This week is decidedly Samsung week, with the South Korean company finally launching its hotly anticipated but very familiar feeling Samsung Galaxy S23 series. OnePlus sister company Vivo was daring enough to place its own flagship launch right at the end of that same week, though, sending its Vivo X90 and X90 Pro into the race for the best smartphone in 2023 — the only caveat is that it's not coming to the US.

Since the X90 Pro is the phone that will see a wider availability outside of just a few select Asian countries, we will focus on this device here rather than the X90. Let’s still start with what the two devices have in common, because there is a lot. Both come with the new MediaTek Dimensity 9200, paired with up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

They can both charge at up to 120W, though only the X90 Pro offers up to 50W of wireless charging. The battery is comparable at 4810mAh for the regular version and 4870 for the Pro variant. The same is true for the display, which is a Q9 6.78-inch OLED screen with a refresh rate of up to 120Hz and a resolution of 1260x2800.

The regular Vivo X90

The only real big difference is in the design and camera department. The X90 Pro comes with a unique black vegan leather back that definitely sets it apart from the glass sandwich competition, though it isn’t an entirely heard of material choice (remember the customizable 2013 and 2014 Moto X, for example?). It definitely doesn’t help that the leather is interrupted by a glass or plastic line with a cheesy “Xtreme imagination” tagline advertising the Zeiss partnership — in addition to the Zeiss logo featured next to the far protruding camera setup. The X90, on the other hand, comes with a more regular glass back in either blue or black.

With both Vivo and OnePlus sharing the same parent company, it also isn't suprirsing that the Vivo X90 series' round camera array looks strikingly similar to the OnePlus 11 — even if it definitely protrudes much further on the Vivo X90 Pro.

The camera is probably the most exciting part of the Vivo X90 lineup, and it has big shoes to fill, with the Vivo X80 Pro convincing us with its camera prowess. The X90 Pro comes with Sony’s incredible 1-inch big 50MP IMX989 sensor for the primary camera. It’s coupled with a 5MP portrait lens, the IMX758, and a 12MP wide-angle — no telephoto zoom to be seen anywhere, which is a shame. On the front, a 32MP selfie camera is responsible for selfies.

The photography hardware is joined by Vivo’s V2 chip, which is a co-processor meant to speed up and improve photography and video post-processing, but it’s also meant for display driving functions. Vivo claims that this tight integration allows for advanced options like zero shutter lag photography, though we will have to put the camera through its paces in our review to test this. Other advertised features include an enhanced night mode, hand-held astrophotography, 4K HDR night video, and more. The X90 offers most of the same photography and videography features, but it has to make do with a 12MP portrait camera rather than the X90 Pro’s 50MP one.

The phones also both launch with Funtouch OS 13, based on Android 13. It offers the usual Android 13 features like themed icons, Material You, enhanced privacy controls, but also a few added smarts like gestures to start split-screen mode and more.

The X90 and X90 Pro will be available in Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Thailand, and Malaysia. The X90 Pro will also come to Europe, with Vivo sharing more details in the future.

This story was updated with new information regarding availability that we received from Vivo.