Vivo's new Android phone shows what Google and Samsung get wrong with their cameras

MWC was last week, and vivo used the opportunity to talk up its upcoming X300 Ultra flagship. Like the vivo X300 Pro before it, the X300 Ultra’s got a real focus on mobile imaging, with some cool external lens accessories and support for the Samsung-developed Advanced Professional Video codec. The phone’s primary camera is also debuting a new 200-megapixel Sony-made sensor — and it comes with a couple of specs I’m very jealous of as a mobile photography enthusiast in the US.

That 200MP number is eye-catching, but it’s not wholly unique; Samsung’s Ultra phones have had 200MP primary cameras since 2023. More importantly to me, the X300 Ultra’s primary camera sensor is huge for a smartphone at 1/1.12 inches, 16% larger than both the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s and the Pixel 10 Pro’s.

But most importantly to me, vivo’s gone with an equivalent 35mm focal length, correcting for one of my pet peeves about modern smartphone camera setups.

Most primary phone cameras are too wide

In dedicated cameras, focal length refers to the distance between the lens and the image sensor. In smartphones, camera lenses are obviously much closer to their sensors, so any advertised focal length isn’t literally true. Still, the vivo X300 Ultra’s 35mm-equivalent primary camera will capture photos with a field of view similar to what you’d get from a 35mm lens on a full-frame camera.

A longer focal length creates photos with a narrower field of view and a more zoomed-in look. Compared to vivo’s 35mm-equivalent primary camera, the Pixel 10 Pro’s primary camera has a 25mm equivalent focal length; the S26 Ultra’s is 23mm.

These shorter equivalent focal lengths create wider photos that show more of the scene the camera is pointed at, and 23mm in particular supposedly offers a field of view similar to what the human eye sees. That’s good when you want to capture a large area or a big group of people, but it can also make single subjects look small in the frame. If you physically move closer to your subject to make it appear larger, the resulting photo will likely look distorted compared to how you remember seeing it.

With the primary camera on a typical flagship (including the Pixel 9 Pro I’m usually carrying), I find myself using software zoom all the time to isolate subjects. But even with Google’s machine-learning photo tricks, software zoom makes for worse image quality, and having to tap the 2x button every time I open the camera app is a bit of a pain. Given my phone (and every other flagship) also has a dedicated ultrawide camera, I’m always wishing the primary camera was just a little tighter.

The 35mm focal length on the vivo X300 Ultra is just that. A 35mm equivalent focal length provides about a 1.4x magnified view compared to a phone camera with an equivalent 25mm focal length, making for a more natural look when you’re taking photos of subjects at least a few feet away. For a more panoramic view, you can always swap over to the ultrawide.

I’d upgrade my phone for a 35mm primary camera

The vivo X300 Ultra isn’t the first phone with a 35mm primary camera. Last year’s vivo X200 Ultra had one, too; so does the Nubia Z70 Ultra. But those phones don’t pair the superior focal length with a huge 1/1.12″ sensor the way the X300 Ultra does, and the X200 Ultra isn’t available in the US.

While the X200 Ultra was exclusive to China, the vivo X300 Ultra will be launching in more markets. The US almost certainly won’t be one of them, though, and that’s a real shame — a strong 35mm camera is one of the few hardware improvements I might be willing to upgrade for at this point.

I’m not holding my breath, but I’m hoping a major player in the US (Google, Samsung, or even Apple) takes a page from vivo’s book in the next couple of years. With meaningful hardware updates fewer and farther between these days, this type of camera tweak could get me excited about a new phone in ways even more AI integrations never will.