Tecno Phantom X2 Pro review

Design

The Phantom X2 Pro has a rather striking look, entirely by design. Its huge, centered camera island is quite memorable - and obviously on purpose. The X2 Pro even has color accents on its camera lenses.

This is as good a place as any to talk about handling and ergonomics. Tecno made sure to round off the edges of the phone nicely, making for a comfy grip. It also rounded off the camera modules' edges, creating something it calls 3.5D "lunar craters". If the goal was for the cameras to not get caught on things, then mission accomplished.

All of this said, however, the Phantom X2 Pro is not particularly comfortable to hold. The phone is too top-heavy, so you have to struggle to keep it inside your hand.

However, it has to be noted the width of the phone is quite minimal, in fact, it has the smallest body width of all 6.8-inch phones in our database, which is impressive in its own right. It gives allows your thumb to operate the screen a bit more easily.

Putting that aside, the overall look of the Phantom X2 Pro, as particular as it is, kind of grew on us after a while, so we don't want to be too harsh on Tecno's design department.

Materials and build quality

The Phantom X2 Pro feels solid and dense. There is little to no flex in its chassis, which we can appreciate. It is well put together overall. Reading through some press material, Tecno calls the X2 Pro's design "unibody double-curved". We can see how someone might arrive at such a description since both the display and the phone's backside are rather symmetrically curved into the middle frame. However, the construction here clearly employs three pieces - the front, the back and a middle frame.

The middle frame is made of metal, whereas the front of the phone is covered by Gorilla Glass Victus.

The back side of the Phantom X2 Pro is arguably the most intriguing bit. It's made from plastic, and Tecno claims it's all sourced from recycling. It's one of the most unusual textures we've seen on a smartphone this year - on par with only the Zenfone 9.

The Tecno Phantom X2 Pro can be had in two different colors - the subdued and more serious Stardust Grey or the extremely "out there" and boldly colorful Mars Orange that we have. Looking at some product photos, it seems like the Stardust Grey variant has a smoother back surface.

Controls and connectivity

The Phantom X2 Pro 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.

We also appreciate the fact that both buttons are color-matched with the back of the device. So, on our unit, they get a nice orange accent.

The left side of the phone is entirely empty and uninterrupted.

The same is mostly true for the phone's top side, which only houses the secondary noise-canceling microphone.

The bottom of the Phantom X2 Pro 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, and so is the USB Type-C jack. 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 Pro has an under-display fingerprint reader. It is very snappy and accurate. We have no complaints regarding it.

For wireless connectivity, the Phantom X2 Pro 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.

In terms of sensors, the Phantom X2 Pro has an lsm6dso 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.