Question Vivo x90 pro+ vs S23U

[PILLS2389]

@Killuminati91, if you get the S23 Ultra now, during the launch promotion for ~1300E (512GB), then I think you should get the Samsung.
It will have better value at resell, more updates, you can easily find accesories for it in your country, you won't have to get them from AliExpress and wait 1 month for them to arrive.

 

[extremecarver]

The s23U 512GB was presale 1169€ including Buds2 in Germany/Austria (with 10% voucher that anyone asking for it got). Corporate Benefits (accessible with a limited company registering you) has it at 1189€.

Some carriers have it on deals that end up around 950€ value vs you getting a contract with less data on the same network in Germany (basically it start at 1350€ overall for 512GB version with 50GB data/month - similar data is gonna be at least 15€ / month. Sim only) .
And yeah the carrier deals show why 1150€ is actually still expensive for S23U. For 1400€ you could get a 2 year contract for free on top...


The Vivo is overpriced like crazy considering its likely overall use time of 3 years without proper support/warranty/slow android updates/short update period.


The vivo x90Pro+ can only compete in China itself with the S23+ due to very different pricing. if you say 800/1200 € or USD is the price for x90 pro+ vs S23U - then it's getting into fair pricing as comparison. In 3 years time likely the resell value of the S23U will still be 300€ over x90 Pro+ (one basically worth nothing then, the other 400). At that point it really becomes preference of UI and camera..


Oh yeah another advantage of S23 - it has battery bypass. The Vivo on the other hand so far doesn't even seem to manage intelligent charging yet (activating it in the menu does nothing for me - nor has anyone said it does work). S23 has various working charge modes (like stopping at 85% and so on. The Vivo instead of bypassing battery at 100% sends out a notification asking to be taken off power... It's countless small details missing or not yet working.

 

[[email protected]]

Ok. i am going to tell my personal experience with x90PP and a short hands on with s23 ultra, which is an incredible phone exactly like the s22u was

1- Camera:
- there is no way s23 camera can produce better pics than x90, its that simple
- even in zoom range ,if its not daylight vivo is better,
- i prefer vivos videos cuz its sharper, but its not conclusive like the photos part
- USE effects and be creative, this phone can produce DSLR quality photos

Battery
- my vivo's battery outlasts my daily driver iphone 14 pro max so for sure its better than s23
- no need to discuss the charging speed, i mean ... come on!


Biometrics:
- comparing both fingerprint and face unlock between these two is a joke, performance is MILES better with vivo


Software experience
i prefer oneui in general and all the useful options it gives but originOS has its own hidden gems, for example Easyshare application on PC and you can mirror wirelessly your phone to your PC Screen. customizing everything, the awesome widgets ,,,,, etc

gaming:
didnt get the chance to play with samsung but daily minimum 2 hours playing marvel future fight, some casual asphalt races and candy crush i can confirm this phone is built for gaming - no heat no lag no dropped frames and most importantly the days with heavy gaming seasions battery lasts minimum 7 to 8 hours SOT

now for unlocking bootloader- personally i dont care
but seriously who wants to unlock their bootloader these days? but if thats what you want. dont buy the vivo

there is no eSim but again "i dont care"

modem and reception and calls quality top notch


now the most important thing: the WOW Factor.
its a head turner, everyone will ask what the hell is this and it gives the this feeling that you have the best device at most of what it does + you are actually the only one have it

 

[P6P]

Ok. i am going to tell my personal experience with x90PP and a short hands on with s23 ultra, which is an incredible phone exactly like the s22u was

1- Camera:
- there is no way s23 camera can produce better pics than x90, its that simple
- even in zoom range ,if its not daylight vivo is better,
- i prefer vivos videos cuz its sharper, but its not conclusive like the photos part
- USE effects and be creative, this phone can produce DSLR quality photos

Battery
- my vivo's battery outlasts my daily driver iphone 14 pro max so for sure its better than s23
- no need to discuss the charging speed, i mean ... come on!


Biometrics:
- comparing both fingerprint and face unlock between these two is a joke, performance is MILES better with vivo


Software experience
i prefer oneui in general and all the useful options it gives but originOS has its own hidden gems, for example Easyshare application on PC and you can mirror wirelessly your phone to your PC Screen. customizing everything, the awesome widgets ,,,,, etc

gaming:
didnt get the chance to play with samsung but daily minimum 2 hours playing marvel future fight, some casual asphalt races and candy crush i can confirm this phone is built for gaming - no heat no lag no dropped frames and most importantly the days with heavy gaming seasions battery lasts minimum 7 to 8 hours SOT

now for unlocking bootloader- personally i dont care
but seriously who wants to unlock their bootloader these days? but if thats what you want. dont buy the vivo

there is no eSim but again "i dont care"

modem and reception and calls quality top notch


now the most important thing: the WOW Factor.
its a head turner, everyone will ask what the hell is this and it gives the this feeling that you have the best device at most of what it does + you are actually the only one have it

Honestly that's what I have expected so I'm not surprised at all.

 

[Haskren]

Plenty of youtube vids now with the S23U beating the competition - but strangely, no vs x90 pro plus even from reviewers raving about this phone. They suddenly consider the iPhone 14 the one to beat (which of course it does - great Samsung promo).
Knowing the Vivo will crush the S23U particularly in low light, I'm wondering if Samsung paid them off to wait with these reviews while people are preordering like crazy to get the "camera king"

 

[vendetta17]

Plenty of youtube vids now with the S23U beating the competition - but strangely, no vs x90 pro plus even from reviewers raving about this phone. They suddenly consider the iPhone 14 the one to beat (which of course it does - great Samsung promo).
Knowing the Vivo will crush the S23U particularly in low light, I'm wondering if Samsung paid them off to wait with these reviews while people are preordering like crazy to get the "camera king"

Ive seen a review vs pixel 7 pro on a guy i trust . The pixel won . Samsung improved , its true . But its weird that 99% of the reviews are against iphone .
Vivo will easily beat the galaxy . Ben's gadget reviews will do it soon .

 

[PILLS2389]

Ive seen a review vs pixel 7 pro on a guy i trust . The pixel won . Samsung improved , its true . But its weird that 99% of the reviews are against iphone .
Vivo will easily beat the galaxy . Ben's gadget reviews will do it soon .

It's not weird, from a youtuber-ul / reviewer point of view it's the correct comparison.
A s23 ultra vs iPhone video will bring you a lot more views than a s23 ultra vs vivo video right now, it doesn't matter if the iPhone is not the phone to beat, if they don't do this video first they will loose views / money.
They will probably do the S23 Ultra vs other phones videos after the iPhone.

 

[Haskren]

Ive seen a review vs pixel 7 pro on a guy i trust . The pixel won . Samsung improved , its true . But its weird that 99% of the reviews are against iphone .
Vivo will easily beat the galaxy . Ben's gadget reviews will do it soon .

Exactly. The iPhone is suddenly the phone to beat, not a single reviewer stepping out of line and pit it against the phone they themselves crowned the camera king. Instead I see, iPhone, one plus, pixel etc.. got a feeling we will see the Samsung beat by Vivo only when pre-order period is over.

 

[Badger50]

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[Haskren]

To keep this thread going, can we please not respond to extremecarver?

 

[Killuminati91]

I think y'all are just a little bit too heated up to defend your 1000€ + purchase, wether its vivo or samsung. The differences get smaller with each generation and both phones are gonna have great cameras ofc. Ive seen video footage of the S23 Ultra, which VISIBLY has some kind of new stabilization system. No minor sensor shifts anymore, which I havent seen on any other phone yet. As video is most important for me, it has 5 years OS updates and official local support the decision was an easy one. On the other hand the vivo takes incredible night pictures, has the 1" sensor, incredible lens coating and Zeiss Bokeh effects and I actually prefer OriginOS looks and functionality. But I cant justify spending 1000€ on a phone that doesnt have full Google Support and a questionable update policy.

 

[P6P]

I think y'all are just a little bit too heated up to defend your 1000€ + purchase, wether its vivo or samsung. The differences get smaller with each generation and both phones are gonna have great cameras ofc. Ive seen video footage of the S23 Ultra, which VISIBLY has some kind of new stabilization system. No minor sensor shifts anymore, which I havent seen on any other phone yet. As video is most important for me, it has 5 years OS updates and official local support the decision was an easy one. On the other hand the vivo takes incredible night pictures, has the 1" sensor, incredible lens coating and Zeiss Bokeh effects and I actually prefer OriginOS looks and functionality. But I cant justify spending 1000€ on a phone that doesnt have full Google Support and a questionable update policy.

Depends on what you want or need. The vivo is the perfect phone i never had.

 

[Haskren]

A video comparing the S32U with the Vivo has finally emerged

The guy felt the need to add "NO INFLUENCER" in the video title, which seems to support my hunch that during the pre-order period, Samsung has some sort of review embargo on pitting it against the only phone that can dethrone it as the advertised camera king

Anyway, lots of image comparisons. First half is daylight, 2nd night.
Some thoughts:
1. While the Vivo generally seems a bit softer, I prefer the less oversharpened look - as a photographer, I like to add sharpening myself if needed. And oversharpened image can't be salvaged.
2. Samsung's big selling point is still the 10x zoom, but Vivo is achieving a near similar result with its larger mp count and clever processing. It achieves 90% of what the Samsung does (IMO)
One of many examples in the video:

Yes, bricks have more texture on the S23U, but in most scenarios the difference will be negligible.

3. There are a few examples where the reviewer did not control the shallow depth of field properly on the Vivo resulting in blurry picture. User error, the Vivo seems to need a bit more attention due to its large sensor - when it nails it, I believe it can outdo the S23U in regards to natural bokeh.
4. Night shots - this is what I was waiting for. Would have loved to see some 100% zooms, but it's pretty obvious that the Vivo trumps the S23U in regards to noise in the non-night mode snaps (night mode is more evenly matched as it enabled to S23U to dial down the ISO and rely on a long shutterspeed - useless in most point & shoot scenarios).
5. HDR in night mode - in spite of the S23U improving on the highlight retention compared to the S22U, the Zeiss coating on the Vivo clearly is far ahead. No phone can touch it. Much more detail in shadow- and highlight areas overall.
6. Zoom lenses in low light - the 10X outshines the Vivo in low light, but the Vivo consistently produces less noise on both zoom lenses.
7. Colour science - unfortunately no people in this video so can't judge the all-important skin tone result.
What we can see though is the generally warmer tone of the Vivo. This could be down to the Zeiss setting, but overall I see no broken colour science on this phone as pointed out ad nauseum by extremecarver.

The advantages of the bigger sensor (65% bigger than on the S23U), is pretty clear.
It's absorbing more light and can get bright images without the need to increase the ISO. The S23U will need a higher ISO setting and/or a slower shutterspeed to achieve anywhere near the brightness of the Vivo. Both scenarios produces an inferior result.
This video looks very promising for people like myself leaning towards purchasing the Vivo for its photography capabilities.

 

[extremecarver]

Look into the topic of s23u on dpreview forum, the Samsung is classes better on 50 and especially 200MP mode, so there's loads of potential in the sensor. Need to wait at least for 17.02 Day 1 update which by iceuniverse promises big updates to the camera before assessing much. the 200mp pixel Photos are pretty much best out of any stock camera so far, better than vivo 50mp. If Samsung would enable full resolution on camera 2 API many people claim it would be unbeatable. Yeah vivo full resolution on camera 2 would also change a lot seeing that 12.5mp gcam beats 50mp from stock most of the time...
Right now s23u camera clearly has problems.

I only see huge problems of colours in difficult situations of X90 (hard to fix in post) and colours that should be in between vivid and Zeiss otherwise (can be fixed easily in post but bad out of the box). For colours out of the box pixel rules, and apple second.

 

[Haskren]

Look into the topic of s23u on dpreview forum, the Samsung is classes better on 50 and especially 200MP mode, so there's loads of potential in the sensor. Need to wait at least for 17.02 Day 1 update which by iceuniverse promises big updates to the camera before assessing much. the 200mp pixel Photos are pretty much best out of any stock camera so far, better than vivo 50mp. If Samsung would enable full resolution on camera 2 API many people claim it would be unbeatable. Yeah vivo full resolution on camera 2 would also change a lot seeing that 12.5mp gcam beats 50mp from stock most of the time...
Right now s23u camera clearly has problems.

I only see huge problems of colours in difficult situations of X90 (hard to fix in post) and colours that should be in between vivid and Zeiss otherwise (can be fixed easily in post but bad out of the box). For colours out of the box pixel rules, and apple second.

Is the S23U update going to fix the last gen charging speed?

 

[vendetta17]

Is the S23U update going to fix the last gen charging speed?

Best reply ever .

 

[mbfamily]

A video comparing the S32U with the Vivo has finally emerged

The guy felt the need to add "NO INFLUENCER" in the video title, which seems to support my hunch that during the pre-order period, Samsung has some sort of review embargo on pitting it against the only phone that can dethrone it as the advertised camera king

Anyway, lots of image comparisons. First half is daylight, 2nd night.
Some thoughts:
1. While the Vivo generally seems a bit softer, I prefer the less oversharpened look - as a photographer, I like to add sharpening myself if needed. And oversharpened image can't be salvaged.
2. Samsung's big selling point is still the 10x zoom, but Vivo is achieving a near similar result with its larger mp count and clever processing. It achieves 90% of what the Samsung does (IMO)
One of many examples in the video:
View attachment 5831341

Yes, bricks have more texture on the S23U, but in most scenarios the difference will be negligible.

3. There are a few examples where the reviewer did not control the shallow depth of field properly on the Vivo resulting in blurry picture. User error, the Vivo seems to need a bit more attention due to its large sensor - when it nails it, I believe it can outdo the S23U in regards to natural bokeh.
4. Night shots - this is what I was waiting for. Would have loved to see some 100% zooms, but it's pretty obvious that the Vivo trumps the S23U in regards to noise in the non-night mode snaps (night mode is more evenly matched as it enabled to S23U to dial down the ISO and rely on a long shutterspeed - useless in most point & shoot scenarios).
5. HDR in night mode - in spite of the S23U improving on the highlight retention compared to the S22U, the Zeiss coating on the Vivo clearly is far ahead. No phone can touch it. Much more detail in shadow- and highlight areas overall.
6. Zoom lenses in low light - the 10X outshines the Vivo in low light, but the Vivo consistently produces less noise on both zoom lenses.
7. Colour science - unfortunately no people in this video so can't judge the all-important skin tone result.
What we can see though is the generally warmer tone of the Vivo. This could be down to the Zeiss setting, but overall I see no broken colour science on this phone as pointed out ad nauseum by extremecarver.

The advantages of the bigger sensor (65% bigger than on the S23U), is pretty clear.
It's absorbing more light and can get bright images without the need to increase the ISO. The S23U will need a higher ISO setting and/or a slower shutterspeed to achieve anywhere near the brightness of the Vivo. Both scenarios produces an inferior result.
This video looks very promising for people like myself leaning towards purchasing the Vivo for its photography capabilities.

The most important aspect to consider, IMHO, is that the Vivo achieves this with a 3.9x zoom lens, which means at zoom range between 3.9x and 10x the Vivo will produce better images.

Because in "real life", you're much more likely to take 4x or 5x or maybe 7x shots than 10x shots. At these focal lengths, the Samsung can only use its 10MP 3x lens with a tiny 1/3.52" sensor, but the Vivo can use a 1/2" 64MP sensor.
So most of the time for zooming, the Vivo is more useful. Unless you're a bird photographer I guess.

The 10x lens in the S23U is only useful for bragging rights and moon shots, but for a "real life" photographer the Vivo offers by far the more versatile camera, because it can produce good images at ANY zoom up to 10x.

I compared the Vivo to my Sony a6400 mirrorless APS-C with the kit lens at different focal lengths (the a6400 kit lens is 24-75mm full frame equivalent) and honestly, most of the time the Vivo produced more pleasant images with less noise, better dynamic range and the same amount of detail.

TL;DR: The Vivo can replace a mirrorless camera for everyday photography - the Samsung can't, because the lens selection focuses on "bragging rights" instead of versatility.

 

[P6P]

The most important aspect to consider, IMHO, is that the Vivo achieves this with a 3.9x zoom lens, which means at zoom range between 3.9x and 10x the Vivo will produce better images.

Because in "real life", you're much more likely to take 4x or 5x or maybe 7x shots than 10x shots. At these focal lengths, the Samsung can only use its 10MP 3x lens with a tiny 1/3.52" sensor, but the Vivo can use a 1/2" 64MP sensor.
So most of the time for zooming, the Vivo is more useful. Unless you're a bird photographer I guess.

The 10x lens in the S23U is only useful for bragging rights and moon shots, but for a "real life" photographer the Vivo offers by far the more versatile camera, because it can produce good images at ANY zoom up to 10x.

I compared the Vivo to my Sony a6400 mirrorless APS-C with the kit lens at different focal lengths (the a6400 kit lens is 24-75mm full frame equivalent) and honestly, most of the time the Vivo produced more pleasant images with less noise, better dynamic range and the same amount of detail.

TL;DR: The Vivo can replace a mirrorless camera for everyday photography - the Samsung can't, because the lens selection focuses on "bragging rights" instead of versatility.

That's what people will never understand... The vivo is the best camera phone but if you can't handle it it will be crap in your hands.

 

[Haskren]

The most important aspect to consider, IMHO, is that the Vivo achieves this with a 3.9x zoom lens, which means at zoom range between 3.9x and 10x the Vivo will produce better images.

Because in "real life", you're much more likely to take 4x or 5x or maybe 7x shots than 10x shots. At these focal lengths, the Samsung can only use its 10MP 3x lens with a tiny 1/3.52" sensor, but the Vivo can use a 1/2" 64MP sensor.
So most of the time for zooming, the Vivo is more useful. Unless you're a bird photographer I guess.

The 10x lens in the S23U is only useful for bragging rights and moon shots, but for a "real life" photographer the Vivo offers by far the more versatile camera, because it can produce good images at ANY zoom up to 10x.

I compared the Vivo to my Sony a6400 mirrorless APS-C with the kit lens at different focal lengths (the a6400 kit lens is 24-75mm full frame equivalent) and honestly, most of the time the Vivo produced more pleasant images with less noise, better dynamic range and the same amount of detail.

TL;DR: The Vivo can replace a mirrorless camera for everyday photography - the Samsung can't, because the lens selection focuses on "bragging rights" instead of versatility.

Interesting point about the zoom.
Indeed, I rarely felt the need for a 10x (or more) zoom, but often could use somewhere in between the fixed focal length and the 10x. But of course I never use that on my P30 pro because digital zoom is terrible.
So just to be clear - the quality of the digital zoom that takes over when you exceed the 3.9x native zoom is all at least as good at the 10x because it's using the large 64mp sensor?
That's a bit of a game-changer nobody talks about!

 

[Killuminati91]

Shouldnt the pixel size be way larger on the S23 though? 10mp on 1/3.52" sounds larger to me than 64mp on 1/2", but Im too lazy to do the math here. The vivo one is probably binned as well, not sure if that is a pro.