vivo X500 Pro Max Review: The best features are found upon closer inspection

Vivo X500 Pro Max doesn’t want to be the best phone. It wants to be the best camera that fits in your pocket, and it doesn’t even try to hide it. On its back, it sports a circle as large as a compact camera lens, housing a 200Mpx telephoto lens, and you can attach a grip with a shutter button or a 400mm teleconverter to it. I’ve been testing the European version since before its premiere and took it with me to Tenerife, where vivo introduced it for Europe. After a few days, I can say one thing: the most interesting features aren’t found in the spec sheet.

First impression: a circle you can’t miss

The phone is large and makes no apologies for it. The flat display has a diagonal of 6.85″, the body measures 163.3 × 76.8 mm, and you’ll only manage it with one hand if you have long fingers and a bit of courage. An aluminum frame, IP68 and IP69 protection, and an ultrasonic fingerprint reader are standard features in this class. The circular camera module dominates the entire back, but it’s positioned so that the phone doesn’t wobble on a table.

More interestingly, the color determines the material. The Moonlit Black has a fiberglass back, is 0.17 mm thinner, and about five grams lighter. The tested Starry Gray has a glass back. Inside, a 2nm MediaTek Dimensity 9600 Pro chip works with 12 GB RAM and 512GB or 1TB storage. In the box, you’ll find a case and a pre-applied screen protector, but no adapter. So much for the mandatory part, now for the fun stuff.

A telephoto lens that’s actually a macro

This is my favorite feature of the entire phone. The 200Mpx periscope with an 85mm focal length focuses from as close as 15 centimeters. This means you’re not shooting macro with an ultrawide lens, but from a distance. The phone doesn’t cast a shadow on the subject, the background naturally blurs, and flowers or watches have correct proportions. Switching to macro is automatic; just get close to the subject.

This is aided by laser focusing with 1,536 points in a 48 × 32 grid, which only the Pro Max has. The smaller X500 Pro and the base X500 do not. You’ll notice this with small objects with low contrast and in dim light, where non-laser focusing often hunts for a moment. Portrait mode offers five focal lengths from 24 to 135 mm, and you can change the depth of field even after taking the photo, down to f/0.95. The phone will directly advise you to shoot from a distance of half a meter to two and a half meters.

A lesser-known detail is the telephoto lens’s active defogging. When you move from cold to warm environments, you don’t have to wait for the lens to defog itself. Vivo targets skiers with this feature, for example, but it only works in the system camera app, not in third-party applications.

Moment: a mode that turns your phone into a camera

I enjoyed the Moment mode the most. You’ll find it all the way to the left, even before Landscape and Night modes, and once you open it, the entire interface changes. The viewfinder gets a dark frame, the shutter button looks like a metal button, and instead of zoom, you have fixed focal lengths of 24, 35, 50, 85, and 135 mm. Below the image is an exposure compensation dial and an AUTO/PRO switch, which reveals ISO, shutter speed, aperture, focus, and white balance.

The main magic lies in the color styles. Besides the basic Vivid, Refined, Natural ZEISS, Honey, Noir, and Sunny, you’ll find film emulations like Daylight 160, 200, and 400, and the black-and-white Silver Halide 1600. You can create your own style via the plus icon, and you can shoot in both JPG and SuperRAW, which composites multiple images into a single RAW file. Anyone who has ever shot on film will feel right at home here, just without the waiting for development.

Vivo also adds a digital negative. The phone saves a flat, low-contrast photo, something like Log for stills. It handles noise, lens distortion, and HDR itself, leaving contrast and colors to you, and you can then upload your own LUTs to the images, just like with video. Working with it is currently more for enthusiasts, and editing RAW in Lightroom is more convenient. However, if you fine-tune your own LUT, you’ll get a consistent look for your photos without a computer, which is useful for a distinctive Instagram style, for example.

Zoom, Snapshot, and teleconverters

The telephoto lens has 3.5× optical zoom, and the 200Mpx sensor adds on-chip cropping, maintaining quality further out. Up to 10×, or roughly 240 mm, photos are excellent. Beyond 10×, artificial intelligence kicks in, and beyond 20×, the result turns into a watercolor, with lights getting a halo. It helps to reduce AI sharpening at high zoom levels in the camera settings. Photos are then softer but don’t invent details that weren’t there.

For sports and restless children, there’s Snapshot mode with up to 30× zoom and 60× per second object tracking. For those who want more, attach a ZEISS teleconverter for 200 or 400 mm. The phone won’t recognize it automatically; you need to enable it in the More menu and select the correct type, otherwise stabilization won’t work properly. With the 400mm converter, vivo recommends not exceeding 67×, and I would add: without a tripod, it’s better not to go even that far.

Both teleconverters are excellent, though. They’re not a marketing gimmick but a tool you’ll genuinely use. If I were buying a vivo, I’d get it straight away with the photography kit.

More menu: a drawer worth looking into

The More menu works like a kitchen drawer: you’ll find everything in it, it just takes a moment. And under the question “Looking for more features?” there’s another hidden one. Worth mentioning are:

• Supermoon for the Moon via telephoto lens; with the 400mm teleconverter, it’s a spectacle
• Food, which automatically zooms in to roughly double and sets a simulated aperture of f/4, so the entire plate is sharp
• Stage for concerts and Dual View Stage, which records with two lenses simultaneously
• Ultra HD Document, which turns a photo of a paper into a clean scan
• Spatial Camera for 3D shots for mixed reality glasses
• High Resolution for full-resolution sensor photos and Live Streaming directly from the camera

Sample photos from Tenerife

Landscape and sea

City and architecture

Evening and night

Video can do more than the spec sheet reveals

4K at 240 frames per second has its rules. Only the main camera can do it, exposure must not be longer than 1/240 s, and color styles do not work in this mode. LOFIC technology is also disabled in this mode. Slow motion at 480 and 960 frames will arrive in an update and consists of interpolated frames that the phone processes in the gallery in about ten seconds.

For creators, the rest is more interesting. 10-bit Log handles 4K/120 on both the main camera and the telephoto lens. Custom LUTs can be used as a preview, or they can be directly baked into the recording, but only up to 4K/60. Vivo offers an official conversion for DaVinci Resolve. The APV codec with 4:2:2 sampling can be edited without conversion, just be aware that storage disappears by gigabytes. And the 17 EV dynamic range from marketing applies to Log, not photos.

For reviewers and e-shops, there’s a feature that’s absolutely amazing. When tracking an object, you can set both focus sensitivity and speed, and enable focus priority on the subject, so the phone keeps the product in hand sharp, not the face behind it. Product videos almost shoot themselves with it. Video portrait offers two types of background blur, “Natural” and “Cinematic ZEISS”. The Pro Max has four microphones, six audio presets including concert singing or outdoor voice, and supports wireless microphones. And if you tap the shutter during recording, a three to five-second live photo is saved.

OriginOS 7: it takes some digging

Frankly, OriginOS 7 didn’t impress me at first glance. The interface is interchangeable and a bit soulless. But once you dig deep enough into the rabbit hole, you’ll discover features that could easily make it your favorite Android overlay. The Origin Work Tool holds up to five applications in one space, and you switch between them with a single tap, similar to a foldable phone. It requires at least 12 GB of RAM, which the X500 Pro Max meets in all versions.

Then there’s Origin Island, similar to Dynamic Island. It displays music, hotspot, recording, sports, timer, printing, and Office Kit status, and most importantly, you can drag text, links, or images onto it. The system then suggests apps to send it to. I really liked this feature and I’m disappointed that most competitors still don’t have it. Contextual recommendations also monitor the clipboard: a copied number offers to save it to contacts, a link to open it, and a meeting event to write to the calendar. In short, the system reacts to what you want to do at that moment, and unfortunately, this is not standard for either Android or Apple.

Among AI features, the voice recorder can transcribe recordings and distinguish speakers, even in Czech. During meetings, the phone can generate subtitles, Snap Note converts a photo of a whiteboard or paper into an editable note, and Gemini and Circle to Search are also present. Private Space hides apps and data outside the main system, thanks to app cloning you can have WhatsApp twice, and the Ticket Purchase Engine prioritizes network and performance during ticket sales. Don’t expect miracles for sold-out concerts, but at least the app shouldn’t freeze on you.

Sound and control: switches you don’t know about

Volume can be set separately for each application, but this option is disabled by default and hidden under the volume sliders. Super Audio Resolution enhances low-quality audio in videos and recordings, at the cost of higher power consumption. And spatial audio works for the phone’s speakers too, not just headphones.

But what surprised me most was audio redirection. When you have Bluetooth headphones connected, you can select applications that will continue to play from the phone’s speaker. This way, a child can watch a cartoon out loud while you listen to a podcast on your headphones. You can then fine-tune haptics by intensity and style, sharp or gentle. Those switching from another Android will also appreciate the option to merge the control center with notifications, as it’s split into two sides by default, like on an iPhone.

Surprisingly good friend for iPhone, Mac, and AirPods

This is a part that anyone who doesn’t exclusively own Android devices will appreciate. AirPods show battery status and connection directly on Origin Island and support spatial audio. The Shake to Share feature sends full-resolution photos to an iPhone; you just need the EasyShare app on it and to shake both phones. Mobile data is not consumed in the process.

With the Office Kit app for Windows and macOS, the phone then mirrors its screen to the computer, synchronizes the clipboard, and transfers files by dragging and dropping. A new feature is camera sharing: the phone can serve as a webcam for a compatible MacBook. Screenshots and photos can also be sent to an iPad. Switching from an iPhone might not hurt as much, and in fact, you even get features here that an iPhone, in cooperation with a Mac, paradoxically cannot do, at least in the EU.

Display: it won’t give you 2K out of the box

This is perhaps the biggest hidden aspect of the entire phone. The display has a resolution of 3168 × 1440 pixels, but out of the box, it runs at a lower resolution of 2772 × 1260, which vivo calls Ultra HD. You can enable full resolution in the display settings by selecting Extreme HD. You’ll notice the difference mainly with small text, and power consumption will increase slightly.

It’s similar with the refresh rate. The default smart adaptation only reaches 144 Hz in some games. The High option allows up to 144 Hz even outside of games, again at the cost of higher power consumption. The display colors, on the other hand, are natural out of the box, and those who want accurate reproduction can switch to Professional. The panel uses BOE’s new Q11 luminescent material and can be manually dimmed to as low as 1 nit in the dark, which anyone who reads in bed will appreciate. At low brightness, it dims by flickering at 2,160 Hz; at higher brightness, it switches to DC-like dimming. Those sensitive to flickering can enable DC dimming for the entire range.

Games: Ultra Game Mode does more than you expect

The gaming performance of the Dimensity 9600 Pro chip is high, but the phone prioritizes low temperatures. Genshin Impact stays just under 60 frames per second, Wuthering Waves around 52, and the back heats up to 47 °C. The vapor chamber is 32% larger than in the X300 Pro, but it doesn’t work miracles.

Interesting features are hidden in the Ultra Game Mode, which you open in-game by swiping from the top edge sideways. Super Resolution sharpens the image in supported games, including Genshin Impact, Call of Duty Mobile, Honor of Kings, or League of Legends: Wild Rift. Super Frame Rate interpolates frames, but currently only in a single game, Garena AoV. Visual enhancements via the display chip work for all added games. Esports mode can block notifications, disable three-finger screenshots to avoid interference, and lock brightness. And Bypass Charging 3.0 powers the phone directly from the charger during gaming, not from the battery, so it heats up less.

Battery, charging, and a few minor details

The European version has a 6,750 mAh battery and an EU energy label rating of 72 hours of endurance. In practice, it reliably lasts me a day and a half. In the battery settings, you choose between power-saving, balanced, and TURBO modes, and the phone immediately estimates how long it will last with each. For critical moments, there’s a super power-saving mode that only allows a few applications to run, and an extended endurance feature that keeps the phone alive for calls at the last percentage. However, many phones can do that today.

Those who charge overnight and want their phone to last for years can limit charging to 80%. With this endurance, you won’t notice it during a normal day, but those who go on full-day trips should rather charge it fully. The adapter is missing from the European package. If you don’t opt for the original 90W charger, choose at least a model with PPS; with a regular USB-PD without it, vivo phones charge slowly. Wirelessly, the phone can handle 40 W, but only with the second generation vivo charging stand. It does not work with the first generation.

A few minor details to conclude. The USB-C port can send video to a monitor via DisplayPort and transfers data at USB 3.2 Gen 1 speeds, i.e., 5 Gb/s. However, analog USB-C headphones do not work; you need digital ones or an adapter with its own converter. The phone has an infrared port, Wi-Fi 7, and supports LDAC and LHDC 5 codecs via Bluetooth. The ultrasonic fingerprint reader works even with a wet finger, but it doesn’t tolerate every screen protector, which is why the phone comes with a pre-applied film. It doesn’t have magnets in the back; magnetic accessories require a case, which is a shame.

What to switch right after unboxing

Setting	What to change to	Reason
Screen resolution	Extreme HD	display runs at 2772 × 1260 by default
Refresh rate	High	up to 144 Hz even outside of games, at the cost of higher power consumption
Camera color style	Natural ZEISS	default Vivid overemphasizes colors
Volume for individual apps	enable	disabled by default
Control Center	Merge	if you don’t want the two-sided split like on iPhone
Background power consumption control	allow for messengers	otherwise messages may arrive with a delay
Default video quality	as desired	so the phone doesn’t always start at 4K/60

Price and who to recommend it to

The 12/512GB version now costs 38,699 CZK at Alza, originally priced at 42,990 CZK, and a trade-in bonus will reduce the price by another three thousand. The version with half the storage can be had with a trade-in bonus for as little as 32,999 CZK, which is a relatively pleasant price. Personally, however, I would definitely pay extra for the version with the photography kit, which now costs 44,099 CZK and with a trade-in, 41,099 CZK.

The X500 Pro Max makes sense for people who shoot with longer focal lengths, macro, and video, and don’t mind spending an evening in the settings. It will reward them with a telephoto lens that handles both macro and portraits, a Moment mode that lets you shoot like with a dedicated camera, and the richest set of video tools I’ve had in a phone this year. Those who want a phone that just works out of the box and have never heard of LUTs will pay for features they won’t use. For them, I would recommend the cheaper X300 Pro and spending the difference on a vacation where they’ll be taking photos.

Which of those hidden features would you enable first?