Tecno Phantom X2 Pro Full Review
You already know that the Tecno Phantom X2 Pro has a retractable portrait camera system. What you might not know is that this smartphone is faster than the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. I know you are shocked, I am shocked as well. The Tecno Phantom X2 Pro comes with a Mediatek Dimensity 9000 processor which is a 4-nanometer chipset.
Tecno Phantom X2 Pro Review
It has a 6.8-inch curved AMOLED display, it also comes with 12 gigabytes of LP DDR5X RAM, 256 gigabytes of UFS 3.1 storage, and a 5160 million per battery. This smartphone is a flagship killer. It’s half the price of the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra and it is faster, but it isn’t perfect. In this review, I’m going to let you know everything there is to know about this smartphone, starting with what’s inside the box.
Unboxing
This smartphone comes in two colors, Mars Orange and Stardust Gray. It comes with a warranty card and MTN card to redeem 1.5 gigabytes of data, a SIM ejector, a USB Type-C cable, earphones, and a 45-watt fast charger that charges this smartphone from 0 to 100 in 1 hour 19 minutes.
Design & Build Quality
The rear of the Phantom X2 Pro 5G is made from renewable recycled materials. It’s the world’s fastest renewable fiber back cover, and the plastic that was used to make the rear of the smartphone was gotten from the bottom of the Indian Ocean. The red doesn’t get dirty, it doesn’t attract fingerprints and smudges. It’s strong and a bit slippery.
But I honestly prefer this material to glass. The frame of this device is made from aluminum. Moving to the front, the curved 6.8-inch display is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus, making it resistant to scratches and drops to a degree. The build quality is right up there with other flagship devices, but it is missing something most flagship devices have, and that is an official IP rating for the external features. At the top, it has a microphone.
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The right side is where the power and volume buttons are located. Getting to the bottom, it has a dual SIM card tray with no memory expansion slot. It has another microphone, a USB Type-C port, and a mono speaker. Now, this is one area Tecno had to sacrifice in order to keep the price of this device down. The mono speaker sounds alright; it’s loud enough, and the highs are alright, but the lows are missing. The position of the speaker, however, is not convenient, especially if you’re a gamer.
but I honestly prefer this material to Glass the frame of this device is made from aluminum moving to the front the curved 6.8-inch display is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus making it resistant to scratches and drops to a degree. The build quality is right up there with other Flagship devices but it is missing something most Flagship devices have and that is an official IP rating.
External features
At the top, it has a microphone. The right side is where the power and volume buttons are located. Getting to the bottom, it has a dual SIM card tray with no memory expansion slot. It has another microphone, a USB Type-C port, and a mono speaker.
Now, this is one area Tecno had to sacrifice in order to keep the price of this device down. The mono speaker sounds alright; it’s loud enough, and the highs are alright, but the lows are missing. The position of the speaker, however, is not convenient, especially if you’re a gamer.
Another area where Tecno decided not to spend money is on the vibrator motor. The haptics is what you would expect from a mid-range smartphone. Moving to the right, it has three cameras, more on that to come, and it also has a flash LED light. At the front, it has a flash LED light as well, which is rare on flagship devices, and it has a 32-megapixel front-facing camera.
Display Type & size
It has a curved 6.8-inches AMOLED panel that is very vibrant and contrasty. It’s so vibrant and colorful that I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a Samsung-made display. The colors it produces are accurate, and it covers 100% of the DCI-P3 color gamut.
For the refresh rate, it’s a very responsive panel. It has a refresh rate of 120Hz, making scrolling and using the display very smooth. Now, comparing the display of the Phantom X2 Pro with the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, the Google Pixel 7 Pro, and the iPhone 14 Pro Max, the display of the Phantom X2 Pro looks just as good as other flagship devices, even when you’re watching HDR content.
The colors are good, and it’s a very vibrant display, but when it comes to brightness, it isn’t on the level of flagship devices. From my test, I got a reading of 750 nits as the peak brightness, while most flagship devices’ peak brightness reading is around 1,500 nits. Now, 750 nits is more than enough for indoor use, but when you go outdoors and use the smartphone under direct sunlight, you might struggle a bit to be able to read the screen.
Processor
The processor is the main reason why I call the Phantom X2 Pro a flagship killer. It comes with a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 chipset. It’s a 4-nanometer processor that delivers extreme performance with incredible power efficiency.
Benchmark Scores
How fast is this processor? Well, let’s take a look at Geekbench.
Geek Bench
The Phantom X2 Pro has a higher single-core and multi-core score when you compare it with the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra and the Xiaomi 12 Pro. By the way, those two smartphones are powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipsets. It also murders the Pixel 7 Pro with the Tensor G2 chipsets.
Antutu
Moving to Antutu, the Phantom X2 Pro scores higher than the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra but not the Xiaomi 12 Pro.
Multitasking & RAM
Multitasking is great on this smartphone. It comes with 12 gigabytes of LP DDR5X RAM, giving you instant access to your apps and data.
By default, this smartphone comes with 12 gigabytes of RAM, but you can extend it to 17 gigabytes of RAM. I mean, 12 gigabytes of RAM is more than enough, and expanding your RAM isn’t good for your smartphone in the long run. If you didn’t know, now you know. Now, back to the specs.
This smartphone comes with 256 gigabytes of internal storage. It’s a UFS 3.1 storage, which means launching applications is fast. How fast? Well, let’s test out Forza Horizon 5.
Gaming Test
It comes with the Mali-G710 MC10 GPU, and it played PUBG on HDR graphics and extreme frame rates. The gameplay on this smartphone was smooth as butter, and the screen was responsive.
The only negative for me is the mono-speaker. I kept blocking it, and also the smartphone did get hot, but it didn’t throttle. Now, moving on to Call of Duty, I played the game at very high graphics and maximum frame rate. The gameplay was also smooth. Launching Genshin impact, the smartphone became hot, partly because I ran the game at 60 FPS. One thing I like about the Dimensity 9000 processor is it can get hot, but it won’t affect the performance.
Android Operating System, & Sofware Updates
For the Android operating system, the phantom X2 Pro is still running on Android 12. Tecno has confirmed that it’s going to get two years of OS updates, so you’re going to get Android 13 and 14 on this smartphone. It’s also going to get three years of software updates.
Camera
The Phantom X2 Pro comes with a 32-megapixel front-facing camera, and using it indoors, there’s nothing spectacular about it. But when you go outdoors, it takes amazing pictures. It handles dynamic range well, making the skin tone on point.
One thing I like about the front-facing camera is it doesn’t apply too much artificial sharpening.
It also comes with a 50-megapixel wide camera, a 50-megapixel retractable telephoto camera, and a 13-megapixel ultra-wide camera. Pictures captured by the 50-megapixel primary camera are decent. It doesn’t crank up the saturation, which some people prefer. Overall, it takes good pictures.
The 50-megapixel retractable telephoto camera captures very good pictures, portrait shots using it are amazing. The depth of field is insane, It handles dynamic range well, skin tone is accurate, it’s an excellent camera and gives good details.
The 30-megapixel ultra-wide camera is my least favorite camera on the Phantom X2 Pro. The colors it produces don’t match the 50-megapixel main camera.
Battery Life & Charging
The Tecno Phantom X2 Pro comes with a 5160 milliamp battery, and it’s been solid. The standby time on this smartphone has been great. Generally, batteries on smartphones have improved, and the Tecno Phantom X2 Pro doesn’t disappoint. For the charging time, it took 1 hour 19 minutes to charge the smartphone from 0 to 100 using the 45 Watts fast charger.
Tecno Phantom X2 Pro Price
The Tecno Phantom X2 Pro costs N470,900 or $636 and at that price, it’s the cheapest flagship smartphone you can buy right now in Nigeria that is brand new. The Tecno Phantom X2 Pro delivers flagship-level performance.
Verdict
The display is very good, the cameras are the best I have seen from Tecno, the battery life is good, and it’s going to get OS and software updates.
For the negatives, it doesn’t have an official IP rating, no stereo speakers, and the haptics on this smartphone are not that good. And I think that’s all the negatives about this smartphone. And truth be told, I would accept the negatives of this smartphone because the performance you get out of the Phantom X2 Pro is what you will get from a flagship device that costs twice the price of this smartphone.
It’s a solid smartphone with solid performance at a very good price. The Phantom X2 Pro is a true flagship killer.
Let me know what you think about the Tecno Phantom X2 Pro in the comment section.
