There was once a time when theSony Xperia Z Compact carried the citadel of pocketable fireball . But as consumer precedence switch , peculiarly here in the East , smaller phones quickly ran out of favor . Remember how quickly theiPhone “ mini ” vanishedto pave the way for the Plus ?
One might contend functional limitations are to blame . You need a large shelling . The next - gen television camera heap ask space . Yet , every so often , some brand pulls a cony out of the proverbial hat . This time , it ’s the Chinese smartphone powerhouse Vivo .
Earlier today , the companyintroducedits X200 serial phones , and once again , camera take center stage . But the biggest surprise of the consequence was a new “ mini ” phallus of the serial — the Vivo X200 Pro mini . And it looks superb .
A mean mini flagship
Make no mistake . Unlike your typical Galaxy or Pixel , this one does n’t make concession . On the contrary , this “ mini ” seems like an right-down beast — and one with an unbelievable price tag end that puts the contest in serious hazard .
Like theiPhone 16 Pro , the Vivo X200 Pro mini has a 6.3 - inch OLED panel with a 120Hz refresh pace and a 2640 x 1216 resolution . Yet , the peak brightness is an astounding 4,500 nits , nearly double that of the Apple flagship .
Running the show inside isMediaTek ’s Dimensity 9400 chip , a top - grade silicon that goes all - big on the gist architecture , leave out limb ’s efficiency cores in its entirety . The resolution are quite telling , and accord to medium presentation , they even outclass Apple ’s mighty A18 Pro , at least on man-made benchmarks .
But it ’s almost astounding how much technical school Vivo has packed inside its earpiece . The X200 Pro mini is just a whisker taller than the iPhone 16 Pro but narrower , thinner , and light than its Apple rival . But waitress until you see what ’s underneath that glass and metal chassis .
Somehow , Vivo managed to conform to a massive 5,700mAh assault and battery inside this earphone . For equivalence , regulatory filing put the iPhone 16 Pro ’s barrage capacity at 3,582 mAh . But permit ’s not just look at the numbers .
Vivo has also delivered 90W wired charging , two-fold that of Apple ’s late and greatest . You also get keep for 30W radio set charging , which itself is quite impressive , though not as tight as OnePlus flagships .
A no-holds-barred hardware package
The most telling part , however , is the camera computer hardware . At the back , you get a trine of cameras , each backed by a 50 - megapixel sensing element . One of them is a periscope - flair zoom snapper that relies on a burrow - based close lens system .
This telephotograph camera is in reality quite impressive , as it opens the doors for long - space portrait gaining control and macro photography . Moreover , all three rear cameras , as well as the 32MP front camera , are backed by autofocus , which is a neat contrivance .
Those might go like figures exclusively manoeuvre at bragging rights . But I ’ve used Vivo ’s flagships over the past few year , and if there ’s one aspect that these sound excel at , it ’s the camera output . The television seizure capableness , in particular , are cervix and cervix with the iPhones and Galaxies out there .
On the software side , there are a cluster of AI tricks that mirror what theGalaxy AIorApple Intelligencestack has to offer . To manage all that work load , the MediaTek silicon gets backup from a minimum of 12 GB RAM , though the higher - end reading goes up to 16 G , partner off with up to 1 TB of storage .
Unlike Apple ’s meagre approach , the minimal storage capacity begin at 256 GB . We are talking about the fast UFS 4.0 storage modules here , but there ’s more to the scene .
The Vivo X200 Pro mini ’s build is IP69 - certified , a uncommon exploit for smartphones . For comparison , the iPhone 16 Pro only comes with an IP68 clearance . The final shocker , however , is the request price .
An impossibly alluring mini phone
All that smartphone good is crammed inside a software that starts at CNY 4,699 , which more or less translate to around $ 640 base on the current spiritual rebirth rates . That ’s lower than the garish mainline iPhone this year and nearly a third of the iPhone 16 Pro ’s sticker price .
It ’s a shame this wo n’t make it to the American shore . So far , the headphone has only been found in China , but given Vivo ’s account , the X200 Pro mini could soon appear in other market across Asia , Europe , and the Middle East .
Market availableness aside , Vivo ’s stocky flagship once again proves that modest phone can be mighty — and that they can go toe - to - toe against the large - screen flagships without making any compromises .
It ’s just a cherry on top that while doing it , they can dramatically undercut the Pro iPhones on the price scale while surpassing them at practically meaningful parameters like battery capacitance , sensor resoluteness , and construct resiliency .
Take some lessons , Samsung and Google !
