I had never encountered the vivo X9s Plus smartphone before, and my understanding of the brand was limited to advertisements. Friends have been recommending the vivo X9s Plus for its outstanding photography capabilities. As a photographer who usually uses a camera, I rarely take photos with a smartphone. Until one day at a gathering, a friend from the photography circle handed me a vivo X9s Plus to experience the charm of DSP.
DSP? What is that? These three letters were previously associated only with televisions or audio devices, but what can DSP do for a smartphone? I quickly did some research to understand the powerful functions enabled by the DSP in the vivo X9s Plus. The DSP, or “Digital Signal Processor,” is a chip with digital signal processing capabilities. The vivo X9s Plus has customized this chip for application in smartphone photography, combined with vivo’s own optimized algorithms, significantly enhancing backlighting and night photography effects, thus improving the camera’s performance in low-light and backlit conditions.
First, let’s talk about the fully upgraded front camera solution of the vivo X9s Plus. There has been advertising claiming “Front 20 million, soft light dual cameras illuminate your beauty.” The X9s Plus features a 20MP professional front sensor, paired with a professional blur sensor, which goes against market trends by placing dual cameras on the front. Utilizing optimized algorithms, it can achieve background blur effects comparable to F0.95 large aperture DSLR portrait lenses.
I asked two female friends to test the front camera for selfies and found that the vivo X9s Plus has added a global soft light next to the front camera, which can provide supplementary lighting for video calls and selfies, truly achieving the effect of “soft light dual cameras illuminating your beauty.” It can be seen that whether in backlit selfies or low-light conditions, the selfie capability remains strong.
Next, let’s discuss the main camera on the back of the vivo X9s Plus. Many professionals often compare smartphone photography with cameras, but I personally believe these are two different target audiences reflecting different needs, and there is no substantial comparability. Therefore, I don’t think using a smartphone versus a camera during the day can yield any meaningful assessment. However, it is precisely in extreme situations like nighttime and backlighting that a smartphone’s performance can be truly tested. The vivo X9s Plus tackles this challenge with DSP technology, addressing the nightmare scenarios for smartphones. In fact, shooting in high dynamic range (HDR) conditions is also a challenge for camera manufacturers. In previous years, smartphones would incorporate HDR functionality to improve brightness in dark areas and reduce brightness in highlights through software processing, but this often damages photo quality and increases noise. The vivo X9s Plus uses a digital signal processor chip called DSP RK1608, which is currently the only solution in the smartphone industry that integrates backlight algorithms into night scene algorithms.
When taking photos in complex lighting conditions, the vivo X9s Plus can quickly detect strong light sources directly hitting the lens and trigger the automatic backlight HDR function. With DSP hardware support, the time taken is further reduced, and the shutter response is more sensitive. It can rapidly capture multiple frames of original RAW (lossless format) photos, automatically process and combine them into one RAW photo in the DSP chip, and finally process it through the ISP to obtain the final JPG photo.
In these two indoor shots, you can see that the lighting in the café is not ideal, but the DSP technology demonstrates its powerful capabilities, with the automatic HDR mode capturing details better.
On the first day with the vivo X9s Plus, I wanted to take some photos of girls, but unfortunately, I encountered a series of rainy days in Beijing. Taking advantage of a brief lull in the rain, I captured a few shots of the rainy night, and the detail in the images is truly impressive, with reflections in puddles and highlights in shop windows preserved.
From the overall results, the vivo X9s Plus shows a significant improvement in brightness in dark areas. Nighttime complex light sources can easily lead to local overexposure, but the vivo X9s Plus has an astonishing dynamic range, naturally and clearly displaying light sources as seen by the human eye. While it may not surpass DSLR capabilities, it is already outstanding in smartphone photography.
In summary, the DSP photography technology of the vivo X9s Plus has undoubtedly broken through the quality bottleneck of smartphone photography. This high R&D threshold technology indeed brings a superior photography experience. In an era where technological depth is being contested, the vivo X9s Plus once again showcases its R&D strength to the market. The DSP photography technology of the vivo X9s Plus is also a significant highlight that breaks product homogeneity, addressing the pain points of backlit and low-light photography, rapidly synthesizing multiple frames of RAW files, and achieving breakthroughs in imaging speed and quality. It can truly provide professional photography capabilities for many non-professionals, making the vivo X9s Plus worthy of praise.