My comparison focused on the purported benefits of Vivo’s micro gimbal camera, meaning that in most cases, it’s the X50 Pro’s 48-megapixel f / 1.6 camera versus the beastly 108-megapixel f / 1.8 shooter of the S20 Ultra. Coincidentally, both main cameras output 12-megapixel images through the pixel array, except that the latter uses combinations of 3 × 3 instead of 2×2 to mimic even larger pixels for greater efficiency. The S20 Ultra switches to its 12-megapixel f / 2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera for its “super stable” mode, which I’ll also talk about later.
For convenience, I mounted both phones side by side on the same laptop, which I used primarily for video recording and general stills. For long exposure shots in the dark, I held the phones one at a time to ensure maximum stabilization of the handheld.
Richard Lai / Engadget
Before leaving, I walked around my apartment with my makeshift team to get acquainted with him, and I also took that opportunity to see how cameras work indoors in natural light. As expected, the X50 Pro’s camera had better video stabilization and, as an added benefit, offered more natural colors and a better dynamic range.
That said, the Vivo footage was too smooth – I struggled to make out the titles on my shelf even when I got close. On the other side of the fence, the S20 Ultra worked well with sharpness: perhaps it could even be a little easier to sharpen, but it was better than the X50 Pro nonetheless.
I made the same observation with the images I got from walking in good weather. The X50 Pro once again beat the S20 Ultra with more realistic colors, but lagged behind in sharpness. With more background noise present, I began to notice that the X50 Pro also had better audio quality; Images from the S20 Ultra sounded more confusing and lacked detail at higher frequencies.
Every time he sped up or jerked, the micro gimbal camera proved its worth by keeping the video more stable than the edgy video of the S20 Ultra, but it could only handle as much stabilization; he finally struggled to keep up when I started running. .
This is where the “super stable” mode of the S20 Ultra comes into play. Once you toggle this on, the camera app switches to the ultra-wide camera, in which it uses purely electronic stabilization and cropping to compensate for extreme movements. In this mode, the S20 Ultra easily controlled the instability of my run, reducing the sharpness and slight oscillation of the electronic stabilization.
Richard Lai / Engadget
The X50 Pro has a similar mode called “ultra stable,” but instead of switching to its 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, it continues to use the main camera but with more powerful electronic stabilization (by increasing the crop angle). Unfortunately this failed to cope with my run, and it didn’t seem to make much difference compared to normal mode. Vivo’s product manager admitted that such a mode would be more effective on an ultra-wide-angle camera, providing more space for cropping, but the team opted for the best image quality from the main camera.
Returning to normal video mode on both phones, I was later surprised that the S20 Ultra managed to have better stabilization than the X50 Pro when I went downstairs. This is likely because Vivo’s micro gimbal only does dual-axis stabilization, so it lacks the third axis to cushion this particular movement. This just shows how far we’ve come with electronic stabilization. But of course, maybe one day a future iteration of the micro gimbal can cover all three axes.
I got to the port shortly after dark, and things got interesting. While the S20 Ultra outperformed the X50 Pro in terms of sharpness during the day, it was the complete opposite at night. The Samsung phone applied strong noise reduction to its nighttime images, so many fine details were missing from both distant skyscrapers and nearby banners. Samsung’s stabilization distortion also became more apparent as the environment darkened – the entire footage shook with almost every step it took.
While the X50 Pro’s nighttime images seemed a bit darker, they easily outperformed the S20 Ultra in all other respects. More details were retained, colors were more accurate, and stabilization was better. The cleaner audio quality was an added bonus to better capture the atmosphere of the light and sound show.
Once again, I switched to “super stable” / “ultra stable” mode on both phones to see how they would work in the dark. Again, the difference was not apparent on the X50 Pro, but at least the image quality was similar. Images of the S20 Ultra, on the other hand, were severely underexposed, to the point where most of the skyscrapers had almost disappeared in the dark. Such is the limitation of the slowest ultra wide f / 2.2 camera used in this mode.
Richard Lai / Engadget
Then I switched my focus to still photography, to test Vivo’s claims of better low-light shots using the gimbal. In fact, like the videos, the X50 Pro’s still images produced more accurate colors and retained more detail in buildings. The S20 Ultra tried to reclaim terrain by artificially sharpening its shots, but cannot save what was already lost.
Apparently, long exposure is also a strong point of Vivo’s micro gimbal camera, so I switched to another place to try some late night street shots. Even with exposures of up to 0.5 seconds, the X50 Pro still took sharper, more natural images than the S20 Ultra on most occasions. The gimbal camera’s better dynamic range also meant that billboards were less worn in shots of the X50 Pro.
