Vivo’s next Ultra phone may be heading straight for the 10x zoom camera race. A new leak says the company is testing a 10x telephoto camera for what is believed to be the Vivo X500 Ultra, a move that would push it well beyond the more modest reach of the current X300 Ultra and put it closer to the long-range setups already being used by rivals.
If the test configuration makes it into a final product, Vivo would be changing course in a segment that has become obsessed with camera bragging rights. The question is not whether bigger zoom numbers sound impressive – they do – but whether Vivo can deliver that reach without turning the phone into a chunky brick or making the camera module absurdly expensive. That is the part brands usually skip in the teaser reel.
What the leak says about the Vivo X500 Ultra
According to the leak, the rumored Vivo X500 Ultra is being tested with a dedicated 10x telephoto camera rather than a shorter periscope system. That would be a major step up from the X300 Ultra, which uses a single 200MP periscope camera with around 3.7x optical zoom. In other words, Vivo would be moving from ”good enough for portraits and some travel shots” territory into the kind of hardware that can actually challenge distant subject shooters.
- Vivo X300 Ultra: single 200MP periscope camera, around 3.7x optical zoom
- Rumored Vivo X500 Ultra test setup: 10x telephoto camera
- Oppo Find X9 Ultra: 200MP 3x telephoto plus separate 50MP 10x periscope camera
- Huawei Pura 80 Ultra: 9.4x periscope solution
Why Vivo may be pushed to go longer on zoom
Vivo is not making this move in a vacuum. Oppo has already shown a dual-telephoto approach with the Find X9 Ultra, and Huawei’s Pura 80 Ultra demonstrated just how far smartphone zoom can go. Even with Huawei now rumored to be skipping a Pura Ultra successor in 2026, the pressure on Vivo is obvious: in the premium camera phone market, standing still is the same as falling behind.
That explains why the rumor feels plausible. Vivo has spent years leaning into mobile photography, helped by its partnership with Zeiss, and Ultra models are now as much about camera engineering as raw performance. Sensor size, variable apertures, and computational tricks have already been pushed hard; the next obvious battlefield is reach.
The real test is hardware, not marketing
A 10x camera sounds simple in a leak. Building one that ships in a mainstream flagship is less charming. The challenge is balancing zoom range with thickness, weight, battery life, and cost – all the things that turn a neat camera spec into a product manager’s headache.
For now, the reported 10x module is only a test configuration, not a confirmed feature. If Vivo does keep it, the X500 Ultra could become one of the most aggressively camera-led phones of its generation. If it gets cut, that probably means the company decided the optics were better than the phone they would have produced around them.