The Indian smartphone market has seen a huge surge in the last decade. With the arrival of Chinese smartphone OEMs, the budget mid-range category has become fiercer than ever; to the point where it has to compete with it’s own sub-brand. This is the same case with Xiaomi, whose offshoot brand Poco recently started functioning independently and launched it’s new smartphone, the Poco X2. It is the spiritual successor to it’s previous smartphone Poco F1 and a re-branded version of Redmi K30.

The main spec highlights of the Poco X2 include a quad rear camera setup alongside a fluid 120Hz HDR 10 LCD display. Both the Poco and the Redmi are a stand alone brand now but continue to leverage Xiaomi for supplying hardware components to manufacturing, distribution, and even after-sales service.

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Poco X2 Design

Early teasers from Poco‘s social handle confirmed that it will be a re-branded Redmi K30 and it came out to be exactly true. The Poco X2 is the same device indeed. On the design front, one of the biggest recent trend we’re witnessing is the experimentation with the different forms of glass sandwich deign with the erasure of notches and Poco is no exception to this.

In-Hand feel

Taking a look at the rear of the phone, one can notice the X2‘s prominent design attribute that is the glossy circular ring finish surrounding the vertical camera housing. Surrounding which is this circular glossy ring finish is the frosted matte-textured glass with no gradient finish and a distinct Poco branding. This combination of matte and gloss helps this phone stand out of the crowd. However, the Poco X2 lacks the premium feel which we were expecting, given it’s frosted glass back. The rear panel is a lot slippery and expect it to be a fingerprint magnet. The whole rear panel is protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 5 , protecting against drops by up to shoulder-height onto hard and rough surfaces.

Looking up front, another prominent design change the X2 has is the pill shaped punch-hole camera cutout. Not only does this make the device stand out from the competition in terms of uniqueness, but also removes the obstruction of having a notch. Just like the rear, the front end is protected with Corning’s Gorilla Glass 5 as well.

Design Features

Because of the LCD display panel, there’s no purveying of the in-display fingerprint scanner in the X2. To cope up with this, Poco has integrated the fingerprint scanner to the side mounted power button (we’re glad they did). It is positioned in such an accurate way that users won’t find it difficult to unlock the phone. Above the side mounted fingerprint scanner there’s volume buttons up on top. To the bottom of the phone there’s a 27W USB-C port for fast–charging, alongside a 3.5mm headphone jack and a speaker grill. To the opposite on top, there’s a hybrid SIM slot with a microSD slot for expandable storage. There’s also a typical Xiaomi fashioned infrared emitter which is common to all Xiaomi‘s phones.

Summary

The Poco X2 is a large device, still it has managed to maintain a perfect balance of weight to body ratio.

is a large device, still it has managed to maintain a perfect balance of weight to body ratio. The side mounted fingerprint scanner is in no way a downgrade when compared to the in-display fingerprint scanner.

fingerprint scanner is in no way a downgrade when compared to the fingerprint scanner. The rear camera housing is fairly protruded, and might not be user-friendly while placed on a flat surface.

The side mounted volume buttons give a softer than usual tactile feedback.

The inclusion of a 27W fast-charger in box, is nice to have.

in box, is nice to have. The X2 also gets a P2i splash-proof nano-coating which prevents the device damages from water droplets.

Poco X2 Display

The main highlight of the Poco X2, and the most awaited feature in this price segment devices was the inclusion of 120Hz display. Poco is the first one to do it and calls this feature as RealityFlow and it’s needless to question why. The X2‘s tag line, Smooth AF is also descended from this display feature solely.

Coming to the display itself, it’s a 6.67-inch 2340×1080 full HD+ LCD display boasting a 120Hz refresh rate. Speaking of the display, it’s a downgrade from the Redmi K20s OLED panel and lacks those deep blacks and vivid colours. The X2 compensates this with it’s high refresh rate and neutrally calibrated display which even supports HDR10 for media consumption. This LCD display refreshes 120 times a second. What it does is, it makes the whole UI along the scrolling experience and the animations feel buttery smooth.

However, this is exactly where we ran into a few problems. Firstly, Poco uses a dynamic refresh rate which keeps toggling the refresh rate of the display in order to conserve battery. Just as you might think, it’s not perfect and all it does is make the user experience jittery. Secondly, we encountered some serious frame drops and animation lags. This might be happening either due to the variable refresh rate software issues or the lack of optimization in MIUI to run a display at 120Hz.

Summary

Users switching from an OLED or an AMOLED panel might get bothered with the display.

or an panel might get bothered with the display. Screen size is big enough and is ideal for media consumption and playing games.

Display calibration is neutral and the display doesn’t get that bright.

The variable refresh rate of the display might be a turn off for some.

of the display might be a turn off for some. At full HD+ the display is fairly sharp and crisp.

the display is fairly sharp and crisp. Users will take time to adapt to the punch hole cutout.

Poco X2 Specifications, Performance and Features

Things get polarizing when you talk about the specifications in this price point and in such a volatile market. Poco is certainly a new brand, and it has a lot to live up to in this area. Talking about the raw specifications of Poco X2, it runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G which is a gaming centric chipset, coupled with a 6 or 8 GB of RAM, running on MIUI 11.0.3 on top of Android 10.

Poco X2 Specs

Processor and Graphics

Running at the core of this device is a Snapdragon 730G. The G here stands for Gaming. It brings select Snapdragon Elite Gaming features and an additional 15% graphics boost over Snapdragon 730 for a more powerful gaming experience. The Snapdragon 730G serves up powerful performance and impressive battery life. It’s built to handle the most sophisticated on-device interactions, fueled by an 8nm process for extreme power efficiency in a small size. Plus, the Qualcomm Kryo 470 is engineered with new architectures, enabling you to capture memories, stream video, and multitask for longer compared to the previous generation. Snapdragon 730G mobile platform also features an improved display to better showcase 1 billion shades of color.

So how did Qualcomm achieve this? It’s simple, the Adreno 618 GPU is overclocked by 75MHz when compared to the stock Adreno 618 GPU on the Snapdragon 730. Other than that, it’s essentially the same Soc. The octacore Kryo 470 CPU runs at 2.2 Ghz and performs really well in everyday use. This silicon is cooled with a copper vapor chamber. Couple this with a 6GB of RAM and USF 2.1 storage, what you get is a score of 2,83,310 in Antutu and a smooth gameplay in PUBG at high presets with highest frame available.

Media and Audio

For media consumption, Poco X2 now comes with the support of Widevine L1 from day one out-of-the-box, allowing you to stream 1080p videos from Netflix and alike streaming services. Speaking of media consumption, the X2 comes with a single downward firing speaker which supports Hi-Res audio. We found this to be true and the speaker gets quite loud and had fairly rich audio.

Battery

In order to keep the high refresh rate display running, the Poco X2 packs up a large 4,500 mAh battery. Not to mention that it gets you through a day with moderate uses through a day effortlessly. This moderate use included an hour of playing PUBG, which is a quite graphic intensive game, shooting few videos and clicking pictures, add a couple of hours of social media surfing and an hour of video streaming. The Poco X2 performs fairly well in HD video loop test, running for 13 hours 52 minutes. Even when it’s low on charge, the 27W USB-C charger, charges the phone from 0% to 60% in 30 min.

Other features include, 2×2 Wi-Fi modem, Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, Wi-Fi calling, and dual VoLTE and a Game Turbo optimisation mode.

Summary

The Snapdragon 730G is a solid performer and handles day to day tasks without breaking a sweat.

is a solid performer and handles day to day tasks without breaking a sweat. The Adreno 618 handles high graphics games like a charm.

handles high graphics games like a charm. The massive 4,500 mAh battery is a nice anchor to keep the hardware running.

battery is a nice anchor to keep the hardware running. The single bottom firing speaker is a nice one but starts distorting above 70% volume .

above . Support for Widevine L1 from day one is a nice touch.

Poco X2 Software

Heading over to the software department, the Poco X2 ships with MIUI 11 (11.0.3) running on top of Android 10. However, unlike the Redmi K30, the X2 uses it’s in-house Poco Launcher. This is a customized version of MIUI, and the best part about it is it provides an app drawer. MIUI seems overall quite polished with the system-wide dark mode, bold app icons, and plethora of much needed visual tweaks.

Poco Launcher

However there are places where it needs quite a lot of attention and improvements. The UI animation is still on the slower side. This makes the whole user experience quite sluggish at times. Not only that, another major issue in MIUI which has been plaguing it ever since is the ton of bloatware present in the device. This not only eats up space but also adds to the sluggishness of multi-tasking due to memory consumption. Other major issue that MIUI is notoriously famous for is it’s aggressive RAM management which results in a tad improvement in the battery management.

MIUI

Another few software features include Game Turbo optimisation mode, and Dual space for Privacy.

Summary

Poco needs to work more on software optimization.

needs to work more on software optimization. The X2 feels sluggish at times during regular uses.

feels sluggish at times during regular uses. Dark mode is a nice touch in the UI .

. The X2 is running on latest Android 10 .

is running on latest . Software offers tons of customization.

Pre installed bloatware present in the phone.

Poco X2 Camera

The vertical camera module at the rear houses the beefy quad camera setup. The primary shooter is a f/1.89 aperture 64 megapixel shooter featuring the latest Sony IMX686. There’s also an f/2.2 8 megapixel wide angle camera, joined by two, 2 megapixel f/2.4 macro and a depth sensor respectively. The camera interface is same as other MIUI devices and has flash, HDR, AI mode, beautify effects, and access to the macro lens option on the main screen so there’s no change here.

Poco X2 Photos

The Sony IMX686 sensor, offers a native resolution of 9248 x 6944 pixels and also uses pixel binning technology to combine four pixels into one to improve low-light photography. The default camera resolution is 16 megapixel which is quite resonable and an improvement over the regular 12 megapixel cameras. The native ultrawide camera takes focused shot on point across the field of view, and Poco has done a well job at distortion correction near the edges. However the shots from the wide-angle camera captures poorer quality images. The colour profile varies between each camera and that’s not a good sign.

The low light shots are also fairly impressive with average amount of details and bring leaps in performance as compared to regular shots at night. For the price, the X2 takes on-point portrait shots. Edge detection is pretty accurate, and does a decent job in blurring the background. The macro shots looked pretty washed off and needed manual touches to be passable.

Poco X2 Video

The video quality on the Poco X2 was on par with other phones in the similar price point. Maxing out at 4k 30fps the Poco X2 captures nice and crisp looking videos leaning slightly on the warmer colour pallet. The only issue here was lack of OIS but it can be pardoned looking at the price and it’s fairly impressive EIS.

Summary

HDR is on point with good amount of details.

is on point with good amount of details. Video captured was crisp and detailed with good colour reproduction.

captured was crisp and detailed with good colour reproduction. Camera lacks OIS , but compensates it with slightly inferior EIS .

, but compensates it with slightly inferior . Using a Gcam mod would improve the processing of images.

mod would improve the processing of images. Camera quality is good enough for the price point and stands toe to toe with it’s competitors.

Verdict

With such a robust hardware the Poco X2 offers at such a low price point; There is not much to complaint in the end of the day. Poco X2 wasn’t quite the phone that people were anticipated to see. It isn’t the phone that would have disrupted the budget market in India. Honestly, apart from the 120Hz refresh rate and the visual aesthetics, there in not much that differentiates the X2 from the crowd.

This doesn’t mean that the Poco X2 is any bad. It is actually one of the best devices at INR 15,999. It is just a bit underwhelming considering all the hype it gained around it. Overall, it is a solid performer in a budget price and can be considered as a jack of all trades.

This concludes our review of the highly anticipated Poco X2 and we absolutely recommend it to our readers.

Update: As of July 2020, the price of the Poco X2 has skyrocketed and is now priced at around at ₹20,000. We reviewed this smartphone on the basis of what the launch prices were. Now, as the prices have went up we won’t be recommending you to buy this smartphone for various reasons.Firstly, the Motorola One Fusion Plus which is priced at around ₹16,999 offer the same value with the only downside being the poor build quality. On the other hand, the Motorola One Fusion Plus also offers a much better stock UI, better sounding speakers and a larger 5,000mAh battery.

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