In August 2018, Xiaomi launched the Poco sub-brand with the ‘F1’ series mobile in India.
Though it lacked a great design element, it had a flagship Snapdragon 845 processor and a camera with prices starting at Rs 19,999. The Poco F1 was an instant hit among consumers and gave well established rival brands, a run for their money.
Despite the success in the market, Xiaomi, for reasons unknown, put the Poco F2 project under the back burner in 2019 and as months passed by, speculations start to emerge that the Poco sub-brand may get discontinued as some high profile executives manning the Poco division left mid-way.
Out of the blue in January 2020, Xiaomi announced that the Poco will split from the company and the former will run as a separate entity going forward and within a few weeks, Poco X2 was launched with much fanfare in India on February 4 with prices starting at Rs 15,999.
Does the 18-month wait for the new Poco mobile worth the wait? Here’re our thoughts about the X2.
Display and design
Compared to beefy Poco F1, the new Poco X2 comes with a refreshing design language. It flaunts a glossy shell on the back with large circular module housing four cameras, which protrudes a bit but doesn’t hurt visual appeal and also, the phone easily slips into the pocket with ease.
Our review unit comes in Atlantis blue shade on the back and blends beautifully with violet chassis around the edges. It looks gorgeous in the sunlight. I have to say, the other two models-- Matrix purple and Phoenix red variants are even better.
However, Poco X2 is a major fingerprint magnet. On the bright side, the company is offering a transparent shell cover, which not only takes care of the aforementioned issue but also keeps the visual appeal.
As far as the display is concerned, it sports a 6.7-inch full HD+ (2400 x 1080p) LCD screen with a pixel density of 386 ppi (pixels per inch), 20:9 aspect ratio and is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5 shield.
The key aspect of the screen is that it comes with two refresh rates-- the normal 60Hz and the 120Hz, which the company calls it as the ‘Reality Flow’. Yes, it does live up to the hype, to an extent, as most of the apps on the Google Play store are not optimised for such a high refresh rate.
However, I had a really good time watching multimedia content and gaming on the widescreen. Add to the fact that the punch-hole camera design of the front panel, there was a minimal distraction.
As the LCD panel doesn’t support the in-screen fingerprint, the company has placed the biometric sensor on the concave-shaped power button on the right side. My index finger’s muscle memory took some time to get used to the new location, but as far as functionality is concerned, it worked without much fuss. There is also a face recognition system in place and it was able to identify my face very swiftly in natural light, but struggles in the night.
Performance
The new Poco X2 features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G chipset with a 618 Adreno graphics engine, dedicated LiquidCool Technology and runs Android 10-based MIUI 11 backed by 6GB/8GB LPDDRX4 RAM, 64GB/128GB/256GB storage.
It performs well while doing normal day-to-day chores and even when playing the graphics-rich games, the device, though gets a bit warm, never got out of my comfort zone. Also, it has a Game Turbo feature, which the playing experience on the phone.
It got really good 280,466 points on AnTuTu performance benchmarking tests and on Geekbench 5.0, the device managed to score 424 and 1581 points on single-core and multi-core tests, respectively.
The Poco X2 houses a massive 4,500mAh battery with a Type-C based 27W charger in-box. During the test period, the phone was able to consistently deliver a full day of battery life under normal usage like web browsing, taking photos, watching videos, gaming (for a limited time) and day-to-day chores.
However, if you indulge in binge-watching HD videos or play games with 120Hz refresh rate, the battery will not last for long.
If you are not an avid gamer, it is better to keep the display refresh rate to 60Hz and the phone can easily run for more than a day.
Camera
The new Poco X2 houses a feature-rich quad-camera-- having a 64MP (with Sony IMX686 sensor)+8MP ultra-wide-angle lens (with 1.12μm pixel size, F2.2, 120° FOV,FF) +2MP depth sensor (1.75μm, 2-10cm, F2.4, AF)+ 2MP for macro (1.75μm, 2-10cm, F2.4, AF) on the back with LED flash.
It snaps really good photos with detailed information and with little saturation of colours, particularly when the subjects are flowers.
The portrait mode, panorama mode, 4K video and slo-motion video (960 fps at HD) recording fared well during the tests.
The most interesting aspect of the new Poco X2’s camera is the Vlog mode and short video mode, it takes the mobile photography experience to a new level.
You should check out the fun filters including TikTok stickers, film mode and there are several more. College kids are sure to have a really good time with them.
On the front, Poco X2 features an in-screen dual snapper module— 20MP+2MP with f/2.2 aperture and it takes decent selfies particularly the portrait pictures came out really well and are worth adding them for DPs on social media platforms.
Final thoughts
Though Poco X2 is not the successor of the Poco F1, they share the same product philosophy and that is ‘democratisation’ of the top-end mobile features to the masses. The latter was the cheapest phone with Snapdragon 845 chipset, which was used in phones in the Rs 50,000 price range in 2018.
Fast forward to 2020, the Poco X2 is now the most affordable phone to offer 120Hz display refresh rate, a feature-rich camera with Sony IMX686 sensor and a 27W super-fast charger in-box. No other branded phone can boast off these aforementioned features in the sub-Rs 35,000 segment.
Poco X2 comes in three configurations— 6GB RAM+64GB storage, 6GB RAM+128GB storage and 8GB RAM+256GB storage— for Rs 15,999, Rs 16,999 and Rs 19,999 respectively.
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