Merely a couple of weeks after Poco announced that it will operate independently from Xiaomi, the company has today launched its new smartphone in India. It’s the second device to launch under the Poco brand but is not the Poco F1 successor we had all been eagerly looking forward to. Poco X2 is a mid-range offering with a Snapdragon 730G chipset, 120Hz display, and a quad-camera setup.
Poco X2: Specs and Features
In the days leading up to the launch, Poco X2 teasers confirmed that it will launch in India as a rebranded Redmi K30 4G and well, that’s indeed true. Poco X2 is the same device, as you can see in the image attached here. It has a glass sandwich design with Gorilla Glass 5 protection both on the front and back.
As I wrote back in December last year, I expected the Redmi K30’s frosted rear panel (with a circular shiny camera setup) to feel similar to the iPhone 11 Pro. But, having used the Poco X2 for a couple of days, I can say it does not. The rear panel doesn’t have a premium feel to it. Instead, it feels more like Galaxy A50‘s glasstic back in comparison and the in-hand feel isn’t that great either, so paint me unimpressed.
Turning our attention to the front, Poco X2 features a tall 6.67-inch Full-HD+ IPS LCD panel with a dual-camera punch-hole design. The highlight of this display is the higher 120Hz refresh rate and MIUI, as well as its animations, felt smooth in my brief usage. It sports a 20:9 aspect ratio, 91% screen-to-body ratio, and 1080 x 2400 pixels resolution.
Under the hood, Poco X2 is powered by the gaming-centric Snapdragon 730G chipset, which packs in a slightly overclocked GPU in comparison to the Redmi K20 from last year. This has been coupled with up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which can be expanded via the hybrid dual-SIM slot. The liquid cool technology (copper pipe) that we saw on Poco F1 is present aboard the Poco X2 as well.
It runs MIUI 11 based on Android 10 out-of-the-box. There’s no MIUI for POCO custom skin this time around but you do get the POCO launcher installed beforehand. Poco’s taken user feedback into account to support VoWiFi out-of-the-box and kernel source are live on Github today.
In the camera department, you can see that Poco X2 boasts a vertical quad-camera setup with a 64MP (f/1.79) Sony IMX686 primary camera. It’s coupled with an 8MP (f/2.2) ultra-wide-angle lens with a 120-degree FOV, a 2MP (f/2.4) macro lens, and a 2MP depth sensor. This is the same camera module as the Redmi K30 and ditches the telephoto lens that we find on its predecessor, the Redmi K20.
As for the selfie camera, the punch-hole packs a 20MP (f/2.2) primary camera and a 2MP (f/2.4) depth sensor with a wide 83-degree FOV. Now, I bet you must have read this already but there are two separate holes here instead of one, which I’m not a fan of. This camera setup will help you capture better portrait pictures.
Thanks to software optimizations, the camera app on the Poco X2 supports RAW image capture, 960fps slo-mo video capture, and VLOG mode. The latter offers you a myriad of presets (transitions and effects) to add some pizzas to your vlogs.
Poco X2 also comes equipped with a 4500mAh battery pack and what’s great is that you get a 27W fast charger in the box. You can check out the Poco X2 first impressions on YouTube right here to know more:
Price and Availability
Poco X2 has been priced starting at Rs. 15,999 for the 6GB+64GB base variant. But, you will have to shell out Rs 16,999 for the 6GB+128GB variant, and Rs 19,999 for the 8GB+256GB variant.
The Poco X2 will be available in three attractive colors namely Atlantis Blue, Matrix Purple, and Phoenix Red. It will go on sale starting from 11th February, exclusively on Flipkart.
Poco X2 will compete directly against the Realme X2 but your decision relies on one simple thing — you desire a 120Hz LCD screen or 60Hz AMOLED screen? Rest of the specifications are almost exactly the same, so take your pick. Let us know your opinion in the comments below.
