With 4K/240fps slow-mo, this upcoming flagship could blow rivals out of the water

It’s been mere months since we took a good look at vivo’s colossal Ultra camera masquerading as a phone with one of the farthest-reaching zoom lenses. Come September, major phone giants will keep us busy with new releases. Among them, vivo is set to launch a new flagship camera phone with some serious upgrades previously unseen on phone cameras.

In a recent Weibo post, vivo’s product manager Han Boxiao revealed camera upgrades coming for the upcoming vivo X500 series. Boxiao writes that while previous devices have aced at phone photography, the upcoming X500 series “aims to take mobile video to another level.” When I tested the X300 Pro from earlier this year, I found it to outpace the iPhone 17 Pro in video, and the upcoming phones could take a major leap, as the representative suggests.

Among the improvements vivo teases for the X500 series, the first is its new custom sensor. The vivo X500 Pro will feature a custom “Ultra Dynamic Camera” developed by vivo in collaboration with ZEISS and Sony. The Phantom 500 sensor (as translated by Google) will support 17 stops of dynamic range, previously unseen on a phone camera. Sony recently launched the LYT-910 LOFIC sensor capable of 17ev stops, and we could be looking at a slightly modified version adapted for vivo.

The camera sensor should let the vivo X500 Pro capture details on a person’s face, even when sitting right in front of a bright light source. This would extend to video, not just photos, effectively bringing professional-grade capabilities to the phone’s camera and delivering “cinematic quality frame by frame.”

The next major upgrade the X500 Pro would bring is support for 4K@120p recording with HDR (the X300 Ultra currently supports 4K 120p with LOG) and 4K@240p slow-mo, making it the first phone to support both. The phone will also support CIPA 7.0 stabilization for gimbal-style steady video. The vivo X300 Ultra previously supported a similar level of stabilization, but only on the telephoto lens. With this generation, however, it could extend to the primary camera as well.

In addition to these upgrades, Boxiao also hints at major improvements coming to the display, performance, and the OS. The current post lacks details on those bits, but we expect them to roll out over the coming weeks ahead of the launch. In terms of performance, we can expect a new MediaTek Dimensity chip at the helm.

Based on previous leaks, we’ve learned that the vivo X500 Pro could feature a display with “extremely narrow” bezels — something OnePlus is also aiming for with the upcoming OnePlus 16. In addition to the regular X500 and the X500 Pro, vivo could also launch a Pro Max with a bigger display.