I tested the latest compact flagships, and the gap with big phones has nearly vanished

The Vivo X300

Vivo was bold enough to openly describe the Vivo X300 as its “mini Pro,” though it’s a bit odd they didn’t actually give it that name. Still, the label makes sense. Once you compare it with the X300 Pro, the similarities are striking.

Both use the cutting-edge 3 nm Dimensity 9500, the same silky software experience, the same fingerprint scanner, and the same premium display. The X300 even has charging speeds that you would only expect from a Pro-level phone: 90 W wired, 40 W wireless. If I was not familiar with the phone and someone handed it to me and told me it was the Pro, I would believe them.

The differences are mostly limited to the camera system. The zoom on the Pro is more capable, the main and telephoto sensors are larger, and the Shortcut Button (which we found genuinely useful) lives only on the Pro model. But the core experience of the mini Pro stays nearly identical, and the smaller size makes it a better daily driver for many people.

Google jumped on the “mini Pro” wagon and didn’t look back

Google’s been on a similar path since it released the Pixel 9 Pro last year. The company continued with the same approach in 2025 and gave us the Pixel 10 Pro. Both phones perfectly fit into the “Pro mini” genre, rocking a comfortable 6.3-inch size, still great battery life, and absolutely no other downgrades.

If you don’t like carrying a huge phone, Google doesn’t punish you for it. In fact, similarly to Apple, you can get a very similar experience even if you go for the regular Pixel 10, all while saving more of your money.

Samsung is halfway there

And then we have Samsung, which takes a slightly different path. The Galaxy S25 is arguably the best compact flagship out there. With the Snapdragon 8 Elite, 12 GB RAM, and a fantastic 6.2-inch display, it is a true “Pro mini”.

But Samsung still walls it off from the Plus and the Ultra in some ways. For example, you only get 25W of wired charging, and you don’t get the Gorilla Armor anti-reflective coating. Also, you don’t have the extra reach from the 5x telephoto camera and the S Pen, but those I can understand, as they are highly dependent on the available space inside the phone.

However, based on pure performance, it is excellent. The user experience is absolutely flagship level, and I commend Samsung for packing so much high-end hardware in such a compact, lightweight phone.

What you still give up when you go small

Despite all the progress, going compact isn’t entirely compromise-free. Just… the compromises are smaller than ever.

Battery

Physics still wins. Smaller phones hold less battery. The iPhone 17 Pro, Pixel 10 Pro, and Vivo X300 all last a full day, but they won’t out-stamina their larger counterparts unless you’re extremely light on usage.

Zoom reach

Compact phones rarely get the wild 4x–10x–100x systems found on Ultra/Pro Max models. The iPhone 17 Pro moves to a very useful 4x, but you still lose the 5x or 10x extremes. Vivo X300 loses some of the zoom flexibility of the X300 Pro.

Thermals and sustained performance

The new vapor chamber on the iPhone 17 Pro helps a lot, but big phones still disperse heat more efficiently. Sustained GPU loads still favor the larger models.

Some audio quality

Small phones sound very good now — iPhone 17 is genuinely impressive — but the biggest ones still push more air and deliver more body.

An era of equality

The key difference today is that none of the compromises mentioned above take away from the flagship feel. The truth is that performance, displays, and cameras plateaued at such a high level that brands can finally afford to offer their best tech in more than one size.

And with AI slowly turning into the main selling point, companies can’t afford to ship weaker chips in their smaller models. Gemini, Apple Intelligence, and Galaxy AI don’t scale well across mismatched silicon.

We are finally living in a time when picking the smaller flagship doesn’t feel like a compromise, and that’s true no matter the brand you go for. Even if it is the Pixel 10, iPhone 17, Galaxy S25, or Vivo X300.