Vivo’s X300 Ultra arrives with the kind of camera hardware that usually signals a clear step forward, yet the early verdict suggests the leap is smaller than expected. Instead of pulling far ahead of the X300 Pro, the Ultra seems to stand only a little above it, with color accuracy emerging as the most disappointing part of the experience.
That matters because the X300 Ultra is positioned as Vivo’s most ambitious camera phone in the line. It combines a large Sony LYT-901 main sensor at 1/1.12 inches, a Sony LYT-818 ultra-wide sensor at 1/1.28 inches, and an ISOCELL HP0 telephoto sensor at 1/1.4 inches.
Strong hardware, limited payoff
On paper, that setup places the X300 Ultra firmly among the most serious smartphone cameras available. The company has clearly built the device around premium imaging parts, and the overall specification sheet looks more aggressive than the one on the X300 Pro.
The problem is that the final photo output does not fully reflect that advantage in daily use. The improvement exists, but it is subtle rather than dramatic, and that makes the Ultra feel less transformative than its name suggests.
Color accuracy becomes the weak point
The most visible issue appears in the main camera’s color reproduction. Vivo has added a new Color-Sensing camera with 12 color channels, but test results still show highly inaccurate color when the phone is used with its default factory tuning.
Those tests were carried out in Vivid mode, which is the standard and recommended setting for the main camera. That makes the result more concerning, because many users will naturally stick with the default configuration when they first start shooting.
Instead of delivering more faithful tones, the phone’s built-in tuning pushes colors away from the reference. In a flagship that carries this level of hardware, that shortfall stands out immediately.
X300 Pro still looks more convincing
The comparison with the X300 Pro makes the situation even more interesting. The earlier model had already produced better color results, which shows that Vivo can achieve more convincing reproduction within the same product family.
That means the X300 Ultra does improve on the X300 Pro, but only by a very narrow margin. It does not create the kind of clear separation that many users would expect from an Ultra-tier device.
A flagship foundation that still leaves room to grow
None of this means the X300 Ultra is weak as a camera phone. Its imaging foundation remains extremely strong, and the device still sits in the top tier in technical terms.
Even so, the main appeal at this stage comes more from the hardware list than from a night-and-day difference in real-world results. For users who judge a camera by everyday shooting, the small gap to the X300 Pro may feel underwhelming.
There is still room for improvement through software updates, which often play a major role in how flagship cameras are tuned. The testing also suggested that certain Zeiss filters may produce colors closer to the reference.
For now, though, the factory settings do not deliver the color accuracy expected from a phone at this level. The X300 Ultra therefore remains a powerful but slightly frustrating camera flagship, with premium parts that have not yet translated into a decisive advantage over the X300 Pro.
