POCO X2 Review: Should you consider this new mid-ranger?

POCO X2 with the 120Hz refresh rate, 64MP Sony IMX686 and much more...

Xiaomi's sub-brand POCO came into existence in the year 2018 by launching its 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 expectations from the users regarding the POCO F2. It had been one and a 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?

POCO X2 Design:

When the POCO F1 came in the market, it didn't have 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 reflective and looks premium. The back feels solid to hold as it is glass but does feel a 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-canceling 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 the 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 still the fingerprint scanner is very fast and 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 the 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 the 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 a 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 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 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 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 weren'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 the 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 the 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:

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.

The photos were taken from the main camera result in 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 the 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 an 8MP ultrawide camera that 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 are 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.

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 the 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 software update.

The front camera can shoot 1080p videos which have very good details with a 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 a 120Hz refresh rate on the screen. But with a 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 the 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.

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 a 120Hz refresh rate is one of the stunning features of the smartphone as it is the cheapest smartphone in the market to have a 120Hz display. Accompanied by great software is a powerful chipset Snapdragon 730G which provides excellent performance and great gaming capabilities. The new build and design are 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 of 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 has priced the X2 very aggressively as the base variant: 6GB RAM and 64GB storage are priced at Rs.15,999 which makes it a very good deal to consider. The other 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 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.

See also: Realme X2 Review: Is this beast the best mid-ranger under Rs.20000?