starting at 3,699 yuan, a triple camera without any makeshift lenses, and the Dimensity 9000-vivo self-developed V1+ dual-core engine jointly developed with MediaTek, it has contributed a high-quality and cost-effective flagship with almost no shortcomings and many strengths to the severely homogenized mobile phone market.

After a long test, the vivo X80 mobile phone not only performed well in appearance and performance, but also won the industry's "kings" in its traditional strong point of imaging. What is even more surprising is that OriginOS provides a quantum suite at the system level to help mobile phones and computers collaborate, breaking the monopoly of Apple iOS-macOS, Huawei Hongmeng and others on the hardware ecosystem in the past, and creating a new cross-platform and cross-device collaboration form with an open mind, which can bring huge experience improvement for users who face computer monitors all year round.

So, is the vivo X80 the "dream phone" you are looking for? Let's find out.

The sky is round and the earth is square, the ultimate craftsmanship interprets the flagship design

Let’s start with the packaging. The vivo X80 uses a flat black cardboard box with the product logo marked in gold font in the middle, and a line of small words at the bottom "vivo|Zeiss joint research and development" indicates its identity as an imaging flagship.

The carton adopts an imitation leather texture design, which not only highlights the texture, but also echoes the design style of the plain leather back cover of the mobile phone itself.

After opening the package, what comes into view is the vivo X80 body placed with its back facing up. Above the square cloud-step design is a circular camera combination. The Zeiss LOGO and T* coating logo are also printed on the upper right. On the right side of the machine is a line of small gold-plated letters that read "Zeiss imaging, beyond what you see".

On the right is a vertical bar made of glossy black plastic, which forms a sharp contrast with the matte texture of the paper box. While improving the unboxing experience, it also reminds you that this is the handle to open the lower layer. The devil is in the details, and it is not difficult to see that vivo has carefully designed the unpacking experience.

In the package, in addition to the vivo X80 itself, there is also an 80W fast charger, a USB cable, a water bottle, and paper materials such as a warranty card and instruction manual including a card pin.

The vivo X80 is 164.95mm tall and 75.23mm wide. The thickness of the two colors, Black and Holiday, is 8.30mm and the weight is 206g. However, the Journey color has a leather back cover, so the body is thicker at 8.78mm and lighter at 203g. Of course, the 0.48mm thickness and 4g weight will not make a difference in actual use.

If I have to rank them, I personally think that the vivo X80 uses a curved screen and curved back cover design, and the sides of the body will narrow towards the middle, making it feel much thinner than it actually is, so the weight of 4 grams is more meaningful than the thickness of 0.48 mm. Although the leather back cover may have a certain impact on the heat dissipation of the phone, the Dimensity itself is good enough in controlling heat, and the orange color of the Journey looks younger and more recognizable, so I personally recommend the Journey version.

Equally recognizable is the lens module design of vivo X80. The concept of "square and round realm" draws on the concept of "round sky and square earth" in classical Chinese culture. This concept has long penetrated into all aspects in ancient fields such as coins, furniture, and garden design. Therefore, it is also particularly coordinated in the vivo X80 camera module.

The vivo X80 is equipped with a 6.78-inch AMOLED curved screen from Samsung with a resolution of 2400x1080. It uses the latest E5 luminous material, which has a 25% increase in brightness, 45% reduction in power consumption, and better viewing angle performance compared to the previous E4.

This screen supports 120Hz high refresh rate, and the color gamut coverage reaches 100% of DCI-P3. The local peak brightness can reach 1500nit, and the contrast ratio reaches 8 million:1. The color performance is firmly in the first echelon of the industry. The visual experience is on par with the iPhone, and the brightness is slightly better. It can display content clearly even in the dazzling sunlight in May.

When it comes to appearance, we have to mention the excellent workmanship of vivo X80. The connection between the back panel, the middle frame and the screen is very delicate. The transition of fingertips across the leather, metal and glass is extremely delicate, and there is no cutting feeling at all. We know that in today's hardware homogeneity, you may be able to buy most of the functions of a flagship phone at a 60% or 70% discount, but the workmanship and texture of the phone are still worth the price.

In addition, as we all know, I used to be a staunch supporter of straight screens, because most curved screens are flashy and have a high false touch rate, which greatly affects the use. However, in the process of using the vivo X80, I almost never had a false touch, which shows the optimization ability of vivo.

Of course, the impact on operation still exists, basically during the game process, for example, some buttons arranged on the top edge of the screen are sometimes not very responsive, I personally think it may be that the system thinks it is an accidental touch and blocks it. However, compared with the visual impact and refreshing touch feel brought by the curved screen, I personally think this is harmless.

There is one more "but" here. After putting on the official random clear water cover, the excellent transition feel of the body is completely covered, and the side sliding gesture will also be affected to a certain extent. Users who care about this can choose to buy a half-covered protective case with hollow sides, or just run naked, and the feel will be significantly improved.

Extraordinary performance, combined with deep tuning to bring the ultimate experience

In terms of hardware, the most talked-about thing is undoubtedly the Dimensity 9000 processor chip used in vivo X80. With the support of TSMC's 4nm process technology, vivo has surpassed Qualcomm Snapdragon chips. While competitors are scratching their heads to tame the fire dragon, the Dimensity chip achieves stronger performance while consuming less power. The advantage in energy efficiency also takes the battery life of the phone to a new level.

There are already many similar reviews on the Internet. A simple summary is that the Dimensity 9000 has performance that surpasses Qualcomm Snapdragon 8Gen1, and has even lower power consumption, making it the most powerful Android chip. If you don’t consider advertising laws, you can remove the “one of”.

Of course, even without taming dragons, the optimization and tuning of the new chip is also very important. The change of platform will bring huge challenges to the adaptation of software and hardware. Several previous mobile phones equipped with Dimensity 8100 and Dimensity 9000 chips also had problems with insufficient camera optimization, and some software including Bilibili had abnormal heating and power consumption.

As the third new phone equipped with the new Dimensity processor, vivo X80 is bound to make people worry about it.

The good news comes from the vivo development team, who got involved in the development of Dimensity 9000 at the beginning. Both parties invested more than 100 elite development teams. After nearly a year of cooperative research and development, they developed a dual-core system of Dimensity 9000 and vivo's self-developed V1+, which opened up the software channel architecture of the two chips from the bottom layer, achieved close collaboration at the software and hardware levels, and greatly improved the game, imaging, and video capabilities of the device. vivo's optimization of this powerful new processor also makes people completely relieved.

In the AnTuTu running score, the vivo X80 scored a high score of 1003398, firmly ranking in the first tier among Android flagship models.

In actual daily use, there is basically no application that can exhaust the processor performance of vivo X80. In each application and interface, vivo X80 can run smoothly, and the 120Hz high refresh rate does not bring any pressure.

Vivo X80 supports 120Hz high frame rate for Honor of Kings, and the highest quality game is smooth as silk throughout the whole process. At the same time, the CPU system occupancy rate is only 29%, the temperature is only 37℃, and the body temperature is even lower, just warm. The high energy consumption ratio is matched with the 4500mAh large-capacity battery. A 15-minute game of Honor of Kings consumes about 5% of the power, so you don't have to worry about battery life when playing games on a daily basis.

The excellent performance in gaming scenarios is closely related to the dual chips mentioned above. When running high-frame-rate games such as "Honor of Kings", vivo X80's black technology GPU Fusion will intervene and work together with the GPU to complete the game's screen rendering by linking multiple internal and external processors. It can effectively deal with the problem of overheating and frequency reduction, allowing the phone to run games with high picture quality and high frame rate while reducing power consumption.

Bilibili also conducted a test on its competitor Dimensity 9000 models, which consumed abnormally much power. At medium brightness and medium volume, playing "Your Name" in 4K highest quality in a WiFi environment, with barrage turned on, the entire movie lasted 1 hour and 46 minutes, and only consumed 18% of the power after the playback was completed.

At a time when battery technology is at a bottleneck, fast charging is undoubtedly an important means to solve the problem of smartphone battery life. The vivo X80 comes standard with an 80W charger. After actual testing, it only takes 36 minutes to charge from 0 to 100%, of which 24% can be charged in the first 5 minutes, 50% in just 12 minutes, and 80% in 22 minutes.

That is to say, for the vivo X80, charging for five minutes allows you to watch movies for two hours. Even if you forget to plug in the charging cable when you go to bed, you can connect the vivo X80 to the charger after getting up in the morning and wash up, and you can basically go out with a full charge. This experience can subvert the charging habits of many users who have not experienced fast charging.

Using both software and hardware to break down barriers to multi-device collaboration  

In the mobile phone industry where hardware homogeneity is extremely high, the deeply customized Android system can often become the biggest moat for each brand.

Among many players, vivo has always been popular among users for its emphasis on practical experience. Last year, the original system OriginOS Ocean was released. Its stability, purity, strong customization, and the addition of various atomic components make vivo phones unique in the market in terms of appearance and function.

Starting from the desktop, vivo X80's OriginOS provides a lot of customization options. From icon size, style to page turning animation, different degrees of adjustment can be made, becoming a stage to show personality, but the system as a whole presents a futuristic design with bright colors and simple style, which is extremely eye-catching.

Atomic components provide a window that presents more information and functions on the desktop. Functions such as information push and music playback can be completed on the system desktop without entering the software, reducing the operation level and further improving operational efficiency.

For users who value the privacy of their own information, OriginOS's atomic privacy system is a magical tool.

The entrance to the system is located on the right side of the application bar at the bottom of the desktop. After swiping left on the Dock bar, you can find a very hidden entrance. The system icon is a small lock. After fingerprint verification or password verification, the lock opens into the shape of a USB flash drive, and the deformation animation is also very delicate.

In order to improve security, when the user is using this system, the system will also identify the owner of the device at an appropriate time. Once it is discovered that the operator is not the owner, the phone will prohibit all subsequent operations, fully protecting user privacy.

Users can store pictures, videos and other files in the atomic privacy system of vivo X80, and can also migrate the main system's applications to the privacy system to realize multiple opening of applications. Users can save private files and account contents to the atomic privacy system without worrying about being spied on by others. At a time when mobile phones are taking on more and more roles, this privacy protection function is very necessary.

Regarding the new features of OriginOS, I personally think the most revolutionary one is the Quantum Kit.

Apple has been able to top the list of mobile phone brand user loyalty for many consecutive years, and the hardware ecosystem built by Apple has played an indispensable role. I believe that everyone has at least one friend who is deeply bound by the Apple ecosystem. When you ask them why they insist on using iPhone, Airdrop, Handoff and other hardware collaboration functions have become the reasons why they are reluctant to change their phones.

The Android camp has previously successfully learned the essence of Apple from Huawei, and the multi-screen interaction function between Huawei mobile phones, tablets, and computers has also attracted a lot of fans. However, Huawei has also confined multi-device collaboration to its own product ecosystem.

The Quantum Suite is a powerful tool to break this situation. It not only provides excellent cross-platform collaboration capabilities, but is also not limited to any brand and is open to all Windows and macOS devices.

The layout of vivo's quantum suite computer client is very simple, with four tabs on the left sidebar: "Atomic Notes", "Calendar", "Atomic Reading" and "Album".

"Atomic Notes" has transplanted all the functions of the mobile terminal, and can synchronize the note content under the same vivo account. After synchronization, users can continue to edit the note, select text style, add patterns, add dividing lines, tables, doodles, etc. The overall experience is much better than using iCloud's memo experience.

"Calendar", "Atomic Reading" and "Photo Album" also provide synchronization functions with mobile phone applications, but the most attractive feature of the Quantum Suite is the multi-screen collaboration function in the lower left corner. The vivo X80 in the same network can be linked with just one click to project the mobile phone screen on the computer screen.

Nowadays, the content of many applications is richer than that of computer web pages. Mobile phones have long become the main content consumption terminal for most users. However, when sitting in front of the computer, they still want to use the big screen to appreciate the content, or browse web pages and pictures. At this time, it is necessary to project the screen from the mobile phone to the computer.

Of course, the screen projection of vivo X80 is not a simple airplay, but can be controlled. For example, we can use the mouse to slide the mobile phone interface on the computer screen, and we can also use the computer keyboard to input text in the mobile phone input box, which greatly improves efficiency and can also find a large number of practical scenarios.

In addition to conventional operations, users can use the Quantum Suite to transfer files between the computer and the mobile phone by dragging, which is much more intuitive and convenient than in the past. And when opening files in the mobile phone file manager in the screen projection state, the system will directly call the application resources of the PC. For example, when opening a document, you will select software such as Word and Excel; when opening a picture or video, the default software will be selected for playback, and the system linkage is extremely complete.

Through the Quantum Kit, vivo X80 can even achieve multi-device collaboration functions that surpass the Apple and Huawei ecosystems. For those users who complain that they are bound by the brand ecosystem, it is undoubtedly an additional choice. I believe that many consumers will choose vivo X80 because of OriginOS and the Quantum Kit.

Beyond what you see, the imaging system is fully upgraded

Okay, we finally come to the highlight of today, which is the imaging capabilities of vivo X80.

The rear triple-camera solution adopted by vivo X80 includes a 50MP Sony IMX866 RGBW main camera with OIS optical image stabilization, a 12MP IMX663 sensor ultra-wide-angle lens, and a 12MP IMX663 sensor portrait lens.

It is not difficult to see from the specifications of the three cameras that vivo X80 is very sincere about imaging. With Zeiss T* coating and Zeiss Natural Color 2.0, the boundaries of mobile phone imaging are further broadened, making people look forward to the final film effect.

First, let’s look at the well-lit daytime scene. The vivo X80 main camera performs very well. The large aperture and large bottom provide excellent imaging performance and success rate. The overall imaging style is not overly strenuous, and the color reproduction is accurate.

The left side is iPhone 12 Pro Max, the right side is vivo X80, the same below

Compared with the darker imaging of the iPhone, the vivo X80 has brighter colors and a bluer sky. While it is pleasing to the eye, it does not use oversaturated tones to make the photos look fake at first glance.

This photo also shows the vivo X80, with more pleasing colors and richer details.

In the portrait mode comparison, the blur effect of the vivo X80 is much more delicate, while the iPhone has obvious mistakes in the hair and gestures. The color of the iPhone is also more dull, the black top is gray, and the skin color is not as transparent and rosy as the vivo X80.

For still lifes shot in portrait mode, both can successfully identify the distance relationship without any obvious mistakes. However, the iPhone captured the tender green leaves in May with an autumn feel, while the vivo X80 is closer to the actual look and feel.

In the night scene sample, the iPhone does not suppress the highlights enough, the details in the lights are lost, and the dark details of the river are also lost. In comparison, the advantages of the vivo X80 main camera with a large aperture and a large bottom are fully demonstrated, and the details of the bright and dark parts are preserved.

The same problem, in the photo taken by iPhone, the facial details of the doll under the light have disappeared, and the details of the tree shadows behind it are not captured, which shows the difference. However, the photo taken by vivo X80 has a reddish tendency, and the white balance is not as accurate as that of iPhone.

This is a very devilish scene for the iPhone, with ghosts floating in the sky. The vivo X80, which uses a low-reflectivity T* coating, still produces very pure photos. In addition, the iPhone's highlight suppression is weak, causing the lanterns to turn yellow, while the vivo X80 restores the festive red lights.

The ghosting problem of iPhone still exists, and the dark details are still far better than those of vivo X80.

For the ultra-wide-angle lens, both phones handle distortion equally well, but the iPhone’s low tolerance problem is clearly exposed, and the bright streets appear dark in the photo.

In the photos taken by the iPhone, the part of the city wall decorated with colorful lights appeared overexposed, and a large area of ​​details was lost. The performance of vivo X80 was much better, but the problem of reddish picture appeared again.

Ghost, ghost, and more ghost. The ghost problem of iPhone photos seriously affects the success rate. The photos taken in such complex lighting scenes are almost unusable. On the contrary, the vivo X80 is still pure, and the highlights are suppressed better, and more details in the dark areas are retained.

In the backlit front-camera portrait, the iPhone suppresses the background light better, but the skin of the face is darker and a bit zombie-like, not as transparent as the vivo X80. And the 32-megapixel advantage of the vivo X80 is obvious, showing the details of the hair and pores.

The iPhone's advantage in video recording is also being caught up by the Android camp. The vivo X80 is no less than the iPhone in terms of picture smoothness and image tolerance, and its anti-shake performance is better than the iPhone.

In low light, anyone would fail under my Parkinson's test. But I have to say that the iPhone's CMOS image stabilization is better, and the color performance is also better, with the green grass and red lanterns restored well.

It is also worth mentioning that the vivo X80 series has added Zeiss Cinematic-style blur on the basis of the built-in Zeiss four portrait-style lens packages, creating a portrait shooting effect with a strong movie style with a unique elliptical blur spot and a 2.39:1 shooting frame. In the video, it can also intelligently identify the subject through calculation and simulate the background blur effect of a large aperture. The shooting effect is close to that of SLR and video recorders.

When you think about the fact that a group of famous directors recently had to rely on various external lenses to achieve similar effects when shooting commercials with iPhones, you can't help but marvel at the rapid progress of computational optics. For ordinary creators, an imaging flagship like vivo X80 can completely replace professional equipment, greatly lowering the threshold for the video creation industry.

Before the release of vivo X80, many netizens were worried that the Dimensity 9000 series lacked running-in and optimization for the imaging system, and that in the short term, new phones equipped with Dimensity chips would likely be significantly inferior to flagship phones using Qualcomm chips in terms of imaging performance. Facts have proved that vivo's route of sending a research and development team to jointly develop with MediaTek was right, and the huge R&D investment allowed the chip to show amazing imaging quality on its third new phone. It can be said that vivo X80 and Dimensity 9000 have met the best of each other at the same time.

Summarize

To sum up, with the support of Dimensity 9000, vivo X80 has firmly entered the first echelon of Android performance, once again pushing the level of imaging flagship to a higher level. At the same time, it also broke the ecological barriers erected by brands such as Apple and Huawei in the field of multi-device collaboration. It is fully capable of becoming the "dream phone" that young people deserve most in 2022.

Especially considering its starting price of 3,699 yuan, it is no exaggeration to say that the vivo X80 is the most worthwhile imaging flagship phone to buy in 2022. Although the product reviewed this time is not the X80 Pro, judging from the experience of gaming and taking photos, the X80 is powerful enough and "Pro" enough in terms of performance and imaging.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.