After a China launch in April and an India launch in May, the Vivo X80 Pro is now available in the UK – but will cost you £1,199 (about $1,430 / AU$2,100), making it slightly more expensive than the base model of the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra.
This phone starts at $1,199.99 / £1,149 / AU$1,849, so the Vivo costs £50 more. However, you get 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage with the Vivo X80 Pro for that money, which would set you back $1,299.99 / £1,249 / AU$1,999 in the equivalent S22 Ultra.
Like the Vivo X80 Pro it’s £50 cheaper, but whichever way you look at it, this is a very expensive phone and from a company that – in the UK at least – has a lot less brand appeal than Samsung.
Vivo doesn’t generally sell its phones in the US, so don’t expect a launch there, but we could see it landing in Australia in the near future.
You are certainly getting a lot of phone for the money, because in addition to RAM and storage, the Vivo X80 Pro has a 6.78-inch 1440 x 3200 AMOLED screen with a 120 Hz refresh rate, a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset, an IP68 rating -Rating for dust and water resistance, a 4,700 mAh battery, and both 80W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The camera is a quad lens developed jointly with camera lens brand Zeiss. These include a 50 MP f/1.6 main sensor, a 48 MP f/2.2 ultra wide-angle sensor, a 12 MP f/1.9 telephoto sensor (with 2x optical zoom) and an 8 MP f/3.4 periscope sensor (with 5x optical zoom).
There’s also a 32-megapixel front camera, an under-display fingerprint sensor, and an expensive-looking design.
Analysis: How does that compare to the Galaxy S22 Ultra?
Given the similar price, you might be wondering whether to buy the Vivo X80 Pro or the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. We can’t answer that definitively until we review the Vivo X80 Pro, but we can compare the specs.
On that front the Vivo has an edge in a few areas, with a slightly faster chipset than the UK version of the S22 Ultra (though the same as US models) and faster charging whether wired or wireless.
However, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra lacks the S Pen stylus, its battery is slightly smaller and its camera can’t zoom as far, with the Galaxy S22 Ultra offering 3x and 10x optical zoom.
In most other cases, the two phones sound pretty similar on paper, so the Vivo X80 Pro actually stacks up pretty well. If the cameras are delivering, you don’t need 10x zoom and you can live without a stylus, it might be worth considering.
But at such similar prices, the average buyer is unlikely to do a double take when faced with a choice between a relatively little-known brand or a big name like Samsung. That’s a shame as the spec list gives this a chance to be one of the best camera phones and maybe even one of the best smartphones.