POCO X2 Review: Should you consider this new mid-

ranger?
thephonehype.com/2020/02/poco-x2-review-should-you-consider-this.html

Xiaomi's sub brand POCO came into existence in the year 2018 by launching it's first
smartphone, the POCO F1. This device was a beast and was the cheapest smartphone to
have a Snapdragon 845 underneath. The device had very good specifications and still
when it comes to performance and gaming in today's day and age, the POCO F1 remains
unbeatable. The POCO F1 made a huge wave of success that it created a lot of
expectation from the users regarding the POCO F2. It had been one and half years that
there wasn't any news about the next smartphone from POCO.
Now the POCO X2 has been released which isn't a successor to the POCO F1 but a new X
series smartphone from POCO it comes along with a 120Hz display, 64MP camera and
Snapdragon 730G chipset and much more to take on the competition. It is the same
Redmi K30 that we first saw in China. Now the POCO is an independent brand and let's
see whether you should consider this new mid-ranger?

1/10
POCO X2 Design:

When the POCO F1 came in the market, it didn't had a good build as the back was made
of polycarbonate plastic and had a wider notch at the front. With POCO X2, you get a
glass sandwich design both at the front as well as on the back with Gorilla Glass 5. On
the front you get a full screen display with a pill shaped module housing the front
camera with a depth camera. There are minimum bezels to the side. On the back, the
smartphone has a circular design around the rear cameras which looks good but is a
personal preference. There is a shiny pattern to the back which is relective and looks
premium. The back feels solid to hold as it is glass but does feel little bit slippery due to
that glass design. However POCO does provide a plastic silicon case. The sides of the
smartphone house the power buttons and the volume controls.
On top of the smartphone, there is a secondary noise cancelling microphone and an IR
Blaster to control televisions, air conditioners etc. Below you get a USB Type-C port with
a loudspeaker grill and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There is a hybrid slot at the side
where you can insert two SIM cards or one SIM card with a microSD card. The
smartphone comes with P2i coating so using it in rainy season will not be an issue.
The fingerprint scanner has been moved to the power button which is reliable and very
fast. Though we expected an in-display fingerprint scanner as most of the competitors
like the Realme X2, Redmi K20 offer but still the fingerprint scanner is very fast and
2/10
accurate.
Overall POCO seems to have a very good build and design and the back with the newer
design will surely catch attention.

POCO X2 Display:

The POCO X2 sports a larger 6.67 inches full HD+ IPS LCD display with a screen to
body ratio of 20:9. While the competition is offering AMOLED in this price segment,
POCO seems to stick with LCD display to keep costs low. But this display gets a whopping
120Hz refresh rate so closing and opening of applications is insanely fast and while
gaming the higher refresh rate makes thing work smoother. Like the Samsung Galaxy
S10+, the POCO X2 also has that punch hole dual camera setup which has a black area
separating both the cameras. The LCD panel on the POCO X2 has vibrant colors and
higher levels of brightness. Under direct sunlight, the screen is easily visible and during
night the screen becomes dim which is good but the AMOLEDs seem to do this better.

Talking about the screen, it supports HDR content and Widevine L1 support so
streaming HD videos from Amazon, Netflix won't be an issue. Talking about the higher
refresh rate, there is also a dedicated option to switch to normal 60Hz display to save
some battery life. The only thing that the smartphone misses is a LED notification light.
Considering the higher refresh rate and a full screen display with that camera cut out,
the POCO X2 can be considered for watching movies or playing games.

POCO X2 Performance:

The POCO F1 came with Snapdragon 845 which was 2018's flagship chipset from
3/10
Qualcomm. The POCO X2 on the other hand gets a Snapdragon 730G which is the third
most powerful chipset after the Snapdragon 855, 845 in the Qualcomm stable. This
chipset is found on the Realme X2 also. The smartphone has : 2x2.2 Ghz Kryo 470 Gold
cores for "higher performance" and 6x1.8 Ghz Kryo 470 Silver cores for "power
efficiency" and is built on a 7nm process which makes it very efficient. The Adreno 618
GPU has many enhanced gaming features and can run all small to heavy games with
ease. With normal day to day use, the smartphone runs all applications smoothly. But at
sometimes there were slight stutters due to the LCD panel pushing the higher 120Hz
refresh rate.
All heavy games like PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty ran smoothly and there wasn't any
frame drops noticed during the gameplay. Like the POCO F1, there is liquid cooling on
the POCO X2 which helps dissipating heat (the back of the device doesn't feel warm)
while playing games for a long time. The 120Hz display does aid in smooth gaming but
all the games played ran normally on 60Hz and if in future any game with 120Hz support
comes, the smartphone can handle it easily.
Coming to benchmarks, the smartphone scored 223980 in Antutu which is very good
and this puts the smartphone on top of the Redmi K20 having the Snapdragon 730 and
many smartphones in this range. Combined with the 120Hz display, the performance is
top notch on the smartphone.

POCO X2 Software:

Being an independent brand, the POCO X2 still runs MIUI 11 out of the box built on top
of Android 10. There is a POCO launcher which means you get a dedicated app drawer
and no ads but there are some ads provided by third party applications which is very less
compared to ads present in Redmi series and Mi series of Xiaomi smartphones.MIUI 11
brings many new features like system wide dark mode, smart notification sounds
which is nature based and with Android 10 you get new gestures and use of full
screen in almost all applications.
Whether it is opening and closing of applications or switching between them, the POCO
X2 with the 120Hz refresh rate and MIUI's optimizations is a treat to use.

POCO X2 Camera:

4/10
The POCO X2 is the first device in India that houses a 64MP Sony IMX686 sensor for the
main camera. In this range, other manufacturers provide 48MP Sony IMX586 and 64MP
Samsung ISOCELL GW1 sensors for the main camera. The smartphone has four
cameras to the rear: 64MP f/1.9 Sony IMX686 main camera + 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide
camera + 2MP f/2.4 depth and a 2MP f/2.4 macro camera.

5/10
The photos taken from the main camera result to 16MP photos which has clear and
sharp photos due to pixel binning. During daylight, the photos came out really good as
the details were plenty, the contrast worked very well and the dynamic range was higher
too. Compared to 64MP Samsung sensor, the Sony sensor captures better light and has
lesser noise in the background. Coming to indoor lighting situations, the camera
captures good light and at night, with the Night Mode the photos come out well detailed
and there is less noise in the background. This is even due to MIUI 11's focus on the
Night Mode in the camera. The level of detail in the shadows came out great too.

Coming to the ultrawide camera, like all manufacturers in this range you get a 8MP
ultrawide camera which takes very good photos with vibrant colors and good contrast.
The dynamic range isn't as good as the 13MP ultrawide camera on the Redmi K20 but
still the levels of noise is less and overall the photos came out really good. Coming to low
light or night situations, here we noticed the ultrawide camera struggled a bit but still
with the Night Mode on, you can get very good photos with less noise.
The 2MP macro camera takes some very good photos with vibrant colors and the edge
detection works well too. It can go as close as 2cm thus focussing the object is not an
issue.

6/10
Coming to portraits, the 2MP depth camera takes some very good portraits. But there
remains some overexposure in the background and needs to be worked. Still you get a
good separation of the object from the surroundings thus making the portraits come out
good.

Coming to videos, the POCO X2 supports 4k@30fps which is the highest video setting.
The video footage is much more detailed and there isn't much of a shake while shooting
a video. It seems EIS kicks at 4k and 1080p@60fps which makes the video capture
better light and due to the wider dynamic range the video doesn't crop like some other
smartphones.

The ultrawide camera also takes some really good videos but with Night Mode, during
night it simply blows away the light in the photos and the video footage is decent. There
needs some improvement but overall when it comes to videos and photos from the rear
cameras, the POCO X2 just delivers it well.
Coming to the front, the POCO X2 comes with a 20MP f/2.2 camera accompanied by a
2MP depth camera for better selfies and portraits. The photos taken from the front
camera have good details with more natural looking skin tones, the contrast works well
too. The new depth sensor may be a gimmick to some but coming to portraits, the depth
camera makes the subject separation from the background much better thus resulting in
better portraits. Edge detection needs some improvement which will be fixed in a later
7/10
software update.
The front camera can shoot 1080p videos which have very good details with wider
dynamic range and are stable too.
The overall camera package that the POCO X2 is just amazing especially the new 64MP
Sony sensor which makes the device a good camera centric smartphone under
Rs.200000.

POCO X2 Battery Life:

The smartphone sports a larger 4500mAh battery which is similar to the one found on
the Redmi Note 8 Pro. The battery can easily last for a day with 120Hz refresh rate on
the screen. But with 60Hz refresh rate, the smartphone can easily last more than a day.
With continuous gaming with PUBG Mobile for 2-3 hours, streaming social media and
normal browsing the POCO X2 with 120Hz refresh rate had around 10 percent left and
with 60Hz it had 20-25 percent.
Nonetheless, there is support for 27W fast charging with the charger included in the
box which means the device can be easily charged to 100 percent within 69 mins which
is faster compared to Realme X2 which has support for 30W VOOC charging.

POCO X2 Sound Quality:

The sound on the POCO X2 is adequately loud and clear. Like the POCO F1, the POCO X2
also comes with support for stereo speakers (earpiece and loudspeaker at bottom)
which is very good. The sound output through the 3.5mm headphone jack is also good
and the distortion in the sound is also well maintained.
8/10
Verdict:

Should you consider this new mid ranger ? Well it may be a long wait for the POCO
brand to put up a new smartphone in the market as the POCO X2 builds enough
reputation with some interesting features in the price segment at which it is offered at.
The larger screen with 120Hz refresh rate is one of the stunning feature of the
smartphone as it is the cheapest smartphone in the market to have a 120Hz display.
Accompanied with a great software is a powerful chipset Snapdragon 730G which
provides excellent performance and great gaming capabilities. The new build and design
is also striking with that new camera look at the back. Talking about cameras, the POCO
X2 with the new 64MP Sony IMX686 sensor does a great job in taking photos and
videos. The camera takes very good photos and videos even better than the
smartphones priced higher than the POCO X2. The 4500mAh battery can easily last and
no need to worry as you get that 27W fast charging solution too.
POCO have priced the X2 very aggressively as the base variant: 6GB RAM and 64GB
storage is priced at Rs.15,999 which makes it a very good deal to consider. The other
9/10
variants include: 8GB RAM and 128GB storage priced at Rs.16999 and the 8GB RAM
and 256GB storage priced at Rs.19999 undercuts the Realme X2 making a good value
for money option.
Do note that all variants of the POCO X2 come with UFS 2.1 storage.
Well if you see it may not have an AMOLED panel, an in-display fingerprint scanner (as it
gets a side mounted one on the power button) like the Redmi K20, Realme X2 but if you
keep aside all these things, the POCO X2 is a very good option to consider with that great
screen, a powerful processor and much more.

10/10