The X80 and the X80 Pro (Review) are the latest additions to Vivo's camera-centric flagship X series. We have already reviewed the Vivo X80 Pro and today, we'll be focusing on the X80. It's important to understand that Vivo has made some changes to its naming convention for its latest X series. The X80 actually replaces the X70 Pro from last year and not the X70, in the same way the new X80 Pro replaced the X70 Pro+.

The X80 is a smartphone aimed at the upper-mid-range segment, which is a very competitive area in India. Vivo has been consistently releasing new devices under this new naming convention and it's important to understand the changes that have been made. The X80 Pro was released last year as an upgraded version of the X70 Pro (Review) and with its improved specs, it was expected to replace the X70 (Review). The X80 shares most of its specifications with the X70 Pro except for some minor tweaks.

Vivo has managed to create a device that is comfortable in hand while still having enough heft and weight to make it feel like a very premium device. It's also pretty compact which is great for those who have small hands or prefer smaller smartphones. The rear panel of the phone has a textured finish which gives it a premium feel but does make it slippery when handled roughly.

The front panel of the phone is brightly lit and houses two capacitive keys on either side of the screen, with on-screen navigation buttons below them. On top, you'll find an earpiece along with sensors for proximity and light levels. There's also an infrared blaster on top which can be used as a remote control for your TV or other home appliances if you are into such things!

The back panel sports a fingerprint sensor right below the camera unit along with dual rear cameras (12MP+5MP) and LED flash. The fingerprint sensor is placed very conveniently, just below the camera unit and is pretty fast. It's a tad too small though, and so it's not easy to use in one-handed mode.

The left side of the phone hosts a power button along with a volume rocker while the right side has a 3.5mm audio jack, a dedicated mic key, and the SIM/SD card tray. On top, you'll find the primary microphone followed by IR blaster and secondary mic along with an ambient light sensor like gbwhatsapp. At the bottom of this panel are two speakers that are quite loud for their size (they're not as loud as those on Vivo X9 but still very good for their size).

The front panel houses an 8MP selfie shooter and capacitive navigation keys below it. The screen measures 5.45" in diagonal and has HD+ resolution of 1080 x 2160 pixels (Full HD+). As usual, Vivo uses an AMOLED panel here which offers great colors and contrast but isn't as sharp as those on phones like Samsung Galaxy S8 or Huawei P10 Plus . The screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 4 which means you shouldn't have any issues with scratches or shattering if you're careful with your phone.

The X80 comes with 64GB of built-in storage which can be expanded via microSD card slot up to 128GB capacity (there's no hybrid dual-SIM setup here).

Vivo X80 design and build quality

The Vivo X80 is a solid phone. The body is made of metal and glass and feels very premium in hand. This is a phone you could happily use with one hand - the screen size makes it easier to reach all the controls with your thumb. I'm not a fan of the button layout though - it's just too close to the edge which means that you have to stretch your thumb to press some of them, which can be uncomfortable at times.

The top and bottom bezels are quite thin (0.35" and 0.4", respectively) which means you can fit two front-facing stereo speakers on this phone without any issues at all (the iPhone 7 Plus has a similar size, but it has more top/bottom bezels). The back panel looks pretty good except for its signature "V" pattern - I much prefer the smooth back panel designs but that's just me.

Overall, the X80 doesn't feel cheap or plastic-y despite its minimalistic design (just like other metal phones from Vivo). It's also IP68 certified so you don't have to worry about water damage if accidentally drop it in water or get caught in rain while taking photos or videos outside. The phone comes with dual nano-SIM card slots so you can have two SIMs active at once or switch between them easily without having to remove them from the device itself (unlike Huawei P10 Plus which only has one SIM slot).

Vivo has also included a fingerprint scanner on the X80 (which is located below the camera module) so you don't have to unlock your phone by pressing the home button. It's pretty fast and accurate but it doesn't support any gesture-based unlocking feature like Apple's Touch ID so you will have to tap on the scanner instead of swipe. The primary camera is placed at the top while secondary cameras are placed on both sides of it.

Display

The X80 comes with a 5.5" Full HD display in a 2:1 aspect ratio IPS LCD panel with 2,280 x 1,080 pixels resolution (401 ppi pixel density). The screen looks really good and has great viewing angles, color reproduction and sunlight legibility (it's visible even outdoors). The color temperature is pretty accurate as well - I can't find any sRGB or DCI-P3 coverage here but that's not necessarily bad because most people are more concerned about how their phones look than how they perform.

Performance Software Experience

The Vivo X80 comes with an octa-core Snapdragon 653 processor clocked at 1.95 GHz which is paired with Adreno 510 GPU and 4 GB of RAM for multitasking purposes. This chipset is already available in other devices such as Samsung Galaxy A7 2017 which means that this phone should perform well for most tasks and games although some of the heavy tasks might need to be throttled down a bit.

The X80 comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box but you can update it to Android 7.0 Nougat using Vivo's custom UI which is similar to what we've seen on the Xplay 5U. The UI is pretty smooth overall and there are no major issues with it except for the fingerprint scanner (which I'll talk about in the next section) but that's something that can be fixed in future updates.

The other thing that I've been loving about this phone is its performance when it comes to web browsing and gaming - this thing has some serious power behind it! It doesn't get hot at all and even though I usually have some heating issues with my devices, this one doesn't have any problems whatsoever and it never slows down for me at all, even when playing games or doing intensive tasks like streaming videos on YouTube or Netflix. The only time I notice a slight stutter here and there is when opening up multiple apps at once but that's something that can be fixed with future software updates (I'll talk more about that later).