Realme X2 Pro Review: The best Flagship Killer smartphone in 2019

Realme X2 Pro sets a new benchmark in the market.

Realme has been launching quite a handful of smartphones this year. All the smartphones gained a huge amount of success as Realme established itself as one of the best selling smartphone manufacturers when it comes to the budget and mid-range smartphones segment.

It launched many smartphones out of which the Realme X was a good smartphone as it came with a full-screen display with no notch, upgraded cameras, and featured an AMOLED panel. After that, Realme XT was launched which came with an AMOLED panel, an in-display fingerprint scanner, and featured a 64MP camera.

Now this time Realme has set the bar high as it has now entered into the flagship space by launching the X2 Pro which will compete with the likes of the Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro, OnePlus 7T, Asus 6z, etc.

The Realme X2 Pro is the first flagship device made by Realme that comes with a 90Hz display, a Snapdragon 855+ chipset, and 50W SuperVOOC charging. So let's find does this flagship killer stands out from the rest of the crowd in the market?

Realme X2 Pro Design:

In terms of design, the Realme X2 Pro is not much different from the Realme XT as both are made of Gorilla Glass 5 both at the front as well as back except for the placement of cameras. In the front, the Realme X2 Pro sports a 6.5 inches display with a teardrop notch just like the one on the OnePlus 7T. The bezels to the sides of the smartphone are minimalistic which gives it a good look.

On the back, the Realme X2 Pro has the camera module in the middle which consists of four cameras with the Realme branding just under it to the right. The curved rear glass to the back is good to look and easy to use.

On the sides, the frame is made of metal which gives good tactile feel while holding. On the right there is a power button with a SIM card tray slot and to the left lies the volume controls. Sadly the smartphone lacks support for microSD support.

On top, there is a secondary noise-canceling microphone while at the bottom there is a 3.5mm headphone jack with the USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill. The Realme X2 Pro is offered in two colors- Lunar White and Neptune Blue. 

The Neptune Blue color makes the smartphone look premium as the back has a shining pattern which looks good.

At 199gms, the Realme X2 Pro is a bit heavier but when you hold it, you won't feel the weight as the weight distribution has been done much better. The smartphone has a P2i coating which means it is splash-proof. Sadly there isn't any IP resistance like the flagships from Samsung or Apple.

The back of the smartphone is slippery but Realme provides a case to protect and prevent to slip.

Overall the look and feel of the device feels well considered at the price in which it is offered.

Realme X2 Pro Display:

The Realme X2 Pro houses a 6.5 inches full HD+ display (1080 x 2400 pixels) with a screen to body ratio of 20:9. Now 90Hz displays are seen on many smartphones like OnePlus 7 Pro, 7T, and OnePlus 7T Pro.

Realme X2 Pro also packs a 90Hz display for smoother animations and gameplay. The display is good and crisp and the color production is very good. But there is a slight shift in color temperature noticed but you can choose between Vivid and Gentle easily. Consuming media like videos and games will be treat due to that 90Hz display.

The screen is very bright when viewed under direct sunlight. The Realme X2 Pro comes with an optical in-display fingerprint scanner which is accurate and fast. It is even faster than the one on the OnePlus 7T.

In dark, the brightness can very low and there is the Blue Light filter which prevents the strain on the eyes. The 90Hz screen is much better than the normal 60Hz refresh rate as the smartphone works fluidly.

The Realme X2 Pro supports Widevine L1 so that you can easily stream HD content from Amazon Prime, Hotstar, etc. But sadly HDR content cannot be accessed for now as Realme will provide a software update regarding this very soon.

Compared to other flagships like the Redmi K20 Pro, OnePlus 7 the display is a huge plus point for the Realme X2 Pro.

Realme X2 Pro Performance:

In terms of processor, Realme X2 Pro packs top of the line chipset, Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ which is an octa-core setup having 1x2.96 GHz Kryo 485 Prime Core + 3x2.42 GHz Kryo 485 Gold cores and 4x1.78 GHz Kryo 485 Silver cores. The Prime core and the three Cortex A76 cores are made for achieving higher performance and the rest four Cortex A55 cores help achieve power efficiency.

This chipset is built on a 7nm process coupled with Adreno 640 GPU. The Snapdragon 855+ is a slight upgrade over the Snapdragon 855 which powers many flagships like the Redmi K20 Pro, OnePlus 7, Asus 6z, etc. The smartphone comes in two variants 8GB RAM and 128GB storage and another 12GB RAM and 256GB storage.

The performance is exceptional as the smartphone breezes through all applications smoothly. With the 90Hz display, the experience is even better.

It is powerful than the Exynos 9825 which is also built on the 7nm process and powers the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 series.

Both the variants of the Realme X2 Pro also come with UFS 3.0 storage which has faster read-write speeds and also faster animations and USB transfer of files. Many benchmarks like Antutu, the device scored 396827 which is almost the highest score by any Android smartphone, and in Geekbench 5, it scored 584 and 2796 in the single and multi-core departments.

Coming to gaming, all the heavy games like PUBG, Fortnite, Call of Duty all ran smoothly and with the 90Hz display, the animations, and overall gameplay was buttery smooth. Even the temperature was well maintained throughout the gameplay. In terms of performance and gaming, the Realme X2 Pro is the ultimate smartphone at its price range.

Realme X2 Pro Software:

Like all Realme smartphone, the Realme X2 Pro also runs on ColorOS 6.1 out of the box built on top of Android 9 Pie. The company has claimed it will soon update the smartphone to Android 10 in the upcoming 2020. The OnePlus 7T which is the direct rival to the Realme X2 Pro runs Android 10 out of the box.

The software on the Realme X2 Pro is faster as ColorOS is improving with every update. The home screen looks good and there is a dedicated app drawer which the previous versions lacked. The fingerprint is very fast and accurate which looks good with good animation.

There is the system-wide dark mode and Realme has made a dedicated GameSpace to ensure good gaming experience. With the ColorOS 6, there are a set of new gesture shortcuts.

There is even a Performance Mode that has High, Smart, and an option for no performance. With the 90Hz display, the applications are easy to use and all controls fall easily to hand. Though OxygenOS provides more customizations, with powerful hardware and good software the Realme X2 Pro is a treat to use.

Realme X2 Pro Camera:

The Realme X2 Pro like the Realme XT comes with a 64MP camera. Actually the smartphone has four cameras: 64MP f/1.8 camera which is Samsung ISOCELL GW1 sensor + 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide lens + 13MP 2x zoom (telephoto) lens and 2MP f/2.4 depth sensor. The photos taken from the main camera have good color accuracy and the photos look realistic.

The dynamic range is wide and turning on the Chroma boost feature adds more saturation and contrast to the photos. However this is slight of a gimmicky feature on Realme smartphone, but anyways you won't notice much of a difference by using this feature.

During the night or low light, the photos come out good with great detail but there is much of a noise in the background. The colors look punchy and the details in the shadows are good. Turning on NightScape improves the photos as the background lightens and the photos come out better.

The photos taken from the 64MP mode take some bit of time for processing and by default generate 16MP photos by default with a good level of detail.

Now switching to the 8MP ultrawide lens, the photos come out to be good but the color level in the photos isn't as good as the one on the main camera. The photos taken are sharp but at some places, there is over sharpness resulting in a loss in detail.

One advantage of the ultrawide camera is an autofocus feature as the focusing works well most of the time. In the night, the photos come out to be average as the lens struggles. But when NightScape is turned on, the photos come out to be sharp and great in detail.

The level of details in shadows come out to be improved than the normal. So using the NightScape mode, the photos come out good from the ultrawide camera.

Switching to the telephoto camera, the photos have good color accuracy and are well detailed. There is some kind of softness in the photos and there is some amount of noise in the background. The lack of OIS does hurt the camera a bit but still, all the photos come out good.

In the night, the photos come out good but there is some issue with the dynamic range as it isn't that good and struggles a bit. The telephoto lens also has the ability to take 5x optical zoom and 20x digital zoom which takes really good photos. The telephoto lens has a big advantage here and overall works well.

The main camera does a better job of taking macro photos as the edge detection works really well and the background blur is also well done.

Now switching to portraits from the rear camera, the 2MP depth sensor provides good portraits with proper background blur and good natural skin tones in the photos. We can also adjust the background blur.

The Realme X2 Pro can shoot up to 4k@60fps and 1080p@120fps. The videos were taken in 4k come out to be a little bit unstabilized and the colors in the videos don't look natural. With 30fps, the videos come out much better.

Now with Realme X2 Pro all the three cameras i.e. main camera, ultrawide, telephoto can shoot videos and you can easily switch between modes which are lacking in the OnePlus 7T. At 1080p the videos come out to be pleasing as the EIS kicks in and the videos come out to be much more stable and detailed.

On the front, the Realme X2 Pro comes with a 16MP f/2.0 camera which provides good selfies taken during daylight. The skin tones look natural and the dynamic range is also wide enough for good shots. With the HDR turned on, the selfish came out to be better than the normal.

The Realme X2 Pro also has a night mode for selfies to take good photos in low light conditions. The photos were taken at night also come out to be good.

With portraits, the front camera takes very good photos with proper edge detection though background blur needs some improvement. The front camera can also take portrait videos by adjusting the background blur very well.

Another cool feature from Realme. The cameras on the Realme X2 Pro are easy to use as you can switch to any camera while recording and plus the telephoto lens also has the ability to shoot videos. Then there is the ability to take 5x and 20x zoom photos from the telephoto cameras.

On an overall basis, the cameras on the Realme X2 Pro are good at this range.

Realme X2 Pro Battery Life:

The Realme X2 Pro packs a 4000mAh battery which provides good battery life. From light to heavy intensive applications, the battery can easily through a day with some juice left. The smartphone provides 5-6 hours of standard screen on time and with heavy usage that is continuous 2-3 hours of gaming, video playback, and some web browsing the smartphone had 15-20% left in the tank.

Now coming to charging, the Realme X2 Pro demolishes the competition as it gets a 50W SuperVOOC charger inside the box which takes the smartphone from 0-67% in the first 15 minutes and charges completely to 100 percent within 35 minutes. This is the fastest charging solution in the mobile industry for now.

Another feature the Realme X2 Pro supports is faster USB Power Delivery which means if you have a power delivery charger i.e. through power banks the smartphone supports 18W fast charging. The SuperVOOC charging is the biggest trump card for the Realme X2 Pro.

Realme X2 Pro Sound Quality:

Like all flagship smartphones, the Realme X2 Pro comes with stereo speakers i.e. the main loudspeaker at the bottom and the grill on top of the front camera doubles as an earpiece. Both together produce very good sound with no distortion or imbalance.

One main advantage that the Realme X2 Pro gets that its rival OnePlus 7 or 7T lack is a 3.5mm headphone jack. The audio output is very good using it with normal earphones and headphones. With the Dolby Atmos, the sound becomes much louder and better.

Verdict: 

Overall this is one of the best value flagship smartphones right now in the market. There are two variants selling: 8GB RAM and 128GB storage is priced at Rs.29,999 and another 12GB RAM and 256GB storage at Rs.33,999 making one of the best value for money option. Both having UFS 3.0 storage that is faster than the rivals like Asus 6z, Redmi K20 Pro.

The display is the best as it gets the 90Hz refresh rate and with a flagship-grade chipset like Snapdragon 855+, it can handle everything that you throw at it. The software you can say is good as ColorOS is providing good new features to the customers with each update but still compared to OxygenOS on OnePlus devices, it isn't that fast.

But still, you won't notice any lag or such. The cameras work very well for the smartphone as you can easily switch between modes while taking photos or recording videos. The photos come out good but video processing does need some improvement.

And then the battery life is good, as the charger and the speed it charges are amazing as the Realme X2 Pro gets a 50W SuperVOOC charger which charges the smartphone completely within 35 minutes. That is insanely faster charging compared to Wrap, VOOC, and normal quick charging.

Compared to other flagship killers in the market, it does stand out from the rest with great specifications at a very good price. Realme has crafted yet another masterpiece which will surely win many hearts.