Ever since I got my first smartphone, and eventually made my way into tech journalism, I’ve had a soft spot for palm-friendly devices. But finding one that is practically rewarding has been pretty challenging due to technical constraints or just bad choices.
The OnePlus 13s came pretty close, but the lack of an ultrawide sensor and poor thermals proved to be a big hiccup. The Samsung Galaxy S25 was a fairly well-rounded option, but plagued by bad battery life, worse thermals, and unsatisfactory camera performance for the price. As a result, I have always returned to the vanilla iPhone, or its Pro sibling, as my daily driver.
The balance of pocketability, battery life, camera output, and performance is just about perfect, even though the proverbial Apple Tax is steep. In the closing hours of 2025, however, the Vivo X300 has emerged as the most fulfilling compact phone I’ve tried in a while, one that takes the fight to the iPhone and emerges victorious in a few key areas.
The small can be mighty
There’s a lot that the Vivo X300 gets right. I’ll start with the build. It’s a beautiful glass and metal sandwich look, with slim bezels on the front and a lovely matte finish across the rear cover. It’s nearly an exact match of the iPhone 17 Pro in length and width, but happens to be slimmer and lighter.
The discernible in the in-hand feel is easily discernible. But what really sets this phone apart is the ingress protection, which goes a step ahead of its Apple rival and reaches the IP69 tier, the best that the industry currently has to offer. Furthermore, it throws a vapor chamber cooling system into the mix.
What surprised me the most about the phone is the battery life. It fits a 6,040 mAh battery inside the compact shell, while the much bigger Galaxy S25 Ultra will leave you with a 5,000mAh unit. Furthermore, it leaves the Apple and Samsung rivals far behind with its charging creds.
In my daily usage, it performed nearly as well as the OnePlus 15, and can comfortably last a full day with ease. My average screen time was close to seven and a half hours, which is pretty solid. On a day-to-day basis, it fared better than the Google Pixel 10 Pro and the iPhone 17 Pro.
Another big surprise is the charging convenience. You get support for 90W wired charging and 40W wireless charging on this one, and it’s a massive quality-of-life perk. The phone takes roughly half an hour to go from empty to 66 %, and reaches 100% in exactly 49 minutes. Those figures are better than any other mainstream flagship you can get in the US.
Now, let’s switch to the display. It’s smaller than the-new-iPhone-normal (of 6.3 inches) at 6.1 inches, but it’s a high-quality panel with a peak brightness that eclipses Apple’s best at 4,500 nits. You also get support for 120Hz refresh rate and 2160Hz PWM dimming. In simpler terms, the panel is extremely sharp, vibrant, and easy on the eyes courtesy of flicker-free tech.
Camera performance is where it shines
The year 2025 saw Apple finally go all-in with the all-big-camera approach, following in the footsteps of Google and the rest. Across the primary, ultrawide, and zoom cameras, you either get a 48-megapixel or 50-megapixel sensor.
On the Vivo X300, you get a bigger 200-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel ultrawide snapper, and another 50-megapixel sensor with folded lens periscope zoom optics peaking at 3x optical zoom range. The camera performance is pretty solid.
In general, it captures sharp snaps with plenty of saturation and good dynamic range. But what impressed me the most is that the pictures have a lot of character, especially those taken by the main and telephoto lenses. It tends to target a higher ISO output, but the color reproduction is standout.
Another strong area is the bokeh performance. It does a good job at separating the subject and giving a natural depth effect. Under the sun, it captured portraits that even captured the stray hair strands without any discernible blurring. It performs particularly well against human subjects, and even in the zoomed-in format, they manage to surprise with plenty of surface details.
Vivo has traditionally focused a lot on the imaging chops of its phones, and the X300 reflects that fairly well. The camera app is the most decked-out experience I’ve seen on a phone lately, with plenty of really nice filters, portrait lighting presets, and granular controls.
For anyone who likes the artistic side of mobile photography, the Vivo X300 offers plenty to play with. The ultrawide and telephoto cameras don’t disappoint, but I wish they would tone down the algorithmic process a notch, especially for objects around the periphery. It’s definitely on par with the OnePlus 15, iPhone 17, or the Galaxy S25, in case you’re wondering.
A surprisingly well-rounded package
The Vivo X300 manages to surprise in a few other areas, as well. It comes equipped with MediaTek’s Dimensity 9500 silicon. You don’t get this in a mainstream phone sold in the US, but it’s an extremely solid performer. On Geekbench, it’s a hair behind Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 5-powered phones.
On 3DMark, it’s well ahead of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite processor powering the likes of the Galaxy S25 at stress tests as well as synthetic ray-traced workflows. The stability under stress also came in aroun 62%, which is par for the course on a flagship phone.
In simpler terms, this phone can push even the most demanding games with ease. But the real surprise was the software. For years, Vivo has drawn flak for the software experience due to the sheer amount of bloat. The situation has eased to a certain extent, but it’s now dramatically overshadowed by the software perks.
The Android 16-based OriginOS 6 offers plenty of standout features, and in a lot of ways, they are pretty similar to OxygenOS 16 on the OnePlus 15. Yes, there’s plenty of iOS inspiration, too, from the lock screen customization to the Dynamic Island experience, which Vivo refers to as Origin Island.
The general experience, however, is pretty refined. Interactions are snappy, animations are smooth, and there’s barely any lag to witness. It supports task handoff, allows screen mirroring on a PC, and seamless file sharing with Windows 11 and Mac machines.
And just like the OnePlus 15, it lets you share files with an iPhone by bumping the two devices together, similar to the NameDrop facility that you natively get on iPhones. There’s a universal AI-powered system-wide search feature, tagging alongside automatic transcription and translations, and note-taking tools.
The phone will also get five OS updates and security updates for the next seven years. It’s not the best out there, but not terrible either. Overall, the Vivo x300 is one fo the most enjoyable compact phones out there, and in a few ways, ahead of the curve. Now, I can’t recommend it if you’re living in the US due to obvious import and carrier conundrums, but it’s Kosher for the rest of the world, including Europe.
But what really stands out here is the technical message. The Vivo X300 proves that small-ish phones can be great without any serious corner-cutting. They can get the best of display, battery, camera, and silicon tech without any make-or-break caveats. It’s a fresh new start for the concept of palm-friendly phones, and I dearly hope the industry is taking notes.
