A flagship to challenge most top smartphones in 2025

The vivo X200 Pro may emerge as the camera phone to beat in 2025. What else does the flagship have going for it?

- Abhishek Baxi

Over the past couple of years, vivo has been making strides not just in product innovation but also in market share, especially in India. It has galloped past Samsung and Xiaomi to claim the spot of top smartphone brand in India. In the process, the company has also staked its claim in the flagship smartphone space.

Headlined with an imaging prowess that competed with the best out there, the vivo X100 Pro, launched in early 2024, emerged as one of the best camera phones of the year. It fell short of the top spot, not because of competition from other manufacturers but from the vivo X100 Ultra, its elder sibling which never made it outside China.

With the new vivo X200 Pro (₹94,999), the company is addressing that void by the ‘ultrafication’ of the Pro, bringing in some of the best features of the X100 Ultra to the Pro variant this time around. I used the X200 Pro for a couple of weeks, and here’s why I think this is the camera phone to beat in 2025.

For a while now, vivo has impressed with its design language, especially with its flagship smartphones. The X200 Pro doesn’t stray too far from that familiar design language. But as we’ve seen with the latest iteration of Pixel smartphones, the X200 Pro ditches the curves for a distinctly boxier design with flat sides (the edges are still rounded though); pretty much iPhone-esque.

That said, it looks rad. The texture on the rear glass panel is smooth and delightful. It’s not glossy, and hence does not attract fingerprint smudges, and the aluminum siderails exude elegance.