Alternatives
The vivo X300 launches at €1,049 for the 12GB/256GB version and €1,099 for the 16GB/512GB model. There aren’t many compact flagships on the market right now, so we’d say the X300 gets it easy right out of the bat. But vivo didn’t rely on the lack of competition; on the contrary, it has made probably one of the best phones on the market right now.
The first phone that comes to mind is the Galaxy S25 – it’s an even smaller and lighter beast, with similar oomph under the hood, but less premium screen and cameras. Its battery life is inferior, too, but the S25 is now much cheaper at about €700 or less.
If camera and compact size are important, then €800 Xiaomi 15 is a great alternative, cheaper even. It is of a similar size and build, equally great screen and performance, too. Even better, the Xiaomi 15 offers largely the same impressive photo and video capabilities across a set of similar rear cameras. The vivo X300 has a far better selfie camera, though, which has become important lately.
The €1,000 Google Pixel 10 Pro is also a compact flagship focused on camera experience. On paper, it has the screen and camera sensors to impress, but it failed to do so in our review. It is a great specimen for the Android purists, but the vivo X300 is a far more powerful smartphone with more skilled cameras.
Samsung Galaxy S25 • Xiaomi 15 • Google Pixel 10 Pro
Our verdict
The vivo X300 turned out to be an exemplary phone in pretty much every department – size, design and build, battery life, screen quality, camera experience, and OriginOS got a massive upgrade that made vivo’s phones on par with all recent Androids. And that’s just great!
The vivo X300 impressed us with its smooth design and its super bright screen that has an impressively dynamic refresh rate. The battery life is a blast, too.
The X300 is part of the vivo’s photography flagship series and it does not disappoint – all four cameras deliver superb photo and video quality during the day. While the low-light photos remain impressive, the videos are somewhat average and that’s our only remark here.
We are glad that vivo has worked a lot on OriginOS and the underlying Android, and it has made some impressive improvements. The iOS and macOS integration were surprising, or were they given how much vivo has taken from iOS 26? Still, iOS inspired or not, we liked OriginOS very much.
There are few compact flagships out there, and fewer compact cameraphones. But vivo X300 is amazing in both categories and we think it will easily find many fans out there looking for either option.
Pros
Compact, lightweight.
Premium smooth design, IP68/IP69
Bright OLED, high-res, 120Hz, HDR.
Superb battery life, fast charging.
Class-leading performance.
Consistently great photo quality, day and night.
Top-notch selfies.
Great daylight videos and outstanding stabilization.
Properly good OriginOS, 5 major updates incoming.
Compatible with vivo’s optional telephoto extender.
Cons
So-so speaker quality.
Low-light videos could have been better.
Prone to heavy throttling and getting hot.
Lower battery capacity in Europe.