Poco X2: Midrange smartphone with 120Hz refresh rate display

The Poco X2 ticks all the boxes in the spec-sheet, but ultimately fails to deliver a hassle-free experience.

The Poco X2 feels more like a knee-jerk reaction to the competition rather than a product conceived through a thought-out product plan. The 120Hz refresh rate display is something really good to see in this segment, but as of now, there's not much you can do with it. The Poco X2 ticks all the boxes in the spec-sheet, but ultimately fails to deliver a hassle-free experience because of the rampant, unsolicited ads in the software.

Design and display

The Poco X2's design completely gives away the fact that this is indeed the Redmi K30 rebranded. The design is exactly identical. The Poco X2 is even larger than the Redmi Note 8 Pro and the Realme X2, and using it one-handed is going to be really difficult unless you have abnormally large hands.

The display, on the other hand, is quite unique. The Poco X2 features a 6.67-inch IPS LCD display with a 120Hz refresh rate. But other than the UI, you won't have any other apps supporting the high refresh rate and getting smoother. You can downgrade the panel to 60Hz but the 120Hz mode doesn't consume too much battery.

Performance

If you were expecting a flagship chipset in the next Poco smartphone, it is going to hurt you a bit as the Poco X2 does not have such chipset inside it. The phone is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G, a gaming-centric 7-series SoC that's been paired with up to 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and 256GB UFS 2.1 storage. Good enough hardware but it is exactly what the realme X2 is offering.

Gaming on the Poco X2 should have been far more superior to other smartphones in this segment, but that doesn't seem to be the case. It supports all games other phones in this segment does, and at a similar graphics level, but with the Snapdragon 730G in place, a higher frame rates and better stability numbers were expected.

The software is a big red flag in recommending the device. Not that it's not fast and smooth and easy to operate. But if you are buying this device for children and teens, do note that the Poco UI (and MIUI in general) will bombard your notifications panel with ads that are outright obscene and in some cases outrageously bigoted and misogynistic. There are a bunch of bloatware apps which also send push notifications despite not being logged in to any account once again adding to an already long list of apps pushing ads in the UI.

Battery life

The Poco X2 rocks a 4500mAh battery under the hood, the same size as the Redmi Note 8 Pro. The battery life, however, is slightly longer from the same battery. The Poco X2 also comes with a 27W charger out of the box which is something rare to see in this segment. The charging adapter is pretty big though but tops up the battery to full capacity in a little over an hour.

Camera

64 megapixels is the flavour of the season and quite expectedly, the Poco X2 packs a 64MP camera in the quad camera stack. Only, while everyone else has been using the Samsung GW-1 sensor, the Poco X2 relies on the new Sony IMX686 sensor.

While details about the new sensor are still unknown, we know that it's larger than the 1/2" IMX586 sensor and measures at 1/1.7" while the lens has an aperture of f/1.9. There's another 8MP ultrawide lens with f/2.2 aperture and two 2MP lenses for macro photos and depth sensing respectively. And on the front, there are two punch-hole cameras including a 20MP selfie shooter and an accompanying 2MP depth sensor.

The Poco X2 will soon be available in Bangladesh and currently the phone is globally priced at $249.