Weekly poll: is the Poco X2 the phone you were hoping for?

Poco is not a one-hit brand – it unveiled its second phone just this week. After a year and a half of lying dormant, it lifted the veil off the Poco X2. Sure, it’s a rebadged Redmi K30, but it remains true to the brand’s core value of offering insane value for money.

The phone will be available in India starting on February 11 for just INR 16,000 - $225/€205. That’s for 64GB storage, but 128GB is only INR 1,000 ($15/€13) more. This is relatively fast UFS 2.1 storage we’re talking about here and unlike many other phones, this one has a microSD slot.

That’s a jaw-dropping price, considering that there are not a lot of phones with a 120Hz screen around, not yet anyway. And even when Samsung, OnePlus, Oppo and the others unveil their phones, they’ll cost 3, 4, 5 times as much as the Poco.

Admittedly, they will bring powerful GPUs that will be able to render 3D games at 120fps. The Snapdragon 730G just isn’t fast enough, in our testing of the K30 we only saw one game go over 60fps and even then it averaged 85fps.

Still, the screen is bright and offers excellent color accuracy (with HDR support). At this price range, it’s hard to beat.

Also, the 4,500mAh battery should be able to handle the increased demand of 120Hz quite easily, judging by the K30’s Endurance rating. The 27W fast charging won’t set any speed records, but it’s more than fast enough. Certain premium mid-rangers ship with 25W chargers (we’re looking at you, Samsung) and OnePlus bundles a 30W charger.

Poco X2 and its retail package

The quad camera on the back of the phone features the 64MP Sony IMX686 sensor. It and the chipset can shoot 4K video at 30fps and 960fps slow-motion clips at 720p. The main camera is joined by an 8MP ultrawide-angle cam (120°), a dedicated 2MP macro shooter and a 2MP depth sensor. The 20MP selfie camera has a 2MP depth sensor alongside it for portrait shots.

We know that some were disappointed that this phone doesn’t feature a Snapdragon 800-series chip like the F1. In fact, the old Adreno 630 is noticeably faster than the Adreno 618 inside the S730G. Also, some people just aren’t fans of MIUI.

Still, the Poco X2 isn’t a “great phone for its price”, it’s a “great phone”, period. Or do you disagree?