With the release of the Realme 6 series, the competition for the mid-range market started to become quite interesting. High-refresh rate screens, great cameras, and fast charging are finally available on the cheap. However, there have been other similarly speced smartphones launched not too long ago. Both the Poco X2 and the Redmi Note 8 Pro offer great performance for the price and really good cameras. Poco X2 even has a higher refresh rate screen. Let us take a look at all three smartphones and see which one is worth buying at the beginning of 2020 since things will certainly change by the end of the year.

Realme 6 Pro vs Poco X2 vs Redmi Note 8 Pro – Design

The Realme 6 Pro has a nice gradient on the back that resembles a lightning bolt. The effect it creates is nice and something new on the market. What manufacturers can achieve with the patterns present on the back of the phone are interesting and pleasant to the eyes. I am sure that most people will love the lightning bold from Realme and will have second thoughts when slapping a case on the phone.

Poco X2 has a more simple, but still elegant pattern. The U-shaped gradient radiates from the bottom of the phone and changes position depending on how you hold the device and the cameras, centered on top, have a circular design around them that resembles CDs. Not as complex as Realme’s lightning bolt, but still something that attracts viewers. On the bright side, Poco X2 can be bought in more colors than the Realme 6 Pro, at least for now.

The simplest design is offered by the Redmi Note 8 Pro. Depending on the preferred color, you either get a simple, single-color back or a slight gradient from the sides to the center of the phone. There are no effects or changes in colors that vary by position, as we see on the previous two devices. The “Forest green” color from the Redmi Note 8 Pro is beautiful in my opinion, but even I have to admit that the designs from the Realme 6 Pro and Poco X2 are more elegant and attract more viewers.

Realme 6 Pro vs Poco X2 vs Redmi Note 8 Pro – Performance

None of the phones in this article are flagships and as a result, none will set any records in benchmarks like AnTuTu or 3DMark. Still, because technology has progressed a lot in the past few years, you can get away with a mid-range smartphone for most tasks, including gaming. Each of the phones here use a different CPU and will have slightly different results in benchmarks. The Redmi Note 8 Pro is the oldest, being released last year. It has the Mediatek Helio G90T, a game-centric mid-range chipset that managed to impress many with its cost-to-performance ratio. It is an 8-core CPU with 2 high-performance Cortex-A76 cores and 6 low-power Cortex-A55 cores. if you are into benchmarks, it manages to get around 291733 points in AnTuTu.

The slightly newer Poco X2 is powered by a Snapdragon 730G CPU which has 2 Kryo 470 Gold cores and 6 Kryo 470 Silver cores. Even though many people thought that snapdragon beats Mediatek every time, the progress that the Chinese company made in the past couple of years makes that statement untrue for mid-range CPUs. The Snapdragon 730G is a really good mid-range chipset, almost on par with the G90T. It does perform well, but according to synthetic benchmarks, the Poco X2 manages to get slightly lower scores, at 279521 in AnTuTu.

This brings us to the Realme 6 Pro. It has the Snapdragon 720G, but don’t get fooled by the lower number in the name. The CPU is actually slightly better than the 730G found in Poco’s phone. This is mostly due to the higher frequency for the cores and for the GPU. It manages to get slightly better scores in AnTuTu, but not only marginally. And keep in mind that because the frequency of the CPU is higher while using slightly inferior cores (2 Kryo 465 Gold and 6 Kryo 465 Silver), it has a bit more power consumption. In the end, all three smartphones have almost the same performance and you won’t see any difference in day-to-day usage.

Realme 6 Pro vs Poco X2 vs Redmi Note 8 Pro – Screen, Battery, Connectivity

All three phones have FullHD+ resolution, with only minor differences in pixel count, depending on the actual size of the display. This, however, does not mean that the screens are the same. Redmi Note 8 Pro, despite being a “Note” series smartphones, has the smallest display of the bunch, at “only” 6.53″. It is the only device from this list that does not have a high refresh rate panel. The Redmi Note 6 Pro comes with a slightly bigger 6.6″ screen and a 90Hz refresh rate. When it comes to screen size and features, the crown goes to the Poco X2 with it’s 6.67″ screen and 120Hz refresh rate.

All three phones use an LCD panel. AMOLED ones are still mostly reserved for high-end or at least high mid-range devices that usually cost more than $300. The Redmi Note 8 Pro has a waterdrop notch on top for the selfie camera while the Poco and Realme devices use a pill-shaped punch-hole that holds not one, but two camera sensor. More on that in the next section dedicated to cameras.

Realme 6 Pro has a 4300mAh battery, the smallest on this list. Both the Redmi Note 8 Pro and the Poco X2 use a slightly bigger, 4500mAh one. However, Realme uses better-charging tech and so it can use 30W fast charging which will refill the battery faster than the other devices could. This is not to say that the Poco X2 is slow. It still has a 27W charger and the differences in battery, both from a capacity point of view and from a charging one, should be negligible. The Note 8 Pro still uses fast charging tech, but it is slightly older and less powerful, at only 18W.

Connectivity-wise, all three smartphones are almost identical. They have dual-4G SIM slots, dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, fingerprint reader, and FM Radio. The Redmi Note 8 Pro is the only one on this list that has NFC, something many people will appreciate. Realme manages to impress on positioning system, being the only one that has dual-band A-GPS, however, it does not have an infrared port, a feature that is present on both of Xiaomi’s phones.

Realme 6 Pro vs Poco X2 vs Redmi Note 8 Pro – Cameras

Almost all smartphone manufacturers focus on photography right now. Even mid-range devices are powerful enough to run all applications from the Play Store without problems. Yes, high-end devices are more powerful and can run high-end games for longer without the need to recharge or to thermal throttle the CPU/GPU, but in 90% of use cases, a mid-range smartphone will do just fine. Under these conditions, it is normal for manufacturers to improve there where the differences between a high-end flagship and a midranger are noticeable. So, they are working on the cameras.

All three smartphones have a 64MP main sensor on the back, however only Poco X2 uses Sony’s IMX686. The Realme 6 Pro and the Redmi Note 8 Pro both use Samsung’s ISOCELL Bright GW1 sensor. Which one is better? The differences mostly fall down to the software, but it seems like in a few scenarios the Poco X2 is a bit better. We will still have to wait a bit for Realme’s 6 Pro review until we can give a definitive answer.

What else do these phones bring? All three smartphones have an 8MP 13mm ultrawide camera. The Realme 6 Pro is the only device on this list that brings a telephoto lens camera (12MP), and so it is the only one capable of optical zoom (2x in this case). To achieve this it traded the 2MP depth-sensing camera that the other two devices have. All three smartphones also have a 2MP macro camera, but I doubt it will be used much.

Selfies are another important feature for many. The Redmi Note 8 Pro has a single 20MP camera while the other two have two sensor on front. Realme manages to win here again in my opinion. The Poco X2 does have a 20MP main camera, but the secondary one is a 2MP depth sensor. Realme 6 Pro only has a 16MP selfie camera, but the secondary one has an 8MP sensor with an ultrawide angle lens. This way you can take group selfies easier.

Realme 6 Pro vs Poco X2 vs Redmi Note 8 Pro – Pricing and Conclusions

All three smartphones are excellent mid-range devices with differences that won’t matter that much for most people. The Redmi Note 8 Pro is a bit older and in some aspects it shows (no high refresh rate screen, single selfie camera, less imposing back design), but it is still a good device, especially if you find it at a discount. Which one is better depends on your uses cases and on what you are looking for in a device. Considering the target market, for most people it will fall down to the price of the smartphone.

For now, the Redmi Note 8 Pro is the only one available worldwide officially and is being sold for around $200 for the base version. The Poco X2 starts at $230 in India and can go up to approximately $280 for the 8GB+256GB version. Realme 6 Pro starts at around $230 in India and can go as high as $270 for the 8GB+128GB model. It is clear that the two companies are targeting the same price range and are selling the devices for as low as possible in order to attract as many customers as possible. Let’s see the prices once they are officially available outside of India.

Where to buy

Note: For now, The Poco X2 and Realme 6 Pro are only available in India. The Redmi K30 is the Chinese version of the Poco X2.

Redmi note 8 Pro

* Gearbest

* Geekbuying

* Banggood

* Cafago

* Aliexpress

Poco X2 (Redmi K30 – Chinese name)

* Geekbuying

* Banggood

* Aliexpress