Vivo X300 Pro vs iPhone 17 Pro - Big Camera Comparison and Review!

This video is sponsored by Anker. Hey guys, so today I have the new Vivo X300 Pro that I tested for the past few weeks and the iPhone 17 Pro. So let's compare the cameras in the beautiful city of Paris and I have a feeling that our test will go very smooth today. When 100 million dollars worth of precious gems were stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris, it happened just as the museum was opening all in just seven minutes. In just seven minutes. Well, I have my own luck. Yeah guys, so make sure to hit the like button and subscribe and let's solve this mystery. Let's go. All right, so Vivo was kind enough to give me their new X300 Pro a month before the launch. So I thought I'll take it with me to Paris to see how good it is in comparison with the iPhone 17 Pro. And they also shipped me the photography kit with huge telephoto lens. The way it works, you put the case on the phone which also has a special lens bayonet. The mount had to be very robust and reliable to keep the lens in place. And of course, this Zeiss lens adds a lot of zoom reach as you'll see in the video. And what is cool, you install it not on the main camera sensor but on the telephoto camera which is already main focus of this phone. It's a 200 megapixel camera with 85 millimeter lens equivalent which is classic portrait focal length. And the rest main and ultra wide angle cameras are 50 megapixels. So let's see how good those two cameras are and compare it to the iPhone 17 Pro. iPhone 17 Pro has 48 megapixels main camera sensor. X300 Pro has 50. But these numbers do not mean much. Like here is the photo from my 12 megapixel pro camera. So as you guessed, specs aren't as important as the photos you're getting. And computational photography is where the key difference lies between these phones. Yes, the key difference is the software processing. As you know from my videos, iPhone is very consistent with this iPhone look. And I usually edit iPhone shots with my presets to give them a kick and make them even more, you know, filmic. Vivo on the other hand requires no or almost no editing at all. It's clearly more punchy and it's nothing crazy but to me it feels like they drop just the s-curve to exposure and it works. It just makes such a wow effect when I look to the iPhone 17 Pro shots side by side with the Vivo. That's an easy fix though. You see with these telephoto shots, I just added exposure compensation meter within the camera app like plus 0.5 and now the iPhone 17 Pro looks good if not better. Obviously you saw how Apple during the launch event has beautiful looking iPhone shots with portraits and they just look majestic, you know. That's because they have really good lighting and set design there. So I feel like that's the key with the iPhone 17 Pro. You have to understand lighting, contrast, color signs a little bit more. Otherwise you'd get a more toned down, neutral, almost raw-like looking file that needs a bit of editing. While Vivo fixes the scene with processing. But you know photography is just part of experience when using a phone. I have to tell you I like this color more than the iPhone it just feels feels really nice and feels French in a way because it's like champagne. It's not white really, it's not gold like maybe platinum color and I do love it without the case. So if you want to have a phone that looks beautiful and caseless, I think this one looks much better than the iPhone. And it just feels premium guys. For the price it's surprisingly nice especially like this back panel it feels amazing. Alright now let's talk about that Zeiss lens. See when you just snap a photo without it the iPhone provides better zooms. It reaches further and has better autofocus. But once the lens is attached it's game over. I'll show you way more examples and explanation during the Louvre heist but long story short if the lens was made for the iPhone 17 Pro then the starting point for the telephoto lens would be not four times but eight times. Guys I saw this kind of thing only in the movies but Louvre just was robbed. We were on the way to test this new telephoto lens with the Vivo and compare it to the iPhone. And by the way right now filming on iPhone 17 Pro with my lens. How's the image quality you let me know. But besides the point they just closed the Louvre because four people just broke in, stole jewelry and escaped on a scooter. Like police came out of nowhere you know blocked the scene. In TV series, in the movies you think no it's not possible. It only happens in the movie. In real life it's not gonna fly but it is literally like in the movies. This whole Louvre thing made me want to re-watch the Lupine TV series. I like the way they shot it on anamorphic lenses. Like you can feel how grungy some of the wide-angle anamorphic shots are in the show. There's a lot of image distortion in character especially in the first season. Same as with my anamorphic lens for the iPhone. I mean obviously it's not full-frame camera lens but it is as good as it gets for a phone. And what I found very odd is that in the show they say we have seven minutes to do the heist and for some reason it's exactly what they say in the news now. And guess what? It all happened on the same day in real life. This whole thing is strange. Almost as strange as me booking the slot for visiting museum when this heist happens. All I'm saying is you haven't seen me and Lupine in the same room. Okay just joking I'm here to test the cameras. And now let's compare the selfie cameras. So they are very different. You see iPhone introduced this year this new center stage selfie camera which I covered in all my videos prior to that. It is amazing. Well this Vivo does not allow you to film horizontal videos while holding your phone vertically but it does have zoom capabilities. It's digital crop but still it is pretty good. So you see right now on the Vivo I can select ultra wide-angle lens and I feel like it's about the same kind of field of view as the 17 pro. So right now they're pretty similar and I'm filming against sun and in that regard I feel like iPhone produces a little bit more natural tones. So this is the image and audio quality on the iPhone 17 pro and this is the Vivo X300 pro. You let me know what you think about the audio quality on the Vivo. The field of view is more or less the same on the wider angle but you can also zoom in digitally. So yeah I'm not so sure which one is better from the preview. Probably I prefer iPhone a little bit more because it just looks more natural to me. The Vivo looks a little bit HDR-y but I have to see on the computer and on a bigger screen. The audio you also let me know what you think. This is the audio from the Vivo and the audio from the iPhone and this is the audio from the professional camera that is filming me with the wireless microphone. And before we compare the zoom on the iPhone 17 pro let's talk about the battery life on these phones. Vivo X300 pro is better on paper but iPhone 17 pro is just so optimized that it also holds the battery pretty well. Although I would be lying if I said that they lasted a full day in Paris. But I have a solution. So I'm currently traveling and while many days I spend editing at home but today is one of those full-on filming days out and about from morning till night. And when I'm testing these phones, iPhone 17 pro or pretty much any phone out there, taking pictures, recording videos, the battery drains fast. So of course like most people I always keep a power bank with me. And I'm actually been using this one for a while now and I think it finally takes out all of these boxes. It's wireless, lightweight, plus it just looks good on camera. This is the new Anker nano power bank. It's super thin, just 0.34 inches or about 9 millimeters. It also weighs about half as much as the iPhone 17 pro which is important since I have a full backpack of gear with me. And it has been super handy walking around the city today and I barely noticed it's attached to the phone. You probably heard Apple launched their own Air power bank this year. So this one from Anker gives larger output at 15 watts versus 12 on the Apple. Plus Apple's Air power bank has power capacity of 3000 milliamp hours. Meanwhile this one is 5k. Plus it's not limited to Apple iPhone Air only. You can use it with pretty much any phone. And so I did. This little thing is the move. And when I'm back in the studio editing, it's not just my phone that needs charging. I have my MacBook, my cameras. That's where the Anker nano charging station comes in. It is small and powerful with 130 watts. So you can charge everything at once without cluttering the desk. And if you happen to have two MacBooks for that matter, you can charge them both at the same time from 0 to 50 percent within just 30 minutes. And the design is also super practical for traveling. Because it's 0.7 inches thick, it even fits in small travel pouch. So whether I'm filming on the go or working back in the studio, Anker got me covered. And to get your accessories like these ones, follow the link in the description. Okay now it's time for a zoom camera comparison. Louvre robbery edition. So yeah let's compare them side by side. First I will not be having any lens attachments on the Vivo. So we can see the stock camera comparison on both phones. You see the Vivo gives you 3.5 telephoto zoom and the iPhone is four times. But it's a little bit confusing to be honest having this, crop factors, 3.5x or something. So that's cool that we can long press on the Vivo and it shows that it is 85 millimeter, which is something I'm more familiar with. So that's how you can decide which focal length you're using. So on the iPhone, four times telephoto is equivalent to 100 millimeter telephoto lens, which is usually a portrait lens. So in that regard, iPhone allows you to reach a little bit further and get to the subjects that are further out there in the distance. But in terms of the image quality, once you snap it, they both look great. In my opinion, iPhone this year did a really great job adjusting the color science and everything else. It feels more neutral and natural on the iPhone, more consistent. Vivo though, sometimes the colors hit so right, the contrast saturation, the photo looks outstanding, like it was taken on a professional camera. Then iPhone also has the switching to the eight times telephoto, so there's more computational photography involved. The photo is getting enhanced by the algorithm and it actually looks pretty decent. Now let's do the maximum zoom comparison. So you see that's actually the side of the Louvre museum that just was robbed. You see iPhone kicks the noise reduction and everything. It actually took maybe three, five seconds for the phone to process the photo and clean it up. You can do the same thing in Lightroom pretty much. Vivo looks much sharper, but it also feels like there was a lot of noise reduction involved on the Vivo. Yes, the photo looks clear, but it also looks cartoonish. Like when you take this photo, you can upload it to, let's say, chat GPD and just ask to clean it up for you. That's how it feels. I think I said it already before in my Google Pixel video. Just so you know, iPhone looks more noisy, grainy, but also less of computational photography. Vivo and other Android phones, they just really sharpen the photos, but at the expense of it being looking cartoonish. And now let's attach this telephoto lens to the Vivo phone to see how much further we can zoom in and how much better the image might look. If we put it into comparison, iPhone's eight times telephoto is equal to the lowest value of this telephoto zoom lens attached to the phone. So in a way, when we take a photo like this, this will be an equivalent of iPhone's eight times zoom, 400 millimeters, 800 millimeters and 1600. Now, obviously 1600 and all those values above 400 millimeter, they are optical crops. So the further you zoom in, the more computational photography will be involved, the more noise reduction will be applied. And I'm personally not a big fan of that, but still, if you want to see what's going on in the Louvre, if you want to see who is robbing the museum, who is still in the crown jewels, I think this is just essential tool. So I would recommend French police and secret services just invest into something like this, and they will be able to take a better care of this whole museum without a problem. Not only for the Paris police, I would recommend it to pretty much anyone who is traveling and wants to capture some memorable moments, some architecture, animals, wildlife. This is really awesome. Okay, now let's move on into the next spot. All right, guys, something bad happened. So you this lens has lens cap, one for front element and one for the back element. So I was installing that thing and put the back cap in my pocket. And unfortunately, it fell off. And if you look over here, you see there's a little bit opening in the floor. So the lens cap from Vivo Zeiss lens is somewhere over there inside the Eiffel Tower. And for me right now, there is no way to retrieve it. And I guess it will stay there for, you know, whatever period of time probably would be better if those lens caps were on a leash or I was less clumsy. And just for a comparison, here is my lens and you see the lens cap here is designed I think a little bit better as you see this side is metal, this one is magnetic, so you can attach them to each other. And they're basically like one unit. So I think technically, it might still fall through. Oh, no, you see, it would have stayed in place. So for that kind of situation, I should have used maybe anamorphic lens. But once again, these lenses serve different purposes. Vivo Zeiss lens is for telephoto shots for capturing something out there further in the distance. This one anamorphic is for wider shots for the instances when you don't want to have this technical sharpness in the shot. So for that kind of cases, anamorphic lens fits more. So if you want something like this for your iPhone 17 Pro, 16 Pro, or any phone for that matter that supports 17 millimeter thread, then check the link in the description and get yours. This is my lens, by the way, guys. Yeah, there's my name on it. And I made a separate video. So I'll leave the link for it as well. When comparing film and videos than in regular camera mode, I like Vivo X300 Pro a bit more. And a lot of this has to do with super annoying HDR tone mapping on the iPhone 17 Pro. This phone just tries to constantly adjust the exposure and it causes this horrendous flicker in the shot. I understand the benefits this processing brings, but it just doesn't work well for some reason after the liquid glass update. Maybe I didn't notice it before. Anyways, I don't like it and Apple should fix it. But when the iPhone 17 Pro shines is when you want to film log videos that you want to color grade later. Considering it's just a phone, the image quality for me is 10 out of 10. Also when you enable log on the Vivo, the image stabilization becomes a bit weaker. So there are more shakes visible than on the iPhone. So in a way, each phone involves a bit of sacrifice here and there. Cinematic mode is also a bit better on the iPhone 17 Pro. I guess the LiDAR sensor does make a difference here, helping to separate subjects in a scene with more busy backgrounds. And in portrait mode, both phones perform great. iPhone provides great subject separation because once again of the LiDAR sensor. And the Vivo X300 Pro brings punchy contrast here. There is also a humanistic mode within the camera app on the Vivo X300 Pro. But I do not use it as much because I prefer the camera interface of the built-in camera app. Also keep in mind that the stock telephoto camera on the iPhone allows you to zoom further. So when you use it in portrait mode, it allows for more background separation with the subject. And it even gives some compression within the photo. Well, I definitely like the Vivo X300 Pro with the photography kit lens. I think it's an awesome compact travel camera that I also shared many photos from to my Instagram. So let me know in the comments which phone you choose, iPhone 17 Pro or Vivo X300 Pro. And also mention why. And right now I'm on my way to the Vivo launch event in Vienna for the launch of this phone. So make sure to follow me to see the behind the scenes. And meanwhile, make sure to check out this video next because I think it will be perfect for you. And I'll see you there. Bye-bye.