The Vivo X300 Ultra has the best cameras of any phone

A few months ago, I wrote that The telephoto camera is the only lens that matters anymoreat least when it comes to super-class flagships. As phones get better, cameras are where manufacturers try to stand out. As cameras improved, telephoto lenses became the next point of focus. The latest Ultra phones from Xiaomi, OPPOand Huawei They all made closeness, above all else, their selling point. Vivo’s X300 Ultra does something different.

Instead of pushing its telephoto hardware further, Vivo has mostly left it as is. The company focused its efforts on a greatly improved 35mm prime camera, unique among competitors due to its naturally narrow focal length. Combined with the best ultra-wide camera in any phone and new pro video features, the result is a camera system evenly balanced between the three rear lenses. It’s a less flashy approach, but the overall package is more versatile and useful than its competitors and my favorite to use so far.

The main camera is definitely the best of the three. The 200-megapixel, 1/1.12-inch Sony Lytia 901 sensor offers a serious jump in size and resolution over last year’s sensor X200 Ultra. But it maintains that camera’s best feature: a 35mm equivalent focal length. That’s narrower than most other phones — 23-26mm is typical — but it’s closer to what photographers tend to look for in their default lens because it looks natural and is close to the range of the human eye. It is also much closer to the focal length Phones Used to use. If you’ve ever lamented the fact that your main camera looks more and more like an ultra-wide camera, this is the phone for you.

The telephoto camera also features a 200-megapixel resolution, with an 85mm focal length and a 1/1.4-inch sensor, the same specs as the X200 Ultra. The slightly narrower f/2.7 aperture may make the X300 look like an older version, but improved stabilization and sensor and processing tweaks give this iteration an edge overall.

Then there is the ultra-wide range. This also hasn’t changed much year over year, but it remains unique for its sensor size. It is larger than the one on iPhone 17 Pro‘s major The camera supports optical image stabilization as well. It is quite literally a flagship camera spec with an ultra-wide lens on top. There is nothing else close to you.

The selfie camera is the only one that isn’t particularly impressive: a 50-megapixel camera with a relatively small 1/2.76-inch sensor. decent; The other cameras are great.

Images across the three rear lenses are of remarkably comparable quality, in almost any lighting. About the only difference I can find is that the telephoto camera and the ultra-wide camera are more prone to motion blur when shooting fast subjects like cats or cars, and even then only when it’s dark. Otherwise, choosing between lenses feels like choosing the right focal length to frame the shot, without the usual worry about trade-offs in quality. Images are aided by natural color processing and a wide range of impressive film simulations. Vivo’s color science is my favorite in any phone, and this year is no exception.

Vivo hasn’t focused only on still photography. This year it’s doubled down on video, though the promotions here are really aimed at the pros. You can now record 4K, 120fps, 10-bit video across all three rear lenses, you can import custom 3D LUTs, and use the Pro Video shooting mode for full manual control. If you don’t know what half of that means, you’re not alone! These things are beyond the needs of most of us, myself included.

Like rival Ultra phones, there’s also a range of camera add-ons and accessories. My colleague Allison Johnson spent time playing with it Vivo camera grip and separate 200mm and 400mm extension lenseswhich can capture extraordinary shots from a distance that no other phone can ever handle. While at MWC Barcelona 2026, I was able to play briefly with Custom SmallRig camera cage It has also been developed for the phone, which compresses stability, cooling and lighting into a very compact package. All of these items are sold separately and play into Vivo’s claim that the X300 Ultra can be the basis of a semi-pro camera system if you want it.

However, this is a phone, not just a camera, so I might as well talk about the rest as well. For me, the big drawback of the X300 Ultra is its lackluster design. My black model is a very dull-looking device, and while the two-tone effects on the green and white versions are better, it’s no patch on the camera-inspired aesthetics of the latest Xiaomi and Oppo phones. The X300 Ultra’s camera island is also exceptionally raised, almost as thick as a phone, and for some reason, Vivo has also ditched the physical shutter button, which I miss.

Other specs are on par with competing Ultra phones, but impressive compared to Apple and Samsung: a combined protection rating of IP68 and IP69, and a whopping 6,600 mAh of power Silicon-carbon batteryAnd a 144 Hz refresh rate for the 6.8-inch OLED screen. Then there are the standard main things, like Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite 5th generation chipset, 1TB of storage, 16GB of RAM, and a decent promise of five years of Android OS updates and seven years of security patches. The phone runs Vivo’s OriginOS operating system, which is much improved over its older software but still the weakest among the major players, with a bland design and many pre-installed apps and ads.

Flagship brands are as much technology demonstrations as consumer products. It serves as an excuse for phone companies to not only show off their technical capabilities, but also to set a vision for what makes a phone the “best” of the moment. As processors, displays and waterproof ratings are consolidated into global standards that have proven difficult to improve, cameras are where manufacturers can put their stalls. Vivo’s tone is clear: the best camera is one that’s great across every lens, not just one or two.

As technology demos go, this seems like a pretty practical demo, regardless of the price. The X300 Ultra has not been launched in the US or UK, but is available across Asia, along with a few European countries including Spain, Italy and Austria. Its €1,999 (about $2,340) price tag certainly isn’t cheap, and its photography accessories add hundreds more, though it costs roughly the same as the 1TB iPhone 17 Pro Max in those same markets. It’s expensive, but for what you get, it probably is.

I don’t think this is the best phone you can get for this amount. that it very good A phone with an excellent screen, a large battery, and absolutely outstanding performance. But the design is bulky, boring, and maybe a little ugly. Vivo’s software often annoys me too. The Xiaomi 17 Ultra is a slightly better all-round package, with a stunning design and a more polished operating system. But the X300 Ultra’s three extraordinary lenses are so consistent, and consistently excellent, that when I use the camera, all those other concerns disappear.

If I were to invest my own money now, I would buy Xiaomi. But if I had to just pick the winner of this year’s Ultra Camera competition, Vivo would get my vote.

Photography by Dominic Preston/The Verge