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vivo X60 Pro Review — Mobile Photography Powered By ZEISS
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vivo X60 Pro Review — Mobile Photography Powered By ZEISS

by March 24, 2021
Overview
Highlights

vivo has partnered up with ZEISS with the imaging system on the vivo X60 Pro. Powered by a Snapdragon 870, the device comes with a triple 48MP camera setup, will it impress?

Warranty

1-year

Price

RM3,299

Positives

+ Not your usual packaging
+ Premium feel
+ Decent camera results
+ Macro mode was fun to shoot with
+ Stabilization system helps when taking shots
+ Battery life isn't bad even at 120Hz refresh rate

Negatives

- Price seems a bit high
- No 3.5mm port
- Bloatware
- 48MP mode makes colour seem off

Pokde Scoreboard
Pokde Rating
Appearance
7.8
Efficiency
8.0
Features
7.9
Materials
8.0
Performance
8.3
Portability
8.5
User Experience
8.2
Value
7.0
Bottom Line

With some slight refinement, the vivo X60 Pro would be a decent flagship offering to the market.

8.0
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It’s been quite some time since we’ve took a close look into a vivo smartphone. This time around, we’ll be taking a look at their brand new offering in this vivo X60 Pro review, featuring ZEISS optics. Will it impress us? Let’s get started with the review.

Unboxing

I usually skip out on the box / package of smartphone because there’s not much to go around, in terms of the unboxing experience. The vivo X60 Pro did surprise me when it comes to the packaging however as it does seem more premium than I initially thought it would be.

vivo X60 Review - Packaging

vivo X60 Review Packaging

Inside the box, you can expect the following to find the items:

  • vivo X60 Pro
  • Hard case
  • Charging brick
  • Documentation
  • SIM ejector (hidden behind documentation)
  • USB-C dongle
  • USB-C cable
  • Earphone
  • Extra ear tips

Appearance

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vivo X60 Review – Front

We can see here on the front that the vivo X60 Pro comes with curves at the sides. There’s a punch hole camera on middle-top area as shown above. The bezels on the sides are visible but I’d say that they are not alarmingly big, which is a good thing.

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vivo X60 Pro Review – Bottom

Moving over to the bottom, you can find the SIM tray, microphone, USB-C port, as well as the speaker.

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vivo X60 Review – Right

As is the case with most smartphone, you’ll be able to find the volume rockers and power button on the right side of the device. If you switch over the opposite side, it’s completely naked.

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vivo X60 Pro Review – Top

Heading over to the top, you can find the secondary microphone of the device. There’s a “Professional Photography” text here too which might not seem like a lot, but it’s a nice touch.

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vivo X60 Pro Review – Back

Flipping over to the back, we can see that the smartphone comes in an iridescent finish, which is pleasing to the eyes. The camera bump on the top left hosts its triple lens camera, accompanied by the ZEISS Vario-Tessar text. Of course, the vivo branding is also there towards the bottom half.

vivo X60 Pro Specifications

CPU: Snapdragon 870 Octa-core (1×3.2GHz Kryo 585 & 3×2.42GHz Kryo 585 & 4×1.80GHz Kryo 585) 7nm
GPU: Adreno 650
Memory: 12GB
Storage: 256GB UFS 3.1
Display: 6.56-inch FHD+ (2376 x 1080) AMOLED, 120Hz
Camera: 48MP f/1.48, PDAF, OIS
13MP f/2.46 portrait, PDAF, 2x optical zoom
13MP f/2.2 ultra-wide
ZEISS optics, HDR, Panorama, Night mode, 4K/30fps, 1080/30fps, Gyro-EIS
Selfie camera: 32MP f/2.45
Connectivity: LTE Band 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/18/19/20/26/28/32/38/39/40/41
5G Band n1/n3/n7/n28/n32
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Wi-Fi 6
Bluetooth 5.1
aptX HD
USB Type-C
Battery: Li-Po 4200mAh
33W fast charging (charger included)
Dimensions: 158.58 x 73.24 x 7.59mm
Weight: 179g

Performance

The vivo X60 Pro is the first Snapdragon 870 device that we’ve tested, which you may recall us previously dubbing it as the “Snapdragon 865 Plus Plus” as it’s offers slight improvements over the Snapdragon 865 and Snapdragon 865+.

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vivo X60 Pro Review – Antutu V8

Starting with Antutu’s benchmark, the score follows what we’ve mentioned earlier. Despite that, the overclocked ROG Phone 3 (in X Mode) ranks better with slightly higher score than the vivo X60 Pro.

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vivo X60 Pro Review – Geekbench 5

Over on Geekbench, the vivo X60 Pro scores decently in both single-core and multi-core tests. Despite scoring slightly lower on the former, the X60 Pro actually performs better than the Exynos 2100 on the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra when it comes to the multi-core performance.

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vivo X60 Pro Review – 3DMark

When it comes to graphical performance, we can see that the device is no slouch either, coming with decent scores when compared with the recent flagships that we’ve reviewed.

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vivo X60 Pro Review – PCMark Work 2.0

Despite the rest of the test, PCMark’s Work 2.0 benchmark for productivity sees the vivo X60 Pro dropping to the fourth spot in the list.

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vivo X60 Pro Review – PCMark Battery

Yes, you read that correctly, the device lasted 666 minutes on PCMark’s battery benchmark. With that side, you may find that the battery life is not that long. I find that it’s quite the score considering the battery capacity and the high 120Hz refresh rate that we set for the test.

For real-life usage, at the end of a day I would normally find myself left with around 55% to 65% while on 120Hz too. Of course, this depends on your usage but I would say that in my case, I use generally for social media apps such as Facebook, Messenger, Telegram, WhatsApp and watching videos on YouTube. You can also expect better battery life by turning the refresh rate down to 60Hz but then again, it would be a shame to stay away from the buttery smoothness of high refresh rates.

If you’re wondering how fast the 33W charger juices up the device, we got the vivo X60 Pro to go from 27% to 71% in 30 minutes, which is surprisingly slower than I expected it to be.

User Experience

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vivo X60 Pro Review – User Experience

First thing that I noticed about the device while holding it is its lightweight nature. This could be due to the fact that it packs a slightly smaller 4200mAh battery inside compared to recent smartphones that I’ve tested with bigger batteries. The curves give it premium feel and it does look like a solid build from vivo. I do however noticed that the edges on the side are a bit sharp and not as refined as we would have liked.

The display is a pleasure to watch videos on thanks to its AMOLED display, which also comes with 120Hz refresh rate. I do find punch-hole notch right in the middle to be a nuisance however as it gets irritating for me to see a hole that doesn’t blend in with the background. I would’ve preferred for the camera to be placed on the top corners instead.

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Unfortunately the smartphone comes with a single speaker and from my experience with it, you’d need to turn it up to at least 50% to get a decent multimedia experience. It would’ve been nice if they had offered dual speakers, given how more and more brands are opting for that now. Furthermore, it’s a shame that the device doesn’t offer a 3.5mm headphone jack. I know that they included a dongle for that purpose but hey, it’s always better to have a dedicated port for it.

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vivo X60 Pro Review – UI

The vivo X60 Pro runs on FuntouchOS 11.1 which is based on Android 11 and from my experience  it was quite snappy and smooth overall. It’s also helped by the fact that it uses 12GB of RAM, so there are no problems to open up several apps at once. I feel that the only issue that I have with the skin is that the bloatware that comes with it. While I understand how brands make money from this for entry-level or mid-range devices, but this is a flagship smartphone we’re talking about here.

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Switching to the camera UI, I had no issues with it whatsoever. It’s pretty straightforward and easy to use. If you are not satisfied with the preset modes on the main menu, you can customize them to your liking by heading to “More” and tapping the customize icon on the top right.

I was actually impressed with the camera performance of the vivo X60 Pro. One of the selling points of the devices is the ZEISS imaging system and shots turned out decent overall. I had fun with it, especially when it comes to macro shots as it had a working, and easy to use, auto focus.

The 48MP mode changes the tone of photos and personally I feel that normal shots are better to be honest. Thanks to the stabilization system on hand, I didn’t need to keep steady (too much) for capturing photos that would normally be ruined by moving a lot.

I’ve never been too fond of selfies but if this is your kind of thing, the front camera has several filters included for you to utilize. There’s even a “Makeup for men” option should you need it, for whatever reason.

You can check out the full-sized images by clicking the link right here.

Conclusion

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vivo X60 Pro Review – Verdict

All in all, the vivo X60 Pro was pretty fun to use and it feels premium. Despite that, some may argue that vivo is asking a lot for the device considering that it is priced at RM3,299. At that price, you’d definitely find other flagships that offer a higher-end Snapdragon 888 chip more attractive. Don’t get me wrong though as the Snapdragon 870 is still a powerful SoC, but I just feel that they should offer more for the price.

With that, I award the vivo X60 Pro our second best award, the Silver Pokdeward.

Pokde-Silver

Our thanks to vivo Malaysia for providing the vivo X60 Pro that was used in this review.

About The Author
Raja Idris
The name's King, Kingky King. Likes to keep it simple and straightforward. A person who games regardless of what platform. Need value for money performance? Get AMD.

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