Cheap(er) thrills

The Vivo X100 is more affordable than the X100 Pro, but retains most of the capabilities.

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TESTED VIVO X100

■ The Vivo X100 is a fair bit more affordable than the X100 Pro, but gets most of the same kit. The processor is the same - the brandnew MTK Dimensity 9300 - and is paired with up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage. The screen is the same as well, so you won't have to worry about things looking too different.

■ The big differences are in the camera, with the Pro getting a handful of more power that makes a fair amount of difference in flexibility and the ability to get better pictures with less effort. That said, the V2 image processing chip on the X100 comes from the previous-generation Vivo X90 Pro, and is plenty capable on its own.

■ Optical zoom on the Vivo X100 caps out at 3X, but the digital zoom is still pretty good at even up to 10X. There's also a neat telephoto portrait mode, enabled by using the telephoto sensor as the second camera for portrait shots. It's a neat trick, and works well with Zeiss' software tricks. There are plenty of AI optimisations at play with the photos you take, and most of them work subtly and tastefully.

■ A couple of other key specs set the Vivo X100 apart from its Pro sibling. For one, there's no eSIM support, you'll have to stick to physical nano SIM cards with the dual-SIM slot. There's also no wireless charging, and the battery is a bit smaller at 5,000mAh. Don't worry too much about those though - the Vivo X100 still gets up to 120W fast charging.

Last year's chip While the Vivo X100 Pro has the newer and more capable V3 image processing chip, the Vivo X100 gets the V2, which was introduced with the previous-generation X90 Pro.

Tech specs