Vivo X60 Pro Review (India) : With all the powerful specifications you are getting amazing cameras!!

Great performance and cameras packaged in one form!!

Vivo brings many new innovations to the smartphone market as we have seen in the past whether it is the full-screen display with a pop-up camera or an in-display fingerprint scanner and a great set of cameras as last year we saw with the Vivo X50 Pro (Review) as it was the first smartphone to implement gimbal stabilization.

 This year the same continues on the newer Vivo X60 series which consists of three smartphones that include the Vivo X60, Vivo X60 Pro, and the Vivo X60 Pro Plus. Here only the Vivo X60 Pro and the Vivo X60 Pro Plus get the gimbal stabilization. However, the Vivo X50 Pro launched last year had everything good about it except for the weaker chipset which was not enough for Rs.50000 in India.

Now the newer Vivo X60 Pro packs in some internals that look like a true upgrade over the Vivo X50 Pro as now there is now a 120Hz AMOLED display, a powerful Snapdragon 870 chipset, some improvements in cameras, and much more. Can Vivo X60 Pro fill the gap where the Vivo X50 Pro left and is it worth the upgrade while the price remaining the same? Let's find out in the full review.

Vivo X60 Pro Design:

The Vivo X60 Pro looks almost similar to last year's Vivo X50 Pro and the Vivo V20 Pro (Review) with a frosted matte-finish at the back and is curved on both sides and the same goes for the display. Vivo likes to call this AG Glass finish which makes it resistant from fingerprints and smudges and also provides good grip. Actually, the back is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 6.

The Vivo X60 Pro is available in two colors - Shimmer Blue and the Midnight Black. The Shimmer Blue that is seen above has a nice hue of colors and changes colors to blue or pink or magenta when you hold it at different angles. The Midnight Black has a slight hue and the back of it shines also. The satin finish at the rear looks really good and Vivo has done a good job here.

The camera module is rectangular as it houses three cameras with the primary camera on top and just below it lies the ultrawide and the telephoto camera with dual-LED flash. The Zeiss logo present beside the LED flash showing the camera partnership of Vivo with Zeiss.  The camera module sits well at the back does not protrude out which means the smartphone will not wobble when kept flat on the table.

To the sides, this is one of the slimmest 5G smartphones with 7.59mm thickness and along the sides, there is an aluminum frame where to the right, there are the volume buttons with the power button just located on top of it and the left side remains clean. These buttons feel tactile to hold and are embedded well considering it has a curved display.

To the bottom, there is a dual SIM card slot, a loudspeaker grill, and a primary microphone. Unfortunately, there is no 3.5mm headphone jack present but Vivo does provide a 3.5mm headphone jack converter inside the box. Vivo has also implemented cross-cuttings like there is no IP68 rating but still, it is splash-proof. The smartphone weighs around 177grams which makes it very light to hold.

On the top, there is a large steel plate that has the "Professional Photography" word inscribed and the secondary noise-canceling microphone is also present there. On the front, there is a single punch-hole display on the top with minimum bezels to the sides and the display curves at both ends. Overall, this is one of the most striking looking smartphones made by Vivo and it continues to impress.

Vivo X60 Pro Display:

The Vivo X60 Pro houses a 6.56 inches Full HD+(1080x2400 pixels) Super AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 20:9. This display is also curved to the sides like the one on the Vivo X50 Pro and Vivo has made sure no accidental touches are present. The color reproduction on this display is very good and the viewing angles remain excellent considering an AMOLED display.

All the things in the display look sharp and the brightness levels are good as the display can achieve a peak brightness of 800nits while watching some content and when using the display under direct sunlight, the brightness can go as high as 1200nits which makes the visibility of the display easy and it can go very dark thus not affecting the eyes as there is an Eye Protection mode also.

The display has support for Widevine L1 and HDR10, HDR10+ so streaming HD content from OTT platforms like Netflix, Prime, etc. is not a hassle. This display has MEMC technology that boosts the frames per rate in a particular video while watching a video. For example, when watching a 30fps video, this technology will boost it to 60fps ensuring smooth content on the display. 

Another striking factor of this display is the presence of a 120Hz refresh rate combined with a 240Hz touch sampling rate. The 120Hz refresh rate ensures smooth scrolling through webpages, animations in games work well, and also multi-tasking is a breeze. However, this refresh rate is not an Adaptive one which we have seen on the Xiaomi Mi flagships in the past.

There is also another two options present which includes a Smart Switch mode where the display automatically adjusts screen refresh rate depending on the application usage and you can also switch back to the standard 60Hz to save power consumption. The color temperature of the display can be set to warm or cool and it is better to set the display to Standard by default that covers the DCI-P3 gamut.

Talking about protection, the front of the display is protected by Schott Xensation glass and there is a pre-applied screen protector on the display. This display also houses an in-display optical fingerprint scanner that is accurate and fast. You can change different animations of the fingerprint scanner and also the Always-On display as it is an AMOLED display. 

For media consumption, this is the perfect display made by Vivo.

Vivo X60 Pro Performance:

(Credits: Qualcomm)

The Vivo X60 Pro is powered by the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 chipset which is an enhanced version of the Snapdragon 865 chipset seen on many flagship smartphones in 2020. The Snapdragon 870 chipset has a similar configuration as the Snapdragon 865 as it includes 1x3.2 GHz Kryo 585 Cortex-A77 core with 1x2.42 GHz Kryo 585 Cortex-A77 core and another 4x1.8 GHz Kryo 585 Silver cores coupled with an Adreno 650 GPU.

So with the Snapdragon 870 chipset, the GPU clock speed has been increased to 20 percent more and the Prime core is clocked at 3.2 GHz instead of 2.84 GHz on the Snapdragon 865. So the initial performance between both chipsets is almost the same whether it is multi-tasking or opening/closing of applications but in many scenarios, the Snapdragon 870 chipset is faster and is a big improvement over the Snapdragon 765G on the Vivo X50 Pro.

Whether it is multitasking between applications, scrolling through webpages, or playing games felt smoother on the smartphone and all heavy games like Call Of Duty Mobile, Asphalt 9 Legends and Gensian Impact ran smoothly without any hiccups or frame drops with the graphics set to highest and the frame rate to maximum. But after a long time of gaming, the smartphone felt slightly warmer.

However, there is no issue of overheating noticed as we had seen with the Snapdragon 888 chipset which is built on a more efficient 5nm process present on the OnePlus 9 (Review). So the thermals of the Snapdragon 870 remain well-controlled and Vivo has provided a liquid cooling chamber to dissipate heat while gaming. 

The Vivo X60 Pro is available in one variant only i.e. the 12GB RAM and 256GB storage where the RAM is LPDDR4X instead of LPDDR5 and the storage speeds are USF 3.1. Vivo could have provided a more affordable 8GB RAM and 128GB storage variant which could have made it a better deal. There is no microSD card slot for storage expansion though.

Another remarkable feature that Vivo has implemented with the RAM on the X60 Pro is what it calls the "Virtual RAM" technology wherein the smartphone allocates 3GB memory of UFS 3.1 speeds to the RAM thus allowing more applications to run in the background and enhance the multitasking experience. So to sum it up, you are getting 15GB RAM, but 12GB RAM is enough for daily usage.

In terms of benchmarks, the scores on Geekbench 5.1 are 1032 and 3345 in single and multi-core tests and on Antutu v8, the Vivo X60 Pro scored 630507 which almost close to 647187 on the Galaxy S21 Ultra (Review) that has the Exynos 1080 chipset which is built on a 5nm process. The scores are slightly lower than the Snapdragon 888 chipset on the OnePlus 9 that scores 702318.

This chipset has very good stable performance because when running the Antutu v8 benchmark multiple times, the scores did not vary much as with the second time we got 612089 and in the third time it was 581222 with a slight rise in temperature. Overall, in terms of performance and gaming, the Vivo X60 Pro is a great smartphone to use.

Vivo X60 Pro Software:

The Vivo X60 Pro runs on the FuntouchOS 11.1 built on top of Android 11 out of the box. The FuntouchOS 11 brings a lot of improvements to the table as the look is closer to Stock Android than to the iOS which we have seen on previous Vivo smartphones. The look is more cleaner with a notification tray that comes up while swiping from the top.

There is a dedicated app drawer and when you swipe from the left of the home screen, there is a Google feed but Vivo has used its own custom applications for the dialler, messages, and others. However, there is a lot of bloatware installed like DailyHunt, Snapchat, Netflix, Facebook, etc., and can be uninstalled. With these, there are some particular applications from Vivo like vivoCloud, iManager that clean the unused memory and cache of the smartphone.

Other features include an Ultra Game Turbo mode which enhances the gaming experience as it shows all the information like CPU and GPU usage while gaming and also blocks incoming calls and allows Whatsapp or normal messages to appear in a small bubble. There is a smart sidebar that provides some additional settings for the game.

Talking about Bubbles, this is running Android 11, so all the conversations appear in Bubbles, an enhanced device controls are present and there are also the usual system-wide dark mode and navigation gestures. Vivo does provide a lot of customizations to the lock screen which includes newer animations for fingerprint scanner, Always-On display which can be customized from the settings.

The Dynamic menu allows you to tweak system animations and also uses different effects. Like the Edge lighting in Samsung smartphones, Vivo has the Ambient light effect which lights all the edges of the display whenever any call, message, or notification comes, and here you can set the time interval for the Ambient light. 

Overall, the software experience much better compared to previous versions of FuntouchOS but not as good as something like OxygenOS or the Stock Android as seen on Motorola or Google smartphones as there is still bloatware present but on its own, the user interface is good to use.

Vivo X60 Pro Cameras:

The biggest standout feature of the Vivo X60 Pro is its cameras which implements gimbal stabilization which means the camera lens moves opposite to the direction to which the camera is pointing to prevent shake and here there is the Gimbal Stabilization 2.0 on the main cameras with a 5-axis stabilization instead of OIS that has 3-axis stabilization for the main camera.

The three cameras present on the Vivo X60 Pro include a 48MP f/1.48 Sony IMX598 sensor for the main camera that has the Gimbal stabilization 2.0, a 13MP f/2.5 ultrawide camera, and a 13MP f/2.46 portrait camera with 50-mm equivalent focal length. These cameras are worked with Zeiss for better color tuning and improved camera performance. The front camera is a 32MP f/2.45 camera only.

The images from the main camera come out with excellent and sharp details. The color does look oversaturated but the noise is very low and the dynamic range is very good. The white balance and ISO levels are good and when you zoom into the images, there is not much noise noticed and you get sharp details with good dynamic range. 

The images taken at night have excellent details with no noise present. The color like previously said seems to look saturated with good dynamic range and even this camera handles long exposure shots much better. When you zoom into the image, there is some noise noticed but turning on the Night Mode clears away the noise leading to sharper and much better-detailed images and the dynamic range is excellent. 

The 13MP ultrawide camera takes images with good details and the dynamic range is also excellent here. When looked at the sides, there is a little bit of edge distortion noticed and some amount of noise present. Though the colors look natural here with a slightly warmer tone. 

At night, the images from the ultrawide camera come out with good details and dynamic range. There is some noise present in the background and when you zoom into that image, the images look slightly softer but color saturations remain good. The dedicated Night Mode improves the dynamic range and lowers the noise in the background thus preventing edge distortion to the sides.

The third camera is a 13MP portrait camera which can also work as a telephoto camera that provides 2x optical zoom. These images have a good amount of details but do not look as sharp as the images on the main camera. There is slight oversaturation noticed and when you zoom slightly higher like 4x or 8x, the noise is quite present but still, the dynamic range is good enough. 

For zoomed-in images, the main camera can also achieve 2x zoom with excellent details and dynamic range. Similarly, at night, the images do have good dynamic range and contrast but the presence of noise is clearly felt when you do a zoom of more than 2x and the lack of OIS is quite prominent. The dedicated Night Mode does resolve in better detail and lowers the noise level.

This camera also doubles up as a depth sensor for portraits. The portrait shot has a larger field of view with less noise but the skin tones look oversaturated though. The dynamic range is excellent with sharper details but the edge detection remains a hit or miss. In many instances, it is noticed that the background blur is just a cutout from the side of the subject as if the subject juts out more.

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The ultrawide camera also doubles up as a macro camera which can go very close to a subject as close as 3cm thus resulting in sharper details with very little noise and here the dynamic range is very good. The autofocus works extremely well thus locking the perfect focus onto the subject and when you zoom into the image, the details look sharper but the colors look slightly oversaturated.

On the front, the 32MP camera does take some good selfies with good dynamic range and contrast. There is a lot of skin smoothening enabled by default which tones the more natural look. The noise is less prominent and during the night also, the selfies came out good. However, the portrait selfies had just average dynamic range with poor edge detection and a lot of noise is present.

In terms of videos, the rear camera can record 4K videos at 60fps where the videos have an excellent dynamic range with less noise and the details also look sharper. The color as said looks oversaturated and the presence of Gimbal Strabiliztion does output better videos. There are two different modes that include a Standard mode for all cameras and Super Anti-shake only present on the main camera.

The 1080p videos at 60fps have great stabilization and this is where the Super Anti-shake comes into the picture as it is restricted to 1080p only thus resulting in a complete stable video with excellent dynamic range and contrast. There is some amount of noise present but it is far better compared to other smartphone cameras in this price segment.

The videos from the telephoto camera are only restricted to 1080p which is a slight letdown but still, the videos have a good dynamic range but the noise is clearly present and could do better with better contrast. The videos from the ultrawide camera have good details and dynamic range but there is some amount of noise present and the autofocusing issues are clearly present.

On the front, you are only restricted to 1080p at 30fps which results in videos having an average dynamic range with more noise and the skin tones do not look natural as such. There is also an option for portrait videos which results in not-so-good edge detection but has a good dynamic range. Vivo needs to fix this particular issue through a software update in the future.

Overall, the camera experience feels one of the best in this price segment but there are some improvements needed when it comes to the telephoto camera and the autofocusing issues noticed on the ultrawide camera. Keeping these aside, this is the best camera-centric smartphone to go for.

For a detailed camera samples review click here. (Credits: Techniqued)

Vivo X60 Pro Battery Life:

The Vivo X60 Pro houses a smaller 4200mAh battery which can easily last for two days with normal usage and can last for one single day with heavy usage and the display set to 120Hz. The standard screen-on time noticed was around 5-6 hours which is pretty good but still lesser than the OnePlus 9 that provides 6-7 hours of screen-on time.

Vivo provides different power-saving modes to conserve the battery but the FuntouchOS 11 does consume some battery and needs optimizations for extended battery life as it is a very heavy skin. Keeping the display in the Smart Switch mode does give up an extra 30-40 minutes of battery life when needed.

The charger provided inside the box is a 33W dual split fast charger which charges the Vivo X60 Pro from 0 to 100 percent in under 70 minutes which does take longer compared to 65W Warp Charging technology on the similarly priced OnePlus 9 that does charge from 0 to 100 percent in 35 minutes. Another miss is the support for wireless and reverses wireless charging which could have made it better.

Vivo X60 Pro Audio Quality:

Unfortunately, though having a great AMOLED display, the Vivo X60 Pro only gets a single bottom-firing speaker which sounds adequately good but does feel tiny and when you switch to the loudest settings, the sound is slightly muffled and distorted. There is no 3.5mm headphone jack present but Vivo does bundle a 3.5mm to USB Type-C converter inside the box.

There is support for Hi-Res audio and Vivo supplies a pair of USB Type-C earphones inside the box that provides the good sound output and the Doby Atmos is also present which further enhances the sound experience while watching videos, listening to songs, or playing games.

Verdict:

The Vivo X60 Pro is a good all-rounder smartphone that does things almost in the right direction. The smartphone has a gorgeous design, a nice 120Hz AMOLED display, a powerful processor that eases gaming capabilities and normal daily performance. The software experience has been refined compared to earlier versions. But other than these, the most striking aspect of the smartphone is its cameras.

Like its predecessor, the Vivo X60 Pro houses a great triple camera setup with that Gimbal Stabilization that provides an extra leg up against its competitors and also provides really good video recording capabilities. The battery life is quite good with support for fast charging also. The smartphone impresses in almost all areas but there remains some minor flaws.

The camera though being the best in its price segment has focussing issues while recording a video and the front camera is not so good. The FuntouchOS 11 brings many new features but is not as clean as the OxygenOS as there is lot of bloatware present and many applications throw a lot of notifications thus making the software experience a bit jarring. There is no support for IP rating or wireless charging.

The battery capacity is very smaller which could have been slightly larger with faster charging speeds That doesn't mean the charging is slower but compared to the OnePlus 9 that supports 65W fast charging does feel slower. Since there is an AMOLED display, the lack of stereo speakers at this price segment is a big miss and so you are left with a single speaker with no headphone jack also.

The Snapdragon 870 chipset works extremely well as there are no issues of overheating and it handles all games without any problem but still the OnePlus 9 which is priced similarly has better performance as it packs a more powerful Snapdragon 888 chipset but there would not be much of a difference. At Rs.49999, the Vivo X60 Pro is a perfect smartphone who values performance and cameras while sacrificing on certain criterias.

It is availalble both on Amamzon as well as Flipkart.