Everything is new until you try it, and before using the Vivo X500 Pro Max this week, over the course of several days of consistent camera testing, I was more than a little skeptical about the idea of mounting a large external lens on a smartphone.
It’s not that I thought it was a gimmick in and of itself, but when I saw, for example, Oppo’s Hasselblad system, I couldn’t help but wish I had an actual camera in one hand and my phone in my pocket.
I think there is still room for measured approaches on that front, but the fact is that the zoom lenses I tried on the X500 Pro Max made a very interesting argument for this type of system.
How things click into place
First, let’s talk details. Vivo’s Pro series of X500 phones can work with one of two different Zeiss lenses that you can get your hands on. The more affordable option is the Vivo Zeiss Telephoto Extender Gen 2, a 200mm equivalent zoom lens; the even wilder upgrade is the Telephoto Extender Gen 2 Ultra, which is a 400mm equivalent.
These haven’t changed since the X300 Ultra, which they also work with, but the slightly improved photo capabilities of the X500 phones should in theory make for enhanced results (although I didn’t have an X300 to compare with).
(Image credit: Future)
Installing one of the lenses means getting one of Vivo’s phone cases with a mounting ring, then attaching a lens adapter that includes a twist-lock connector. The lenses can then be locked in place, instantly and want to change the focus of your phone.
To account for that, Vivo has a grip attachment that you can also pick up, and a phone case variant with secure slots for both the mounting ring and this grip. It adds physical controls to shooting, including a zoom dial, exposure compensation dial, customizable function buttons and more.
While they are not very as responsive as they would be on a great digital camera, they’re nonetheless hugely satisfying to use compared to just touch screen interactions. Of course, grabbing all these extras (packed into the chunky X500 Pro Max Creator Kit) makes the phone significantly more expensive.
Zoom for every occasion
Once you’ve attached your choice of lens, the world is your oyster, as long as you remember to activate the settings that make up those lenses. Otherwise, you will be dealing with an upside down, upside down, deeply confusing picture.
The lenses really do exactly what they say on the tin, even allowing you to zoom in on details so far that they sometimes make your jaw drop. My first experiment was a classic one, looking out of my Shanghai hotel window at an already quite distant skyline of apartments and office blocks. You can see in the progress of these shots how much I was able to zoom.
You’ll also see that, just like with regular phone zoom, if you push past the optical range of the lens, which is doable, even if it takes you to crazy distances, you end up with a smeared, AI-heavy reconstruction of what you’re looking at. Play within the limits, however, and your photography arsenal is truly vastly expanded.
Taken out into the natural world, the shots lifted by the additional lenses are striking. I was on a safari without much of a zoom lens, and although I still like many of the photos I took, I’m sure I would have been really happy using one of these Zeiss optics if they were available to me.
That raises one of the questions I had in mind going into this press trip – wouldn’t I rather have a good camera and a phone than a device that tries to be both? Well, it’s complicated. In my own case, my camera is the Fujifilm X100V, set up for point-and-shoot street photography without messing around, and while I like it, the main limitation is its fixed lens – no zoom.
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(Image credit: Future)
I enjoy working around this limitation (in fact, it’s kind of the point), but it’s undeniably true that there are times when I wish I could get closer to a subject or a shot. Now, I’m not sure I’d pair the fully featured X500 Pro Max with a camera, since that’s basically just two cameras.
However, I can clearly see how someone with photography in mind could be persuaded by the option of taking a phone that shoots great things even without accessories, and buying one of these Zeiss lenses to simply extend its range. It’s like two to get a little more than one.
Zoom in past the range of your extender, and you’ll once again encounter the AI guesswork that can happen without it, but if you find a subject in the sweet spot (a distance you learn pretty quickly), you can produce some pretty impressive results.
Taking a step back
Vivo is clearly proud of the camera system it built for the X500 series, and while it puts the Zeiss telephoto lenses front and center as an added extra that few other phones can match, it’s worth remembering that you won’t be using them for all your photography.
They are truly situational lenses, and that means the X500 Pro Max’s normal shooting is probably even more interesting to me than its enhanced capabilities. Over the course of several days of testing, I used the lenses and extenders in various combinations, which highlights the versatility that the entire kit gets you.
Use the extender, and you can get some pretty unreal portrait shots if you have the time and space to set them up.
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(Image credit: Future)
Just stick to the phone’s raw capabilities, though, and you can still produce some awesome results. Some of my favorite shots from the test were without the extender attached, and especially at low zoom levels – including some night shots that highlight how the Vivo’s processing can do wonderful things.
Sometimes I would actually like less of the processing; I’m extremely used to Apple’s more subtle approach, with three years of familiarity with my iPhone 15 Pro and its more naturalistic approach. Still, for sheer vividness, it’s hard to argue with the X500 Pro Max in some of these shots.
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(Image credit: Future)
So, given how stellar the X300 Ultra already was, it looks like Vivo has managed to raise the game quickly while also bringing in some super powerful internal specs. That leaves us with a big question – where, beyond China, will the phone be available?
The UK seems like it’s still a distant prospect for the brand, and while imports to the US were feasible, they’re hardly the same as an official release. Time will tell if the likes of the X500 Pro Max will be more readily available on closer shores to home, but my time with its photographic kit so far has enticed me far more than I expected. I may still stick to my X100V for street photography, but I see a future of one device becoming more and more possible.