vivo X300 Ultra review

OriginOS 6

The vivo X300 Ultra we have for testing today ships with OriginOS 6 on top of Android 16. In a fairly recent development, vivo decided to stop limiting OriginOS to its Chinese devices only, and now all the variants of the X300 Ultra, including the international and European models, run OriginOS. Of course, there are going to be some notable differences in the default app loadout and certain features between the Chinese and EU ROMs, but we will get into that.

Vivo has formally announced that the X300 lineup, including devices like the X300 Pro and the X300 Ultra, will be entitled to five major OS updates and two additional years of security patches for a total of seven. Not too shabby.

For OriginOS 6 in particular, vivo is claiming a lot of performance improvements under the hood. Things like faster app starts, more app states saved in the background and also animation efficiency and frame rate stability improvements.

Vivo has clearly spent time refining the animation system in OriginOS. The interface feels snappier and more responsive, aided by subtle bounce effects, well-executed blur transitions, and motion that closely tracks gesture speed. It's the sort of polish that's hard to put into numbers, but it goes a long way toward making the overall experience feel more natural and fluid in day-to-day use, especially when compared to FuntouchOS 15.

OriginOS 6

OriginOS 6 also introduces a revamped settings menu, a cleaner and more contemporary notification shade and control center, along with a custom system font. Vivo has also overhauled a large portion of its iconography, with more than 2,800 redesigned icons that scale consistently across the UI.

Lockscreen • Homescreen • Large folders

The control center is arguably one of the most noticeable changes, especially for users coming from Funtouch. It serves as a clear showcase for the new blur effects and transitions, which Vivo refers to as Gradient Blur. The quick settings toggles also get a subtle "rim light" border effect, which does feel somewhat reminiscent of recent iOS design trends. However, it can just as easily be seen as part of the broader direction modern mobile UIs are taking.

The notifications and quick toggles are separated into two distinct interfaces by default, but you can choose to merge them if that is more to your liking.

Notifications • Quick settings

Lock screen and home screen customization runs deep in OriginOS 6. There are all sorts of styles, themes and widgets to choose from. A lock screen magazine feature is present too.

Lock screen settings

All of the usual lock screen and AoD features and options are present as you would expect on a modern vivo. The Flip Themes for the lock screen are here as well and really stand out from what the other manufactuerers are doing.

Lock screen options

If you like the recent iOS lockscreen options together with depth effects and tiny widgets, similar ones are available inside OriginOS 6, too.

iOS-styled lockscreen

Familiar to anyone who has used recent OriginOS versions, but entirely new to former FuntouchOS users, is the so-called Origin Island - vivo's take on Apple's Dynamic Island. The dynamic area around the front camera surfaces contextual info for things like timers and music playback, and can also turn into an interactive drop zone in certain drag-and-drop scenarios, such as copying and pasting content. There are even some AI-driven info cards that can automatically be surfaced on the island when the system deems fit.

Origin island

Naturally, there's an expanding set of AI-powered features on board. The built-in AI writing assistant aims to help with writer's block, while also offering proofreading, rewriting, and summarization tools. AI Captions operate at a system level, enabling speech-to-text conversion with support for real-time transcription and translation. There's also a universal document viewer with support for PDF and Word files, which benefits from its own set of AI-driven enhancements.

AI Writing • AI Transcribe • AI Captions

The AI-powered image editing tools are now better organized, with all enhancements neatly grouped within the built-in gallery app.

AI image editing tools

OriginOS 6 also introduces a new vivo Connection Center, which acts as a central hub for managing the phone's cross-device features. Link to PC is supported, enabling screen mirroring, file transfers, and task handoff. One-tap transfers to other vivo phones are available, and even iPhones are supported, though the latter requires installing vivo's EasyShare app on the receiving device, adding a few extra steps during the initial setup.

Connection Center

In the Chinese unit, there are definitely some differences from the international and European units we typically encounter. For one, there is no pre-loaded set of Google apps. However, installing the Google Play Store and the corresponding Google Services from vivo's app store is easy enough. We did spot options for Android Auto in the settings, so that means it might work this time around. Google Pay works just like on the global model, after sideloading the Wallet app and setting up your banking app of choice. It's debatable whether sideloading such an important app is technically as safe, but it's something that we haven't had issues with in the past, and it works.You can also install the Gemini app as well.

Since there is no deep Google integration, it only makes sense that there wouldn't be Circle to Search. Well, actually, it is still sort of present through something called BlueLM Copilot, which is vivo’s own AI assistant that can also help with some of the phone's features. However, it's only available in Chinese.

The Chinese X300 Ultra also comes pre-loaded with all sorts of apps meant for the Chinese market, but they are easy enough to remove.

What you won't get to work on the Chinese unit is Google Maps location history and QuickShare. Though Vivo's own Vivoshare feature works with a number of other brands of devices.

BlueLM Copilot • Pre-loaded apps

Things are a lot cleaner on the international model. Here, you do get a standard set of Google apps that often live alongside some of vivo's proprietary first-party software solutions. Only makes sense for vivo to include its own apps since it already has them. Gone is the vast array of pre-loaded third-party apps and alternative app stores. However, there are still a few pre-loaded things that could be considered bloat.

Thanks to Android's Quick Share and its newly acquired ability to use Apple's AirDrop feature, you can now easily send files from the X300 Ultra to an iPhone. This seems to only be available on our international model, though.

The Private Space secure secondary private environment also seems to only be available in our international unit, which is a bit odd.

Benchmarks and performance

Vivo made sure to upgrade the chipset inside the X300 Ultra to keep up with its flagship status properly. It is based on the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which, at the time of writing, is Qualcomm's top-dog offering.

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 uses a cutting-edge 3nm manufacturing node. In the CPU department, it has two Oryon V3 Phoenix L cores, clocked at up to 4.6 GHz and six Oryon V3 Phoenix M cores, working at up to 3.62 GHz. Those are pretty high clock speeds right there. The onboard GPU is an Adreno 840 unit.

Vivo pairs the powerful chip with either 12GB or 16GB of RAM. The available memory configurations include 256GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 12GB RAM, 512GB 16GB RAM and 1TB 16GB RAM, all with fast UFS 4.1 chips. So, basically, the same as the X200 Ultra. We have the highest-tier 1TB 16GB model for this review.

Looking at actual benchmark scores, it comes as no surprise that the vivo X300 Ultra sits in the top performance bracket of current devices. Sure, we've seen the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 perform a bit better in other devices like, for instance, its boosted version inside the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. The MediaTek Dimensity 9500 also gives it a run for its money in some scenarios. The differences are not really substantial. The vivo X300 Ultra offers nothing short of flagship performance.

Thermal-throttling

The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 handles itself well inside the vivo X300 Ultra. In both of our stress tests, the phone only lost about 40% of its peak performance. Vivo says there is a pretty large 5800 mm2 vapor chamber inside the device, so that probably helps. It's a result that's quite par for the course for a flagship chipset.

Thermal throttling

The relatively good thermal performance comes at the expense of the phone's surface temps - it can get quite toasty.