Realme ends 2019 with Realme X2 for good measure

Realme didn’t get where it is — fourth in the Indian smartphone market — by sitting pretty. In a mere year, Realme went from a 6% market share in Q1 of 2019, to a 14.3% market share at the end of Q3.

The Oppo offshoot has been so energetic and so successful a strategist that its developed a strong brand identity and is expected by some experts to be ready to topple Xiaomi from its top perch in 2020. Realme isn’t done with 2019 yet as it ends the year with one more smartphone — the Realme X2, a budget version of the X2 Pro, a device stacked with the latest specs.

The new smartphone is obviously scaled down to to be more affordable in the segment that Realme has been at its strongest, or you could say it’s scaled up from another smartphone, the Realme XT.

Design

Interestingly attractive in ‘Pearl Green’ the Realme X2 has an eye catching Gorilla Glass 5 back. The Realme logo in this case is nicely placed vertically bottom left. Aligned with it on the top left is a strip of four camera. That leaves most of the of the back free of elements allowing light to shine on it and create glitzy patterns. The other colours include a blue and a white but the green is probably the more unusual. The back does show fingerprints so you’ll want to use a case or little wiping soft cloth. If you want to put fingerprints in front, use the in-display sensor which works quite fast and without a fuss. We now take them for granted, but not even two years ago an in-display fingerprint sensor was a cutting edge luxury.

The X2 is framed by plastic, but there’s no way anyone can tell. There’s a gold power button on this particular variant for an added touch of premium-ness, because the phone does look about as premium as its more expensive counterpart X2 Pro does.

This device is slightly smaller than the X2 Pro and a little more comfortable to hold and even use one-handed, a practice we don’t endorse as phones get heavier with large batteries making hand-injury more common.

Display

The X2 has a 6.4-inch Super AMOLED with a resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels. It isn’t a 90Hz refresh rate screen and is a little less bright than the X2 Pro, but it’s very nice despite that. Great colours and viewing angles combine with the leeway to adjust warmth make it a comfortable display to use.

It also responds well to font size changes unlike some devices that just increase it up to a point or don’t have enough contrast.The notch on the screen is quite easy to tolerate as it’s small and curved. To go with the screen, it’s the X2 Pro that has the better sound with the X2 being more regular though it has Dolby Atmos and hi-res certification. Watching a movie on the go on this phone is fine.

The X2 comes in three variants: 4GB/64GB, 6GB/128GB and 8GB/128GB. The processor is the Snapdragon 730G, somewhat faster than the 730 — nicer for gamers though this isn’t the right option for those who game seriously.. The GPU is Adreno 618. Android 9 Pie is all hidden under Oppo and Realme’s ColorOS which sadly is in version 6.1 and not 7.0. ColorOS, at least in the version present on this phone, is the worst aspect of the experience of this device. It’s illogically arranged and full of unwanted apps and push prompts for this and that.

Cameras

The cameras include a main 64MP lens with an 8MP wide-angle companion, a 2MP macro, and a 2MP depth sensor. The front camera is a 32MP. Daylight photos are good with a nice dynamic range and vivid colours. The Night mode is also really rather nice and results in clear images. The depth sensor also doesn’t do too badly. The wide-angle lens however isn’t the best and drops in quality visibly. The front camera is particularly good, so India’s selfie takers should be quite delighted.

The X2 has 30w VOOC fast charging for its 4,000mAh battery.

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