Vivo X500 Pro Max review: holy camera!
The Vivo X500 Pro Max beat the camera game and is now starting on New Game+, with a brand-new Sony sensor!
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Another great camera phone | Image by PhoneArena
Summary: should you buy the Vivo X500 Pro Max?
A photographer's phone through and through. Is there AI playing in the background? Absolutely. Will your subjects wow every time you show them that portrait photo you took of them? Also yes. And now that Vivo has set its sights on video and advanced manual modes, this phone offers a lot — a lot of tools to learn and play with.
Last year's Vivo X300 Pro basically ruined phone cameras for me, the X300 Ultra showed that there's still room for improvement... somehow. The Vivo X500 Pro Max takes things further and fully treats mobile photography as a "serious" thing. On-device LUTs, granular controls, bokeh that looks much too real, all thanks to Zeiss optics that give it a good jumping-off point.
There are a couple of things to keep in mind. It comes with a MediaTek processor instead of the mainstream Qualcomm chip. Then again, it's still more powerful than Google's Tensor G6, which hums inside the expensive Pixel 11 Pro XL. And of course, there's the Vivo software on top of Android. Though, after testing, I find it to be more useful and less bloaty than one might fear.
So, the Vivo X500 Pro Max is now available internationally. No, not in the USA — you can import one, sure, but double-check those supported bands with your carrier's specs.
I've used the Chinese version of the Vivo X500 Pro Max for a good month now, but this review started and benchmarks were performed when we received the international model in the office. Just to make sure that we are testing the device that you are going to get in your hands.
That said, you will see some samples from my trip to China because they are just too good to not share, plus my overall sentiment and experience with the software and performance doesn't really differ based on the regional model.
Table of Contents:
Vivo X500 Pro Max Specs
Let's start with an overview of the Vivo X500 Pro Max specs:
|
| vivo X500 Pro Max |
| Dimensions |
|---|
| 163.3 x 76.8 x 8.1 mm |
| Weight |
| 225.0 g |
| Size |
|---|
| 6.8-inch |
| Type |
| AMOLED, 144Hz |
| System chip |
|---|
| MediaTek Dimensity 9600 Pro (2 nm) |
| Memory |
| 12GB (LPDDR5X)/256GB (UFS 4.1) 12GB/512GB 16GB/512GB 12GB/1TB 16GB/1TB |
| Type |
|---|
| 8000 mAh |
| Charge speed |
| Wired: 90.0W Wireless: 40.0W |
| Main camera |
|---|
| 50 MP (LOFIC sensor, OIS, Laser and PDAF) Sensor name: Sony LYT-L910 Aperture size: F1.6 Focal length: 24 mm Sensor size: 1/1.28" |
| Second camera |
| 50 MP (Ultra-wide, Autofocus) Sensor name: Samsung ISOCELL JN5 Aperture size: F2.0 Focal Length: 15 mm Sensor size: 1/2.75" |
| Third camera |
| 200 MP (Telephoto, Periscope, OIS, PDAF) Sensor name: Samsung ISOCELL HP9 Optical zoom: 3.5x Aperture size: F2.7 Focal Length: 85 mm Sensor size: 1/1.4" Pixel size: 0.56 μm |
| Front |
| 50 MP |
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Vivo X500 Pro Max Design and Display
As pretty as before
Understated, but very advanced on the inside | Image by PhoneArena
The Vivo X500 Pro Max looks and feels very familiar with its shape matching the footprint of an iPhone 18 Pro Max, for example. This includes an Action Button on the left side that can be programmed to do not one but two different things. You can choose what it does for a long-press and a double-press. Take note, Apple.
Of course, the back side proudly displays a huge, circular camera module. Vivo is quite proud of that shape and design and takes note of it every time it launches a new flagship series. It's meant to achieve a few things — functionally, it gives them enough room for the advanced camera system and optics below; visually, it's a signature look, and it also kind of makes the phone look more like a camera.
The screen looks and feels fantastic. Vivo puts a lot of features tailored for eye care here. Yes, you have the blue light filter that everybody does, but also custom auto-brightness calibration based on your contrast sensitivity (after a test), a choice between DC or PWM dimming, each calibrated to not wash out at low values, and various color profiles for every taste.
This year, the panel can hit up to 144 Hz refresh rate, but honestly that's overkill. 120 Hz seems to be the point where we hit diminishing returns here, at least as far as smartphone screens and their application are concerned.
For biometrics, we do have an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner under the display glass, and it's pretty quick and accurate. Tap-and-go is the name of the game here. Yes, you can also register a face unlock with the selfie camera, and it is also incredibly fast. However, normal 2D face unlock is not super secure, so I prefer not to use it.
Vivo X500 Pro Max Camera
Somehow, it got even better
Sweet optics | Image by PhoneArena
The Vivo X500 Pro Max hits the best score in our main camera and zoom camera test yet. And for good reason. It uses a new sensor under its main lens — the Sony Lytia L910.
It's a new high-tech marvel, which bakes exposure tolerance into the individual pixels, allowing you to shoot higher dynamic scenes before the phone even reaches for HDR or other software tricks. And it does not disappoint, as the scores show.
As for those zoom results... That's because Vivo puts a 200 MP sensor under its 3.5x telephoto lens. Yeah, it does put a lot of emphasis on that zoom resolution. And I found myself taking a lot of zoomed-in shots with this phone without even thinking about it.
Images by PhoneArena
Images by PhoneArena
Images by PhoneArena
Images by PhoneArena
Images by PhoneArena
Images by PhoneArena
Images by PhoneArena
Images by PhoneArena
Images by PhoneArena
I do have to emphasize that the Vivo camera has a lot of pre-made filters to pick from. Yes, kind of like the iPhone's Photographic Styles. And like them, you can adjust a Vivo style by swiping a dot over a grid that controls Tone and Saturation. Or, you can go into the advanced settings and really customize a filter, and save it as a favorite.
So, by default, the Vivo X500 Pro Max takes contrasty, colorful photos. Of course, you can change that to your liking. What's important is that its details are pretty sharp and you can catch the digital oversharpening only in zoom shots. And its depth-of-field looks very... real camera-like. Which opens it up for fantastic Portrait Mode shots or street photography setups.
The full Photography Kit | Image by PhoneArena
And yes, we have the Photography Kit. Here's how the telephoto extender lenses fare:
Vivo X500 Pro Max Performance & Benchmarks
MediaTek's newest powerhouse
It's main job isn't to be a powerhouse, yet it is | Image by PhoneArena
Vivo has a very tight partnership with MediaTek. The silicon-swinger even co-develops its flagship processors with Vivo's input — the V3+ imaging chip for post-processing is made by Vivo, but incorporated in the MediaTek Dimensity 9600 Pro.
So, with the processor and phone supposedly tuned to play nice together, these are the scores they managed to pull off:
CPU Performance Benchmarks:
And yeah, when we look at the numbers, we are not very surprised. The Dimensity 9600 Pro lags slightly behind the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 that powers the Galaxy S26 Ultra. But it's well ahead of something like Google's flagship Tensor G6 in the Pixel 11 Pro XL. Oops on that one!
It's also clear that this MediaTek chip wasn't made for heavy AI tasks, at least not as much as the competitors were.
GPU Performance
It's notable that the Vivo X500 Pro Max scores slightly higher on the more modern Steel Nomad test, when compared to the Galaxy S26 Ultra. But it's also notable that the iPhone's A20 Pro is leagues ahead this year.
The same can be observed on the Solar Bay test, which is dedicated to torturing devices with Ray Tracing calculations.
The Vivo X500 Pro Max comes in quite a few storage tiers — from 256 GB to 512 GB and 1 TB (limited markets). All options come with 12 GB of RAM, though. In any case, it's UFS 4.1 storage for blazing-fast speeds.
Vivo X500 Pro Max Software
The Vivo X500 series launches wih Android 17 out of the box, heavily re-skinned with the proprietary OriginOS 7 UI.
I like Origin — it adds nice features like a persistent clipboard, easy gestures for multi-tasking, a hint of glass-ified UI elements and the likes. The Shortcut Button menu is still a 1:1 copy of the iPhone's Action Button, but at least it allows you to bind two functions to the hardware key, not just one.
There's also Vivo Share, which lets you share with another Vivo phone or - gasp - an iPhone by just touching the two devices together. OK, granted, they will be prompted to install the EasyShare app first.
The software does teeter on the edge of being a bit too bloat-y, and may even go over that line depending on which market you are buying in. Thankfully, it's more reserved with the pre-installed apps and spammy notifications in the Europe region.
There are also many, many wallpapers and effects you can apply to them — from the clock hiding behind the subject of your photo, to a jelly wiggle effect that's new with OriginOS 7. But the customization menu is clunky and pretty badly translated, which is a common theme around some of the more obscure OriginOS corners and settings. Kind of to be expected, sure... but also kind of a letdown on a phone that costs well north of €1,500.
Vivo X500 Pro Max Battery
Embracing the Silicon-Carbon upgrades
The X500 Pro Max comes with a massive 7,800 mAh battery, which sounds pretty surreal considering it's not thicker or bigger than any other flagship out there. This is, of course, thanks to the silicon-carbon tech that's used to improve battery capacities nowadays.
However, while the battery sounds super-impressive on paper, it doesn't really give us massive endurance. Don't get me wrong, I can comfortably get a full day's use out of the Vivo X500 Pro Max with zero worries. But a 7,800 mAh cell should easily give you two days, and push into the third, right? Well, not so much here.
The phone does charge quite quickly. 90 W on the wire with the appropriate charger, or 40 W wirelessly if you have the Vivo-branded FlashCharge puck. Qi chargers are supported, of course, but it doesn't have the protocols for Qi2 15 W charging.
Vivo X500 Pro Max Audio Quality and Haptics
Nice stereo | Image by PhoneArena
The Vivo X500 Pro Max's stereo speakers don't disappoint. They are not the loudest or deepest I've heard, but definitely well-balanced. Bass is audible, the mids have some detail in them without being boxy, the highs are not screechy. Well, at least as far as the small form factor allows them to not be. In general, you can listen to YouTube videos or have some light background music going through these speakers.
The haptics are also very pleasing and accurate. Though, I feel like this is something I say for every Android flagship nowadays, it's still worth noting. Especially on this phone that wants you to look at it like it's a camera and vibrates with every toggle, swipe, and shutter press in the camera UI.
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