Galaxy S21 Ultra vs Vivo X60 Pro Plus vs OnePlus 9 Pro Camera Test Comparison By Danny Winget

What's up everybody. This is Danny, and today I'll be doing an exciting camera comparison, and you're very familiar with the Samsung Galaxy, s21 ultra and also the OnePlus 9 pro. But I wanted to throw the VIVO x60 pro plus in the mix, because it's relatively unknown, especially in the United States, and I want to see how it stacks up versus these two. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to compare these cameras in every single condition, and I'm going to see which camera comes out on top before we get started? Make sure you hit that like button and also subscribe to the channel for a lot more camera comparisons like this one and let's go ahead and get started. I wanted this comparison to be as fair as possible and since all of these pictures were taken on auto mode, to give you the best representation of what you can expect when you buy any of these phones. I left all the AI features and smart scene recognition modes on.

If you want a more natural color replication turn this mode off the s21 ultra and the OnePlus 9 pro don't see a huge change in most of the shots, but the VIVO has the most drastic effect. When the AI mode is on. In certain scenarios, the saturation can be affected heavily. I didn't know how drastic it was until I started editing. So keep this in mind when looking at the VIVO images.

I wanted to preface this before talking about color and daytime photos after looking at a bunch of daytime pictures side by side, the best way to generalize it is this: the VIVO x60 pro plus usually generates the brighter image with more vibrant shadow detail and more vivid colors, and since this is the first time that I've ever used a VIVO phone to do a camera comparison. I'm not sure if this is due to this mass partnership lending their preference on color processing if you've ever used a mass camera lens before you know what I'm talking about it's more of a stylistic rendition of the scene, and I do think it's a little overdone in certain scenarios. But this is definitely going to be preference based. I think in some shots the VIVO really impresses with the overall processing and that extra contrast, punch does look good, but the brighter rendition sometimes causes problems with highlight control like you see here, but overall, I still think that the galaxy s21 ultra is the best in overall balance, the colors are still vibrant, but not displeasing. I also find it to have the best white balance out of the three and the sky.

Renditions are more accurate and consistent in most of the pictures, I am impressed with the OnePlus 9 pro 2, though OnePlus for sure has refined the camera quality since launch through software updates. I am still not liking that purplish magenta cast in the sky. That is picking up most of the time. I hope to see that corrected sooner than later, but when the OnePlus 9 pro hits like it does here, it can be the better shooter when it wants to be. The sky is more accurate.

The saturation is near perfect and the exposure is great so with some further tuning, the OnePlus 9 pro can compete if it wants to. So all of these phones are great during the day and I don't think you'll be disappointed at all. They all have tons of detail also have fantastic dynamic range. Some instances like this one, the s21 ultra, shows higher dynamic range, and I also saw that the s21 ultra picks up and accentuates some colors more like the light peeking through this tree and during sunset, it picks up a slightly deeper gradient here in the sky, with no clipping, which is impressive. I pretty much say this every time, but it's been a while, since the flagship phone looked bad during the day, it's a given that you're going to get great results where differences start to show is in the flexibility.

The OnePlus has the standard setup with the ultra-wide angle, the main and the 3.3 x. The s21 ultra is one of the most flexible out there right now, with the ultra-wide main and a 3x optical and a 10x optical. But the VIVO does things a little differently with the ultra-wide, the main and then there's a 2x optical and after that, a 5x optical. So it's going to depend on what you like for that second optical zoom option. But here is a 10x shot on the VIVO zoomed in, so you can get an idea of what the quality looks like the OnePlus, also looking good for 10x digital zoom 2, but naturally the s21 ultra has the best looking shot here, because it's optical and if you're looking for just the maximum amount of zoom, the galaxy s21 ultra has the largest range with the 100x zoom, where the VIVO has 6dx and the OnePlus has a max of 30x.

They all have high resolution modes, the s21 ultra with 108 megapixels, the VIVO x60 pro plus with 50 megapixels and the OnePlus 9 pro at 48 megapixels at 300 scale. They don't look a ton different, but you can see that the s21 ultra with the least amount of sharpening which some will like for post-processing but punching into 1 000 scale. The OnePlus 9 pro has the most detailed pickup look at here. You can clearly see the buttons on where the VIVO you can see them slightly, but you can't see them on the s21 ultra at all. Here is another example of high resolution capture at 300 scale.

You can see that the OnePlus 9 pro again with the most sharpening, but also with the most detail, the Samsung, with the softest shot. In this scenario, this happens once in a while this one, I think, really shows off the capabilities of these phones. The VIVO also has a 100 megapixel mode, which I turned on, and they all look nice and detailed but check the 1 000 scale here, and I would say that the s21 ultra with the most usable photo here with a ton of detail without over sharpening the VIVO comes in second, with a nice shot as well, but the OnePlus is over sharpening quite a bit, but look at the details on the building and the in-between streaks. It's picking up a lot of texture as well, so some dialing back on that sharpening and tweaking this a bit through software. This mode could be a major win for OnePlus.

There are a few differences in portrait mode as well. They all can shoot portrait from the main lens which looks nice. I'm not sure what happened here on the s21 ultra, but the VIVO has a 2x and a 5x option. When it comes to portraits it might not be a very handy focal length shooting up close, so I probably would stick to the 2x. I do have to say that the 3x portrait option on the galaxy s21 ultra is great when it hits it's a nice focal length to have to get shots like this.

The VIVO also looks nice and natural with the roll off where the OnePlus looks the most artificial. With this both the overall highlight control and balance is the best on the Samsung. Though, look at the helmet and chest plate, it really nailed it on this one. When it comes to human subjects, the s21 ultra has improved quite a bit and while I think a lot of people will prefer the Vito's brightening of the skin- and I don't blame you- I like it myself in some scenarios, but the Samsung has the more natural replication indoors in my testing. When we go outside it all depends.

I think it will come down to personal preference. They all tend to accentuate the colors on the skin. The best way I can describe Vito's output is where it's the most ready to share right out of the camera. It's like you already edited the photo. It's already got contrast, it has the color vibrancy, and it has the sharpness.

So I can see people really liking the portrait mode on the x60 pro plus. But if you like to edit your photos, you'll, probably like the other two better see what I mean by the skin brightening here, it looks like a well-edited photo and I will share this directly to social media. The bouquet is also really nice. There is a mass bio-tar filter, which I really like, because it emulates that legendary football bouquet, and while it's not for every shot, it can look cool. Here's that mass biotar mode again, even when the subjects aren't super close, it can still look great, but most people will probably choose the normal mode.

I think the OnePlus does a great job here in being in the middle, adding a little cooler of a tone giving the skin a nice in between where the Samsung was just a bit too warm here. But you can see the outcomes are different depending on the person. The x60 pro plus looks very dramatic, and has that punchy contrast where the OnePlus has that great mixture? Again, let me know which one that you think looks best. The VIVO is not color accurate, but it is the most striking. So I'm curious to know what you guys think about it.

They all make their mistakes sometimes with portrait mode, but for the most part they all do a fantastic job with edge detection. There are macro modes on all of these cameras without macro mode. They all have great depth of field, but when you switch to the macro mode, you will get a lot more detail. You lose the depth of field with the s21 ultra and the Vito, but the OnePlus kept some of it, which is nice. I was surprised on the main sensor that I was able to get this close and get it to somewhat focus on the Vito, but with macro mode I had to back up to get this to work, which is confusing it's very detailed and sharp, but I think the wide-angle macro of the s21 ultra really nailed it here and for reference here is what it looked like on the table.

So this is very close up. I think in a pinch they will all do well with macro mode, but personally I like the depth of field, so I usually don't use this, but I think this is a great option for larger sensors, so you can get close without all of that. Fringing, where the VIVO x60 pro plus falls short is in the front-facing camera. The images often come out looking washed out. It also still appears the same with portrait mode as well.

In this harsh lighting scenario, the s21 ultra does the best retaining the skin tone color, while the VIVO really bleached out my skin during sunset, is a really tough time for skin tones. None of them did super well, but the VIVO really needs some help in managing the highlights with that boosted shadow detail. Last thing I want to talk about before jumping into low light is video. They are all capable of shooting AK, video, which is fantastic, but what you're seeing now is 4k 30 frames per second, the colors are different on all three, but I think the s21 ultra looks the best and the sky is more accurate to the scene. Now I wouldn't blame you for liking the Vito, since it has a brilliance to the video you can see it, especially in the clouds, but the shadow detail is really great on the OnePlus 9 pro, but to me, it's personally ruined by the magenta cast all over the video.

The white clouds look purple, but the watercolor actually looks more accurate to the scene. So if OnePlus tunes this video, some, it could be great. The OnePlus 9 pro remember can shoot 4k 120 frames per second, which none of these phones can shoot that can make for some incredible high quality slow motion instead of walking. I wanted to try this to switch things up if you've ever been on teacups before at magic kingdom. You know that this can be a very dizzying experience, they're all doing a pretty good job at keeping this footage stable.

So, let's jump into low light and a lot of the same characteristics are carried over from the daytime here, like the VIVO x60 pro plus creating the brighter picture. Most of the time with more shadow detail, this seems to be a processing trait all across the board, and I was really impressed because it does this a lot with no sacrifice. There isn't any extra noise. There is just extra information which looks fantastic so when the VIVO x60 pro plus hits it hits, and you're going to be very pleased with it. This approach to processing can make the single snap pictures look much better in a lot of scenarios, but then, when you kick in night mode across all the cameras, they all start to look very similar.

What I noticed on the VIVO is that there isn't a ton of difference between a single snapshot and the nighttime shot, because there is some type of processing that happens when you take the shot like a short night mode shot. The OnePlus does that sometimes as well, but here the OnePlus produced the noisiest shot with single snap. You can't see this unless you punch in the VIVO with the cleanest shot overall, but when you kick in night mode, they all do a great job of brightening, the scene and capturing more detail and reducing noise. You can see when I punch back in I'm really impressed with the VIVO in low light. The detail and sharpness here are great.

This single snapshot is a great example, there's a lot of textures on this building, and they all do a great job. But when you punch in and take a look at the brick detail, it's very impressive, but then, when you kick in night mode, I was surprised by the results again and then punched back in they all did a great job. But look at the OnePlus 9 pros brick detail. I was shocked. I actually saw this happen throughout the testing process on single snap.

The detail is nowhere close, but when you kick in nights cape things change, the VIVO still looks brightest with more shadow detail, but look at that texture on the tree. The up lighting is handled the best by the OnePlus 9 pro as well. Looking through a lot of these pictures, the OnePlus picks up more detail in the entire shot. The building looks great on all three of them, but look at the pavers on the ground. The OnePlus picks up the most detail and same here on all three.

You can make out the individual brakes no problem, but the OnePlus is so sharp and look here as well. It's more defined! It's not like this on every shot, but you can see how many examples that I'm, showing you so kudos to OnePlus for improving the nighttime detail pickup another night mode test that I wanted to do was on a mini tripod. The VIVO has a tripod mode, and so does the OnePlus 9 pro. So I wanted to see how it stacked up against the galaxy s 21 ultra on a tripod, the Samsung exposed for about 8 seconds, while the other two exposed for twice as long. The s21 ultra was impressive for the shorter exposure, but the OnePlus 9 pro wow.

Look at the exposure and detail on the foliage here in comparison to the VIVO and look at that tree reflection in the water it's noticeably sharper here is another one. This was much darker in the scenario than you would imagine the s21 ultra picking up the most accurate interpretation, but arguably the most noise. Again, I want to show you how clean the noise reduction is on the Vito. This is just single snap when you punch in heavily it's extremely impressive on all the cameras that house is so far away, but the details are still there little more shadow detail on the OnePlus, which is noticeable here, is just one more here. Is the long exposure night mode shot and I think the s21 ultra shot is the most balanced, but look at the foreground.

The OnePlus 9 pro also kept. This is sharp, which is impressive punching in you, can see. Samsung's image is heavily sharpened, but an amazing amount of detail picked up. So if you have a mini tripod, this is the way to go at night for landscape photos. Here are a few low light, zoom shots again, you can see how the VIVO boosts up the shadow detail, 3x on the Samsung 2x on the VIVO and 3.3 x, on the OnePlus as the first options 10x as the secondary on the s21 ultra 5x on the VIVO night mode is also available across all the lenses. Besides, the OnePlus 9 pro here are the first zoom options for all of these phones, and then here is the 10x option.

The galaxy s21 ultra looking the best because it's optical there's more detail on the building, but the VIVO with the better noise reduction, but that does make the image a little softer, but it's not bad at all, since it's not optical at 10x and the OnePlus, not looking so great here with that digital zoom portrait mode at night is interesting. The Samsung and VIVO both have night portrait mode, and they have two different approaches: the OnePlus with the most accurate interpretation of the scene, but the VIVO turns night into day with this one- and some of you might like that here is another shot of my car, and you can see them all again with different color replications here the VIVO is turning night and today, where the other two try to keep it more authentic to the scene. I do love how the VIVO on this mode can increase the shadow detail. Look at the flowers, they are the sharpest they're brightly exposed and that background bouquet detail is phenomenal. I was able to reproduce this result time and time again, so I think the VIVO has a winner with this nighttime portrait mode.

I have never seen this type of double exposure done properly and this picture right here really shows it off. There is just no comparison. Look at that background. You wouldn't even know there were trees there. In the background, in the other two shots, the front-facing camera without any modes, I was surprised to see VIVO produce the best shot here.

It's sharp and detailed, but when you kick on night mode, the skin smoothening just goes wild and this is with beauty mode turned off. I know it's different in Asian markets, but I hope to see VIVO dial this down in the future. I tested it again here with the same results. Furthermore, I would take selfies at night without any special modes on the Vito, because I think it looks great but that night mode again yeah with that skin smoothing. Now it's okay, if you like that, and if you do, then this is definitely the phone for you.

Thank goodness in portrait mode, you don't get that aggressive skin smoothing the OnePlus is easily the worst. When it comes to nighttime selfies, they need to introduce nights cape to the front-facing camera. The s21 ultra with the night mode enabled is for sure, still the sharpest and most detailed when it hits it did a fantastic job here, and it is the only one that has a night portrait mode on the front facing camera. So it's no contest here so kudos to Samsung for having that feature on the front-facing camera. Last thing I want to talk about is the nighttime video.

This is in 4k 30 frames per second, the biggest thing that I noticed is the way the cameras handle shadow detail and black levels. Here is some walking video on the main sensor for those that want to see stabilization at night. Now you can see that the VIVO x60 pro plus again with the most amount of shadow detail. You can see the trees clearly, in the background, the s21 ultra with the nice in between and the OnePlus 9 pro just going ham on the contrast to crush the noise. But honestly, it doesn't look bad at all when it's in mixed lighting conditions, but when we start to move around into the darker areas, you can see that the s21 ultra again suffers from the noisiest video, take a look by the lamp and then moving towards the palm trees.

You can now see how much shadow detail is being crushed by the OnePlus 9 pro, but it does keep that sky super black with minimal noise. So let me know which video that you think looks better in the comments below when I start to pan back down. Take a look at the water. You can really see a difference now between the three. The VIVO is looking really promising when it comes to nighttime video.

A feature that I also wanted to test was night mode in video. The VIVO and OnePlus come with this feature. So here is the image without night mode enabled keep your eye on the OnePlus wait for it. Now here is the night mode enabled there is a huge difference, but there are some downsides because it is limited to 1080p, and it basically just cranks up the ISO. So in certain conditions looks okay, but then, when it gets darker, it does start to look a little worse.

You can see there's a lot of introduction of noise in the footage, but in this alley it was really dark. The Vito, I think, does the best job. Overall, if you point down to the ground, look at the brick detail and then compare it to the s21 ultra. You really can't see much detail at all, but you can really see how dark it was here and then, when you take a look at my shoe, it was able to retain the white balance as well. So that's very impressive, and then, when you walk towards the wall here, you can actually see the texture on the stucco.

Even though I wouldn't use this a lot, I think it's very handy to have when you need it. So let me know what you think of this night mode. Video doing this camera comparison surprised me because, of course, the s21 ultra did great, because I believe it is the most flexible and most consistent smartphone camera that you can buy right now, but the OnePlus 9 pro is getting better with every software update, and I think I can confidently say that it's much better since launch, they still have a little ways to go, but I think they're really getting there the Vito. On the other hand, I've never experienced one of their cameras before, and I'm totally impressed with their gimbals technology in their wide angle, camera I mean look at this footage and how stable it is at night. I hope to see this across all the cameras in the future.

That would be amazing, but it kept up really well, and I think that with some software updates in the future, VIVO could absolutely compete in the flagship camera market. I would love to see them dial down the saturation on the AI mode and control some highlight blowouts and I think we'll have a real potential competitor here. So let me know what you think in the comment section below, if you enjoyed this detailed camera comparison hit that thumbs up for me that helps out the channel. A lot subscribe for a lot more videos like this one, and I will see you in the next one.

Source : Danny Winget