We found 2025’s best camera phone: Here’s the proof

If you take a quick look at the Vivo X300 Pro vs Vivo X200 Ultra specs, you'll notice that the camera systems are very similar.

There’s a 50-megapixel main camera with a large 1/1.28-inch sensor, a 50-megapixel ultra-wide, and a 200-megapixel telephoto camera with periscope zoom. Each of them has Zeiss T* coatings applied for better light transmission and reduced flaring.

Vivo has also introduced a new Vivo Imaging Chip VS1, which handles the heavy lifting for color processing, tone mapping, and multi-frame HDR.

The result is solid consistency throughout the whole zoom range. You can jump from 1x to 10x to 100x and the images still look like they come from the same camera, with almost identical colors and processing.

The best focal range in the world?

The X300 Pro’s periscope camera might just be its biggest bragging right.

At 3.5x, images remain sharp and true-to-life; free from the overprocessed digital grit that often plagues telephoto cameras. But it’s the 10x images that really struck us as impressive: super crisp, rich in detail, with natural colors and balanced contrast. Even better, the phone keeps the viewfinder stable enough at 10x to let you frame your shot precisely. Even the 100x hybrid zoom is surprisingly usable for reading street signs or capturing details from great distances.

The external Zeiss telephoto converter makes things even more wild, though. The reach extends to a staggering 5400mm equivalent, and it is hard to even comprehend the amount of distance you can close with such magnification. In one of the samples above, you can literally make out light fixtures inside a window from across the river. It’s absurd, but also thrilling: a reminder of what mobile photography can become when manufacturers dare to experiment.

Now, of course, there are third-party camera accessories for the iPhone and Galaxy flagships, but the Vivo X300 Pro Photographer Kit shows what can be achieved when a company designs its own ecosystem of camera tools.

Outstanding low light performance that doesn't look fake

Take the shot of the pastel feather tree. Every tuft of color is rendered delicately. You can see both the cool lavenders and the warm yellows, without the whole image turning into a hot neon mess. The exposure balance is perfect too — it's bright enough to show texture, and dark enough to preserve the nightly atmosphere.

Even in more complex scenes, the X300 Pro avoids over-brightening the shadows or flattening the highlights. The phone’s multi-frame HDR stacking and Zeiss color science seem to work hand in hand to create a more filmic look. If we had to put into a few words: the Vivo X300 Pro captures reality beautifully.

The Portrait Mode

Vivo’s Portrait Mode mostly feels quite authentic. Our sample portrait has lifelike skin tones, detail in the beard, and a beautifully soft bokeh that melts away cleanly, without edge artifacts.

That said, it still lacks a natural depth transition. The background blur is uniform, while the areas closer to the subject should gradually retain more focus, with the blur increasing as the distance grows. So, this is one area where Vivo can certainly improve. The good news is that it can easily be done via software updates.

The image pipeline

Behind all these results is a smart mix of software and hardware. The MediaTek Dimensity 9500 chip provides the raw power, while the new VS1 imaging processor focuses purely on photography. It speeds up capture times, reduces motion blur, and helps the camera handle multiple exposures with impressive precision.

Vivo calls its image engine BlueImage, and this generation feels faster and more deliberate than before. Shots appear almost instantly after pressing the shutter, and previews now closely match the final output — a small but vital improvement for anyone who regularly shoots on their phone.

It feels like a real camera

The Vivo X300 Pro feels like a phone that trusts its optics, its processing and, most importantly, its user. There’s something refreshingly analog about it. It’s precise, balanced, and deeply satisfying to shoot with. If you’re a photographer, you’ll appreciate that immediately.

Vivo treated last year’s X200 Ultra as a playground for experimental camera tech, and the X300 Pro feels like the polished result of the lessons the company has learned from that generation. It’s so capable and rewarding to use that it simply makes you want to keep shooting.

We can’t wait to put it through our full camera tests in the review, so stay tuned for the official results and detailed comparisons against its rivals from Apple, Samsung, and Google.