Tecno Phantom X2 review

Design

Just like its bigger sibling, the Phantom X2 has a rather striking look, mainly due to its distinctive camera island. It is huge and centered with plenty of accents and thus quite memorable. The look has proven to be rather polarizing around the office, but we guess that just means the designers did their job right since it's so hard to get a device to really stand out.

The Phantom X2 goes for soft lines and rounded corners all around. Tecno made sure that the phone is nice and comfy to grip with no sharp edges. This also extends to the cameras, where all of the edges have been rounded off, creating something Tecno calls 3.5D "lunar craters". If the goal was for the cameras to not get caught on things, then mission accomplished.

Unfortunately, the Phantom X2 isn't very comfortable to hold since it is just too top-heavy, so you have to struggle to keep it inside your hand. It's not quite as bad as the Phantom X2 Pro, but still, the ergonomics aren't there.

Apart from the very particular camera island, the design of the Phantom X2 is actually quite minimal, particularly from the front. The display stretches nicely with minimal bezels, which makes most things easier to reach.

Color options

You can get the Phantom X2 in either Stardust Gray color, just like the Pro or Moonlight Silver. Both are very tame colors, and nothing even remotely as bold and glaring as the Mars Orange of the Phantom X2 Pro. One more reason to call the overall Phantom X2 design toned down.

Materials and build quality

Speaking of color choices, these also extend into the realm of materials. While our Phantom X2 Pro unit in Mars Orange has a specific texture to its recycled materials back panel, the rest of the color choices for the X2 and X2 Pro have smooth and silky backs.

Our Phantom X2 came in Moonlight White, which features what is most likely a plastic back panel. It curves up nicely into the middle metal frame, the same way the display does on the front. This creates a very pleasant symmetry of gentle slopes on either side, which Tecno calls a "unibody double-curved" design. We see how someone might arrive at such a description, but in reality, the construction here clearly employs three pieces - the front, the back and a middle frame.

The Phantom X2 feels very sturdy, with practically no flex to speak of. We can probably thank its metal frame for that. That and the solid front glass, which is covered by Gorilla Glass Victus.

The plastic back side of the phone has a bit of "hollowness" when you press down on it. It's nothing dramatic, but still worth noting since the Mars Orange recycled back cover on the Phantom X2 Pro has no flex to it at all.

Controls and connectivity

The Phantom X2 has a pretty standard control scheme and layout. The volume rocker and power button are on the phone's right-hand side. Both are well-positioned in terms of height and, despite their rather slim profile, are easy enough to operate. Also nice and "clicky" with good tactile feedback.

The volume rocker is color matched with the rest of the phone, while the power button has a nice little red accent to it for a little more flair.

The phone's left side is empty, sans a few antenna lines. We aren't quite sure why there are so many of these scattered all around the middle frame of the phone, given that the back of it should not block radio signals.

The phone's top side even has a large plastic insert taking up most of the space. It is almost empty in terms of controls, with only a single hole for the secondary noise-canceling microphone.

The bottom of the Phantom X2 is a lot busier. This is where the bottom-firing speaker is, along with the main microphone. The dual Nano-SIM card tray is also located here. There is no microSD slot on the phone. The USB Type-C port is also on the bottom side. There is nothing particularly fancy about the latter. It is just wired for USB 2.0 data transfer speeds of up to 480 Mbps. There is no video output via alt mode or anything of the sort.

The Phantom X2 has an under-display fingerprint reader. It is very snappy and accurate. We have no complaints regarding it.

For wireless connectivity, the Phantom X2 has dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.3 and SA/NSA sub6 5G on both SIM slots. There is FM radio on board, as well as NFC.

The Phantom X2 has a full set of sensors on board. This includes an icm42631 accelerometer and gyroscope combo, an stk33562 light and proximity combo sensor, an mmc5603 compass, and a magnetometer combo. Not a bad loadout and we are happy to report that the hardware proximity sensor works as intended.