Review finds Vivo X500 Pro Max strong but less distinctive than the X300 Ultra

Vivo's new X500 Pro Max is a capable flagship, but it gives up two of the features that made the company's X300 Ultra stand out, according to a review by Dominic Preston at The Verge. The phone costs €1,799, roughly $2,000, which places it firmly in the ultra-premium segment.

Ultra-class hardware in a step-down model

The X500 Pro Max is the first Pro Max model from Vivo, following similar launches by Xiaomi, Oppo and Honor. The review describes these devices as filling the space between standard Pro flagships and camera-focused Ultra models, while also noting they may help disguise price increases linked to memory costs.

The phone matches the X300 Ultra in size and uses the same 1440p, 144Hz OLED display. It carries a larger 7,800mAh battery that the reviewer found lasted two days, with 90W wired and 40W wireless charging. Instead of a Snapdragon chip it runs on MediaTek's Dimensity 9600 Pro, which the review says performs at a broadly similar level. It also reuses the Ultra's periscope telephoto camera, described as among the best on any phone.

Camera trade-offs

The main camera uses a 50-megapixel, 1/1.28-inch-type sensor, smaller and lower in resolution than the Ultra's. It is, however, built on Sony's Lytia L910 sensor with LOFIC technology, giving 17 stops of dynamic range, with most of the gains in bright highlights.

The review's main complaints concern framing and the ultrawide lens. Vivo has moved the main camera back to a conventional 24mm focal length, dropping the Ultra's narrower 35mm lens, which the reviewer valued for portraits and deliberate composition. The ultrawide now uses a much smaller 1/2.75-inch-type sensor, and in difficult lighting it produced clearly weaker results than the other two lenses.

Other strengths include color tuning developed with Zeiss, Log video recording, 4K slow motion at 240fps and support for Vivo's add-on teleconverter lenses. The review concludes the system remains excellent overall, but says it is "much less unique" than its predecessor. A direct X500 Ultra successor is rumored for next spring.

What it means for readers

For people following mobile technology, the review points to a wider shift in which manufacturers add new premium tiers between existing lines, often at higher prices. Buyers comparing high-end phones may benefit from looking beyond headline specifications to details such as focal lengths and the sensor size of each individual lens, since these can affect everyday photo quality more than the main camera alone.