vivo X500 and X500 Pro hands-on and hardware overview
While the vivo X500 Pro is just a smaller version of the X500 Pro Max, borrowing its sibling’s design traits, the regular X500 has its own style. It’s almost as if the vivo X500 Pro Max and the iPhone 18 Pro Max had a baby.
X500 Pro
The camera ring is much smaller, off-center, and placed on an elevated rectangular glass base. The vivo X500’s appearance is somewhat blockier than the Pros’.
X500
However, just like the Pros, the vanilla X500 is also IP68/IP69-rated, it offers frosted AG glass on the back, no matter the color option, and has a metal side frame.
The display’s protection is not explicitly mentioned, though, and the same goes for the vivo X500 Pro, so we will make sure to investigate by the time we get to review those two.
X500
Size-wise, the regular X500 slots in between the Pro and the Pro Max. It has a 6.59-inch display, while the Pro has a more compact 6.36-inch panel. But while the Pro borrows the Pro Max’ display features like granular refresh rate control (both are LTPO) and Dolby Vision and Ultra XDR support, the X500 settles for a standard LTPS OLED screen, while the HDR capabilities remain unknown for now. We are almost certain that basic HDR10 support is at hand, but no official word on Dolby Vision for now.
When it comes to performance, the standard Pro and the Max should be identical. Although the smaller body on the X500 Pro might have an impact on the thermal behavior of the powerful Dimensity 9600 Pro SoC.
X500 Pro
The X500, on the other hand, gets the toned-down Dimensity 9600M silicon. Future testing and benchmarks will reveal the performance gap between the two chipsets.
X500
Naturally, the X500 Pro has the smallest battery of the bunch, with a typical capacity of 6,505 mAh, while the vanilla X500 boasts a 7,500 mAh, getting pretty close to the global X500 Pro Max. And if we have to guess, it will likely be the one with the longest battery life among the three. But we will know for sure once all three units arrive for proper testing.
X500 Pro
As for the camera hardware, the X500 Pro is a mix between the X500 and the Pro Max. It has the Sony 50MP Lytia 910 main camera, but the gimbal stabilization is more limited, rated at 1.5°. On the telephoto front, the vanilla and the standard Pro share a new Sony 64MP Lytia 610 sensor, 1/2.0″ in size and is paired with an f/2.5 aperture.
However, you get a longer 85mm optical zoom with the Pro (3.5x), while the entry-level X500’s telephoto focal length is 72mm, which roughly 3.1x.
X500 Pro
The vivo X500’s main camera is slightly less impressive, but still feature-packed. It uses a Sony Lytia 828, 1/1.28″ sensor paired with f/1.7 aperture but misses on the gimbal-level stabilization.
X500
The 50MP ultrawide camera appears on the specs sheet on all vivo X500 phones and so does the 50MP front-facing shooter, which boasts autofocus.