Flagship killer: Realme X2 Pro

The Realme X2 Pro is indeed the best value for money smartphone to buy so far this year. It matches the performance of the OnePlus 7T and surpasses every smartphone flagship in charging the 4000mAh battery.

'Flagship killer' is a term much abused these days. One phone with top-end specs and below the belt pricing ends up getting that tag. It's also a title that keeps being passed around. OnePlus had it for a while with the first few devices. Xiaomi snagged it with the Poco F1 and now Realme is giving us convincing reasons to call it's Realme X2 Pro.

The phone emulates everything that's good in the OnePlus 7T and then adds a few features on top. So much so it makes smartphones like the Galaxy Note 10+ and even the iPhone 11 Pro look unnecessarily expensive.

The Realme X2 Pro is fast. Faster than most other smartphones. Almost at par with the fastest. If you're looking for a superfast performer at a budget, it won't leave you disappointed. In essence, it emulates the performance of the OnePlus 7T to a great extent, of course, at a much lesser price. You have the Snapdragon 855+ in both. 8GB RAM and 256GB UFS 3.0 storage in both. In fact, the X2 Pro offers a 12GB RAM variant at less than the price of the 8GB OnePlus 7T. So performance is undoubtedly good. Aiding the speed is the 90Hz refresh rate of the display. It enhances the experience of using the UI to an extent where it's difficult to go back to using the usual 60Hz panel.

Colour OS, the user interface used on the Realme X2 Pro feels like a UI meant for cheap phones powering a flagship smartphone. There's no dearth of features, but the overall aesthetic mars the experience of using the flagship device. The UI is bloated with unnecessary apps out of the box and Realme suite of in-house apps bombard you with notifications from the get go. That's certainly something I wouldn't want in a smartphone that's meant to rival premium offerings from Samsung, Apple and OnePlus. Nevertheless, ColorOS 6 offers more or less the same features as other mid-rangers from Realme.

In terms of keeping the device running, a 4,000mAh battery should become a standard in high-end and flagship smartphones, and the Realme X2 Pro enforces the rule. Only, the phone comes bundled with a 50W charger that tops up the battery in less than 30 minutes. That's presently the fastest it can get, by a long mile.

It is the cameras where the Realme X2 Pro sets a benchmark. It rocks with a 64MP quad-camera setup with a telephoto lens that can digitally zoom to 20X. The 64MP sensor is Samsung ISOCELL GW-1 sensor and then there's a macro lens and a wide-angle lens. Dream taking high resolution photos, wide-angle shots, lossless zoom and macro shots, it does everything smoothly.

The design of this phone is almost the same as many midrange devices. But the materials used in the process is much premium. There's Gorilla Glass 5 on both sides and a aluminum frame binding the body together. It's also quite hefty to hold. The X2

Pro uses an in-screen fingerprint sensor which is just as fast as the OnePlus 7T. So is the face unlock. The X2 Pro also launched two Master Editions which resembles red brick and concrete respectively.

The display performance of Realme X2 pro is just amazing – AMOLED. 90Hz refresh rate, 100 percent DCI-P3 support with HDR10+ certification and widevine L1 support. These are all features we have now come to expect from premium smartphones this year and the X2 Pro doesn't disappoint. The display is smooth enough to be used for serious gaming, and the 90Hz refresh rate, as we mentioned before, makes for a much better UI experience. The whites on the panel does seem a little blueish, but it will really require more testing to know for sure.

The X2 Pro offers a staggering list of features and most of them seem to just work without a hitch. The charging speed and the refresh rate are definitely something I would struggle to get in most other flagship phones, leave alone the mid-rangers and the camera quality is just enough to make it worthwhile. And as Realme is going to officially start selling the smartphones in Bangladesh from March 13 2020, we can hope to find this flagship killer in the market as well.