A Pricey Flagship That Focuses On Its Cameras

Many smartphone companies try to paint mobile photography as the raison d’être for this or that model, but some really take that to heart and visually design their phones around the cameras. Some even take it to the extreme, putting cameras front and center, at least on the back. The Vivo X80 Pro is the same, yet different. Perhaps the best way to describe the model is that it puts the cameras off-center instead.

Vivo is proud of how it has enclosed the lens within a circle motif to pay tribute to professional cameras. It is, however, a very superficial association, considering Vivo’s design can hardly be considered as balanced as those dedicated cameras are in terms of design. Just like with last year’s Vivo X70 Pro+, almost all visual elements are off to one side, leaving the opposite (right) half of the module practically barren. This year, however, the form is even more askew with the periscope telephoto camera sitting alone outside that circle. It isn’t even aligned with the rest of the lenses, giving off a rather chaotic impression. The design calls attention to the cameras in the wrong way, which is a shame considering how great the hardware actually is, as we’ll see later.

Aside from that drastic change in camera design, the Vivo X80 Pro is pretty much a dead ringer for its predecessor. Very little has changed, from the way the screen curves sharply to the edges to the super-thin bezels around the screen to the punch-hole camera right in the middle of the forehead. Unless you flip it over on its face, you might even mistake this phone for the Vivo X70 Pro. That’s not exactly a bad thing as far as establishing the brand’s visual identity goes. It also sort of suggests that Vivo decided it was more important to spend resources on upgrading the photography experience rather than changing the phone’s design. If only it could have stuck with last year’s more balanced camera bump, even if that, too, had its flaws.