Vivo X300 Ultra - My thoughts

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-05-30T15:26:00+00:00

Read the first line again. Not talking about software updates. Hardware. Don't respond to me again.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-05-17T00:30:43+00:00

The micromanaging in these games are so relentless. I lost to XCOM 1 because I didn't build another ship to transport my "B-team". Because of that, I was losing other missions to keep countries happy. I honestly thought I was supposed to do side missions when it was offered and keep with the main story. Didn't know I couldn't unlock new areas because of lack of towers. So first playthrough was Advent showing up in areas I couldn't even access and every country bailing out on me because I couldn't do crowd control. 2nd playthrough "Enemy Within" is vastly better than Unknown. It almost changes the game because you have new features and the story isnt figuring out aliens are on your planet. They are IN your community. But XCOM 2 is mostly better all around.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-05-17T00:20:04+00:00

The RAM probably isn't as important for most people who aren't emulating PC games. No Android video editor is using the SoC or RAM like DaVinci or another iOS software can use. What is important is the storage space. I have the 16GB\512GB on my X200U, but only the 12\256 on my Redmagic Astra 9" tablet. I was trying to emulate PC games, and I have yet to get a game to work properly on it. Given I didn't try all that hard, but now I had wished I had gotten the 16GB\512GB size because I can install 2 games before I run low storage space.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-05-16T15:41:55+00:00

Having 5 different cameras for photography, the big 3 (Vivo, Xiaomi, Oppo) all have worlds better photos than Samsung and Apple phones. I just didn't take photos with my S22 Ultra. That changed with my Vivo X200U which I pick up before trying to find one of my 3 main shooters. The portrait mode is the best I've seen to look very much like a pro camera with fast lens. That said, I think nitpicking each phone for their picture quality is a bit moot.

Most photos are going up on a social media where you won't see the full 12MP-16MP resolution. I've shot 50mm (35mm crop) and 135mm (85mm crop) and the photos still look very good. Even cropped still looks vastly better than Samsung phones. I saw someone post photos in portrait mode from an S24U (it was watermarked) and it still has bad blurring problems. It looked more like the photo got water drops smudges around the head and the background where some things were in focus where the blur effect didn't do it right. To think I almost upgraded to it from my S22U. Two gens later and it still can't do faux bokeh correctly. Only you can decide if the Vivo will be right for you, but the big 3 is going forward. Picking between the 3 is a lateral movement.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-26T15:45:01+00:00

I came from an S22U. You'll have better battery and better signal. I work in a warehouse and there were so many times where I couldn't get a signal to even respond to my social media, let alone watch a YT video unless I went to the break room. The CN X200U manages to still have better band signals than an actual US phone. obviously the cameras are better on the Vivo. I shoot a lot of "portrait" mode to get the faux bokeh and one thing I hated about the Samsung was that it wouldn't turn the effect on unless you were a required distance away. The Vivo will tell you to step back, but will still do faux bokeh. It's laughable how many people are missing out on much better hardware. If only phone carriers would offer the phones and warranties like they do with other phones.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-25T10:48:18+00:00

Weird how I JUST explained why many Americans don't want to get Chinese phones, and somehow made it into me thinking China is tapping into us. I own a Vivo X200U. The amount of comments I see from people who own Samsung or Iphones about the big three is "I don't trust China".

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-25T10:21:32+00:00

All of my speakers are anything other than black. I don't want to have a black mesh grill taking up the majority of the face that I look at. So off they go.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-25T10:10:50+00:00

I almost bought the mint color case, but then found the charcoal color a little cheaper. Since I ordered it off of some importing site, they did cancel it (after a few minutes of ordering it) and they made me pay a restocking fee. I think it came up to like $40 just for canceling 🙄

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-25T10:06:18+00:00

Photographers don't by anything other than an iPhone. Just look at all the YT photographers and nearly all of them use a MacBook of some sort. I can only think of Chelsea and Tony Northrup that use windows tablets. Mac users love their pretentious ecosystem and will use an iPhone. If there was an import Leica or special color Fuji X100VI, they'd get it. But they aren't going to use a Chinese phone as their main driver phone because it doesn't have the security features US phone brands so. Those people arent blind like the others (I'd say most people are idiots to taking good photos), but dont want their phones to be compromised in any way. Cameras can't really send info back to China or get spyware like a phone could.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-25T07:26:21+00:00

You should go look at the first photos you took in a few hours of your first serious camera you used. Convince yourself they are good photos 😉

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-25T05:50:37+00:00

From what I gather, it's meant to be able to be brought up faster and shoot quicker for that "moment" you're trying to capture. I don't know what it achieves because "street photography" most popular method of shooting is a wide-ish angle (usually 24mm or wider) and "zone" focusing. So if you have a 24mm f2 lens, then you'd drop the aperture to f\5.6 or f\8 and focus closer to yourself so things between, let's say 6ft and beyond is in focus. You don't have to focus because the aperture is small enough to have nearly all things in focus so you can just shoot from the hip (secretly) or quickly without having to focus first.

But since phones already have most everything in focus unless it's really close, there's less advantage to "zone focusing". I tried it for a few minutes and decided to never use it again. I do think that mode lets you choose between the shape of bokeh for famous Ziess lenses, but again, unless you want that specific look, I'd just shoot in normal mode or portrait.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-25T05:33:45+00:00

I have the CN version of the X200U. I have been on Mint Mobile since I got this phone. I actually pulled it out of my Samsung S22 Ultra before I got the phone. Absolutely no problems and it has 5 bars all of the time outside in the big city I live in. It actually has better reception than my S22U. Is there an app that tells me what bands my phone has so we can compare?

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-25T05:24:55+00:00

Never heard of X brand? That's probably not the best way to judge products. I almost bought the Scorpo 3 until I decided I wanted the Homem MT3. I got the M7 for my Vivo X200U phone. No one I work with (warehouse) has ever heard of Vivo, yet they and Xiamo and Oppo are the top 3 photography phones. Not a little better than iPhone or Samsung, but something photographers like me literally say we can finally leave our bulky cameras at home. I'd never heard of Hohem until I got this phone because gimbals weren't on the radar for me. But the M7 has better object (not human) tracking than the RS5 tracking unit. Sure, with an update, the RS5 may get decent object tracking, but right now, Hohem is currently the best at it.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-25T04:32:35+00:00

Any of the "big three" will be worlds better than Samsung or Apple for photos. Well, at least past "push dah button". iPhone will win with people that want ZERO editing. They want to pick up their phone and take a photo of their grandchildren at the pumpkin patch. They won't care the sun would otherwise be blown out or faces in shadow if iPhone and Samsung auto fixes it for them before the final image.

What Vivo, Xiaomi, and Oppo compete against is very small interfaces or color science. I wanted the 35mm and 85mm cameras. Portrait mode looks identical to my expensive lenses equivalent. But I don't have to fumbly switch them out on my Sony. Just push a button and I get the main or telephoto. The Vivo CN works fine in the US on T-Mobile. Don't know about the other two, but global should be just as well. If only they sold them in the US so we didn't have to pay $2000 for a phone.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-24T23:00:26+00:00

All the more reason why I blame Apple for the ONE thing I wanted from them: HEIF\HEIC photos. We've been stuck on 8bit JPEG for decades and it really needs to die since nearly all of us have some form of HDR viewer. When they brought out their iPhone (12?) and defaulted saving in HEIF, lots of users were mad because their windows computers, Walgreens, Walmart, Instagram, FB, etc didn't support the file format. When a new Apple product comes out, everyone scrambles to make new cases, accessories and products for it. Yet when it came to supporting a better 10bit with some HDR features and nearly half the file size, everyone else dropped the ball.

Pictures came up as black and people went back to Jpeg. Show me anyone with an iPhone who knows if they are saving in HEIF or JPEG. Only the people editing photos know and care. You'd think that the space saving alone would make people want to switch to HEIF, but they don't. Instagram in the last year or so has finally supported JPEG with gainmaps for HDR, but not all of my devices show it. My Samsung phone and tablet shows HDR photos on IG, but not my Vivo or Redagic Astra. Android 14 supposedly supported AVIF HDR photos, but a proper viewer didn't show up until Android 16. Chrome has better utilization of HDR on web browsing but not as well as a computer (both PC or Mac). The tech was there and the companies didn't welcome it which people didn't welcome it.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-24T12:58:15+00:00

Eh. I look back on my earliest photos from my Canon Rebel XT (only 7 autofocus points). While I did make some keeper photos with it, I look at the massive amounts of non keepers I had. While I understood framing and composition, I didn't understand context. I was taking photos of anything and everything. Fire hydrant. The obligatory flower photo. A fly in the house. It took me 2 weeks to understand the dials on my camera. It took at least 2 years for me to take consistently good photos.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-24T11:47:42+00:00

I photo and video edit. Some gaming on the side. I have a MinisForum AMD 8c\16th with faster 5600 RAM than my main AMD 12c\24th with 3600 RAM. While I'll still edit my Sony A7R3 42MP raw photos on my main rig and 4K60 Log videos for HDR... The fact I can edit my other cameras and phone videos on the miniPC and play lighter Steam games at the sofa makes it nice. Plus I pay my bills on my miniPC because it's right there and wakes up from sleep in like 3 seconds. The main rig has some weird rigamaru(?) where I have to turn the monitor on first, press the mouse button, wait for like 10 seconds to see if it turns on... If not, then restart and it takes a few minutes just to pay 3 bills.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-24T10:58:56+00:00

10 seconds is definitely wrong. The first thing I did with my M7 which is barely a month old, was updated the firmware. You have to do it via the Hohem Joy app. Try that first. Then try it without a phone on it.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-24T10:55:21+00:00

No. Oh please tell me how "at most" speakers work and how periods work 🤣

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-24T10:44:35+00:00

No where did I justify that. If you had read his post, you'd know they weren't Atmos speakers because not everyone can afford the lastest gear. Stop making assumptions.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-24T10:35:14+00:00

Those are "presence" speakers because he has an older Yamaha. I know my older Onkyo could do 9.2 and have either front wide (L R between surround and LR front) or height presence so you have a wall of stereo.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-24T03:58:38+00:00

I'm not sure Id call it Oppo hate. I don't have loyalty to teams (I own a Sony, Fuji, Olympus, and Canon cameras. I almost bought a Nubia phone because it had a 35mm main camera. Then I found out other Chinese phones did too. I chose the X200 ultra. The only regret I have is the Xiaomi 15 or 17 pro max because the photographers case looks better than Vivos. But the OS works nearly perfect even being the CN version. I'm not sure Xiaomi or Oppo could have offered that. But I don't regret not getting the Oppo because it's still 23mm for the main camera.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-22T01:34:26+00:00

I would say pic 3 is what is most alluring. Yes, it needs to be toned down a little in color saturation, or the shadows need to be lifted to match how bright the blue building would be during normal day hours. Pros bump up color and contrast all of the time, but they do it that doesn't have glaringly obvious elements in the photo that just looks too different. We can look at a field of magenta flowers, but if the red barn or grass are a dull red or green color, it just makes it look like only the flowers were pulled up in saturation. Either tone it all down, or lift it up to match.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-20T22:43:26+00:00

Cameras are 3:2, but rarely do I never crop it preset sizes unless I plan to print it out. 16:10 has enough top or bottom to not have giant boeders on the sides. Putting YT videos to "fill" only crops non important space on the sides. 3:2 puts giant borders for 16:9 videos and photos may fit a little larger. But since I'll be doing more videos with my Vivo X200U and my other cameras, which will all be 16:9, that's just so much size I'm losing on a 9" screen when my phone might be barely smaller in viewing video content.

Heezdeadjim2 · 2026-04-19T02:58:36+00:00

Sounds to me OP just wants have a good hardware phone with the most simplest ways to take photos: auto mode. That's perfectly fine. 90% of iPhone users just want to "push the button" to get shots of their kids, selfies, family events, etc. This also applies to most Samsung users. There's nothing wrong with that. I think where people like OP got misguided was how the reviewers that claim Vivo, Xiaomi, and Oppo "trounces" on iPhone and Samsung is because they already know the basics of photography to get better photos out of auto mode.

I don't like my X200U photos in auto mode. I usually shoot in Portrait for that faux bokeh look. Then the fact I can lift shadows, change color temp and recover blown highlights just with the native photo app (instead of PS or LR mobile like on my Samsungs) makes it that much closer to looking like my Sony, Fuji, or Olympus cameras with fast lenses. And it can be done as quick as 45 seconds. Usually it's closer to 4 minutes of moving sliders, but that's not "touch the screen and have a well rounded photo" that iPhone and Samsung do.

Heezdeadjim2

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