Verdict: Vivo X90 Pro Plus
Our editorial rating is based on product testing.
- beautiful 2K AMOLED display with curved edges
- uncompromising performance thanks to the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
- excellent cooling without unnecessary overheating
- top-notch camera setup with a 1" main sensor from Sony
- Chinese system packed with bloatware and no Slovak or Czech language
- unreliable notification display
Once again, we bring you one of our exclusive reviews you won’t find on any Slovak or Czech website. We tested this hot new release with the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, Vivo X90 Pro Plus. It’s the most powerful smartphone in the new X90 series, which is the successor to the X80 line.
In the review, as usual, we’ll look at the improvements brought by the new version, the design, and the performance. After our experience with the older Vivo X80 Pro, we’re especially curious about the cameras—especially since last year’s bar was set pretty high.
Where to buy the Vivo X90 Pro Plus?
You can find the new model in our top partner’s lineup: the international e-shop Trading Shenzhen. It’s the Chinese version of the smartphone, but with full support for our networks. The only thing missing is language support, since you won’t find Slovak or Czech in the settings. Fast and smooth delivery is handled by Global Priority shipping.
Vivo X90 Pro Plus, Chinese ROM
TIPExpress delivery from a European warehouse without customs duty and VAT.
This product will be delivered to you express from a local warehouse in Europe. Delivery from EU warehouses usually takes 2–10 days and is handled by a courier. When delivered, you don’t pay any extra fees—no customs duty or VAT.
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any additional fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t have to pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT will be handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart after you enter your delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any additional fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t have to pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT will be handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart after you enter your delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
Technical specifications
| Model | Vivo X90 Pro Plus |
|---|---|
| Dimensions | 164.35 x 75.29 x 9.7 mm |
| Weight | 221 g |
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 / 3.20 GHz Octa-Core |
| GPU | Adreno 740 |
| RAM | 12 GB LPDDR5 |
| Internal storage | 256 GB UFS 4.0 |
| MicroSD card support | no |
| Display | 6.78" AMOLED E6 |
| resolution 3200 x 1440 px | |
| LTPO 4.0 technology support | |
| refresh rate 120 Hz | |
| maximum brightness 1800 nits | |
| Cameras | main 50 Mpx 1" Sony IMX989 |
| ultrawide 48 Mpx Sony IMX598 | |
| portrait 50 Mpx Sony IMX578 | |
| telephoto 64 Mpx OmniVision OV64A | |
| selfie 32 Mpx with aperture f/2.45 | |
| Dual SIM | yes |
| WiFi | 802.11 b/g/n/ac/ax – 2.4 Ghz + 5 Ghz | 2 x 2 WiFi | 8 x 8 MIMU | WiFi 6 |
| Positioning systems | GPS | GLONASS | AGPS | Beidou |
| Bluetooth | 5.3 |
| Battery | 4700 mAh |
| Charging | 80 W wired / 50 W wireless |
| NFC | yes |
| IP rating | IP68 |
| Operating system | Android 13 with Origin OS 3 custom overlay |
Package contents
The Vivo X90 Pro Plus comes in a black square box that’s extremely sturdy and durable. Inside, you’ll find the smartphone wrapped in film right at the top. Under that there’s a protective case, a charging adapter, and a charging cable with USB-C connectors on both sides.
Of course, you also get a SIM ejection pin and a brief paper documentation set. We also appreciate that the included protective case isn’t just a typical clear cover—it matches the smartphone’s back cover.
Since it’s the Chinese version of the smartphone, the package includes a charging adapter with a Chinese plug. To use it, you’ll need an adapter with an EU plug. However, in most cases the seller includes that one.
Design and placement of elements
We had the Vivo X90 Pro Plus available in red, which offers an interesting alternative to usual colors like gray. Besides it, though, you can also choose the classic black or blue.
The smartphone’s construction is metal, but the external side frame feels more like plastic. Despite that, the overall build quality is excellent. The phone sits comfortably in your hand thanks to its curved edges and a leather back cover that feels great to the touch.
The standout on the back is also the fairly prominent circular module of the rear camera system. It sits about 4 mm above the cover level. Another interesting detail is the glossy mirror-like strip under the camera module with the text Xtreme Imagination. The LED light has its place in the top-right corner and consists of three LEDs.
When it comes to the placement of the phone’s individual elements, it’s fairly standard. The bottom side includes a USB-C port for charging, a SIM slot for two SIM cards, a microphone, and a loudspeaker.
On the opposite, top side, there’s only the microphone and an IR sensor, since the second speaker is on the upper edge and is also used for calls. The volume and display-on buttons are on the right side, while the left side is completely empty.
A beautiful AMOLED display with 2K resolution
The Vivo X90 Pro Plus has the best display among the trio of smartphones in the Vivo X90 lineup. It’s a 6.78″ AMOLED display with a Samsung E6 panel, which stands out among the X90 trio thanks to the highest resolution: 3200 x 1440 px.
The display is slightly curved at the sides, and there’s also an opening in the center of the top part for the selfie camera. You’ll also appreciate support for the latest, already 4th-generation LTPO technology, which dynamically adjusts the refresh rate based on your current needs. The result is optimized battery consumption. The highest refresh rate is 120 Hz.
The display also has an exceptionally high maximum brightness—up to 1800 nits—so it guarantees excellent visibility even in direct sunlight. It’s also one of the brightest smartphones out there.
Naturally, you get vibrant colors with customization options and great touch responsiveness. However, the preset resolution isn’t the highest, so if you want to enjoy the display to the fullest, we recommend going to settings and changing the original resolution from 2400 x 1800 to 2K.
There’s also an excellent, large ultrasonic fingerprint reader built into the display, and it’s clearly among the very best on the market. It works accurately and exceptionally fast.
Extreme performance with the latest Qualcomm processor
The Vivo X90 Pro Plus is among the first smartphones to get the newest and most powerful processor from American company Qualcomm—the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. It’s the successor to the popular Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, which we also had a chance to test in the X80 Pro model.
The processor is 8-core and is manufactured using 4 nm technology. It consists of one ultra-performance Cortex-X3 core clocked at 3.2 GHz, four cores clocked at 2.8 GHz (2 x Cortex-A715 and 2 x Cortex-A710), and three Cortex-A510 cores at 2 GHz. It’s complemented by the Adreno 740 graphics chip.
Qualcomm promises up to a 35-percent improvement in CPU performance and a 25-percent improvement in the GPU’s performance. This powerful hardware is paired with fast LPDDR5 RAM with a capacity of 12 GB, with the option to add another 8 GB from internal storage—giving you a downright unbelievable 20 GB of RAM.
In our case, the internal storage is 256 GB, using the latest UFS 4.0 technology. Its sequential write speed reaches 2942 MB/s and reading up to 3438 MB/s. We tested the storage using the AndroBench and AnTuTu apps. In the well-known benchmark, we landed in first place overall on the leaderboard with a score of 1,284,434 points.
So there’s definitely plenty of performance, and the Vivo X90 Pro Plus is also great for gaming. You don’t need to worry about excessive overheating during gameplay either, because Vivo’s liquid cooling handles it exceptionally well.
Android 13 with Origin OS 3 custom overlay
The new Vivo X90 Pro Plus also brings the latest version of Android 13, along with its own Origin OS 3 graphical overlay. Overall, the system is extremely smooth, but at first glance it feels a bit different and somewhat chaotic.
The biggest thing that increases the mess is the huge amount of bloatware—unnecessary preinstalled Chinese apps from the manufacturer. There are truly a lot of them here, and the whole environment is basically crowded with them. These include various apps like i Music, vivo.com, i Video, Jovi inLife, and others, all of course in Chinese. The advantage of the Chinese version is, however, the presence of call recording, which European smartphone systems don’t allow due to GDPR.
The global version of this model hasn’t been unveiled yet, and it’s unclear when it will arrive. However, some information has already appeared online suggesting that the global launch could happen as early as January this year. We also saw the previous Vivo X80 Pro model on the global market.
The Origin OS overlay offers plenty of customization options, which we really appreciate. In this environment, you can personalize almost everything to match your preferences. Whether it’s charging animations, the fingerprint reader, the size and style of icons, or the rounded corners of individual elements—there are truly a lot of options here.
Even the seller TradingShenzhen provides a video tutorial with useful OriginOS system settings that help improve notification reliability and remove some Chinese apps. However, despite the different settings, notifications still didn’t display reliably for us.
Brutal photography setup
The Vivo X80 Pro from last year already pleasantly surprised us with excellent cameras, so the bar was set very high. The main camera in the new Vivo X90 Pro Plus features a 1″ Sony IMX989 sensor, which we’ve already tested in Xiaomi 12S Ultra.
You can check the specific technical specifications in the table below:
| Main camera | 50 Mpx | Sony IMX 989 | sensor size 1" | aperture f/1.75 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ultra-wide camera | 48 Mpx | Sony IMX 598 | sensor size 1/2" | aperture f/2.2 |
| Portrait camera | 50 Mpx | Sony IMX 758 | sensor size 1/24" | aperture f/1.6 |
| Telescopic camera | 64 Mpx | Omnivision OV64B | sensor size 1/2" | aperture f/3.5 |
All four cameras should also support optical stabilization at the same time. Still, we need to point out that the detailed specifications in the table are not from an official source, so they may not be completely accurate.
The main camera didn’t disappoint
Just like it was with the previous model of this smartphone, Vivo X90 Pro Plus was also marked by cooperation with ZEISS. You’ll find its logo on the back of the smartphone too, but most importantly, in the camera app there’s a pair of modes – a preset one and ZEISS Natural Color.
The preset mode features warmer color tones, higher contrast, and also higher saturation. The sky looks more blue than it does in real life, and the grass seems to be dyed green—but these colors still have their charm. Photos from this mode are sure to win many fans on your social media.
ZEISS Natural Color mode, as the name itself suggests, delivers a more realistic rendering. Colors aren’t overly oversaturated, contrast is lower, and overall the photo looks more like reality.
In some scenes we liked the standard mode more, while in others we preferred the one from ZEISS. It’s hard to say which is better, since photos are perceived quite subjectively and everyone likes something different.
We also have to highlight the excellent dynamic range achieved by the camera thanks in large part to the sensor size. Shadow areas are rendered beautifully without underexposed spots, and even areas lit by direct sunlight aren’t particularly blown out. The camera handles both extremes very well.
It also does an excellent job capturing interiors or places with not enough light. Noise is absolutely minimal, and sharpness stays excellent even despite the lack of light.
Ultra-wide and telephoto camera
The ultrawide camera has 48 Mpx and a sensor size that’s half as large compared to the main camera, but its output is still decent. However, in both modes the photos are a bit darker than those from the main camera, and the dynamic range is slightly weaker.
Overall, the impression is still very good. The photos don’t lack sharpness or fine detail. The wide-angle camera handles interior shots excellently too, where we personally liked the ZEISS Natural Color mode more, since in the preset mode the photos often had far too warm colors.
A telephoto camera that immediately grabs your attention with the rear camera module has a resolution of 64 Mpx. It offers maximum optical zoom at 3.5x magnification, and its output is also at a very high level.
Thanks to the high resolution, we can also zoom in a bit more on the photo taken with this camera without any noticeable loss in quality.
With the new Vivo X90 Pro, you can also enjoy shooting macro shots. The camera has autofocus even in macro mode, so you’ll get very good results with it. The portrait mode is similar—it beautifully blurs the background.
Finally, let’s take a look at a series of photos shot by all the mentioned cameras—from ultrawide to 3.5x zoom in ZEISS Natural Color mode. As a bonus, there’s also digital 10x zoom, which isn’t bad at all.
Night mode
With many smartphones, when shooting at night you need to activate Night mode. Here, the camera is so good that you basically don’t even need Night mode, because it turns on automatically. If we compare photos with Night mode and without it, the difference is almost not visible, so we shot exclusively with the manufacturer’s automatic settings.
The difference between the standard mode and ZEISS Natural Color is again quite noticeable, especially in color temperature. Photo quality is best from the main camera and is also excellent overall. Compared to shooting in daylight, you can of course see a drop in sharpness, but nothing unusual. Noise isn’t at all distracting, so we’re very happy with the night shots too.
Video with stabilization
The highest video resolution is again 8K, but only at 30 fps and without stabilization. To use it, you’ll therefore need a gimbal if you don’t want shaky video.
That’s why we mainly used 4K 60 fps, which also supports optical image stabilization. Other options include 4K 30 fps, 1080p at 30 or 60 fps, or the lowest 720p at 30 or 60 fps.
Video quality is very good; stabilization works well. You can still see slightly visible walking, but the colors look a bit boosted and more saturated. The ZEISS Natural Color mode isn’t available for video recording.
You’ll also be glad to see support for Dolby Vision, and you can choose between ZEISS Cinematic or Natural modes, plus various filters. However, all the options mentioned support a maximum resolution of 1080p 30 fps, which is a bit of a shame.
Runtime and charging
The Vivo X90 Pro Plus comes with a 4700 mAh battery with support for fast charging via Flash Charge with power of 80 W. Wireless charging of 50 W is also included.
The wired charging process looks like this:
| capacity | time |
|---|---|
20 – 50 % | 7 minutes and 15 seconds |
75 % | 16 minutes and 35 seconds |
90 % | 23 minutes and 27 seconds |
100 % | 30 minutes and 5 seconds |
As for battery life, there are no miracles here. The smartphone lasts about one day, similar to most comparable smartphones. With intensive use, it’s also not a problem to drain the phone earlier, which will require a second charge during the day.
Sound and connectivity
Stereo speakers are a given in this class, but you won’t find the second one on the top edge. Its function is handled by a speaker built into the edge above the display, which is also used for calls.
The sound quality isn’t quite at the very top either, partly due to the call speaker. Max volume could also be a bit higher, so in this respect the smartphone won’t surprise you.
For wireless connectivity, you get support for 5G networks, WiFi 6, position systems GPS, AGPS, GLONASS and Beidou, as well as Bluetooth in version 5.3. Even though it’s the Chinese version of the smartphone, you also have all 4G network bands available, including the most popular 800 MHz band B20.
NFC for contactless payments works without any issues as well, but before the first use you need to set the Wallet app as the default for payments.
Vivo X90 Pro Plus: Final review
The new flagship model from the Chinese brand Vivo—which also entered the Slovak market, by the way—is a brutal smartphone with uncompromising performance thanks to the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. You’ll also be pleased with the excellent cameras, which clearly place the new model among the top camera phones on the market.
The large ultrasonic fingerprint reader is great too—it’s precise and responds exceptionally fast. The only downside is perhaps the Chinese system, which includes a lot of bloatware and troublesome notifications that don’t display reliably.
Are you interested in the smartphone?
If our review convinced you to buy this latest Vivo flagship with maximum performance and a top-tier camera, don’t hesitate and order through our partner TradingShenzen—because you can’t get it anywhere else right now.
Vivo X90 Pro Plus, Chinese ROM
TIPExpress delivery from a European warehouse without customs duty and VAT.
This product will be delivered to you express from a local warehouse in Europe. Delivery from EU warehouses usually takes 2–10 days and is handled by a courier. When delivered, you don’t pay any extra fees—no customs duty or VAT.
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any additional fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t have to pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT will be handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart after you enter your delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
TIPWith Global Priority shipping, you don’t pay any additional fees.
We recommend choosing Global Priority shipping, where you won’t have to pay anything extra. Customs fees and any VAT will be handled by the seller directly for you. Shipping can be selected in the cart after you enter your delivery address. Delivery with Global Priority usually takes about 15 days, but it may also take longer.
As we mentioned, the seller offers duty-free shipping via Global Priority, and delivery can be expected from two weeks.
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