Few weeks back, we had covered the launch of the Comio X1 Note in Bengaluru. This is the Chinese smartphone manufacturer’s first foray in South India. We got a chance to use this latest smartphone from Comio for a couple of weeks and this is the detailed review of the Comio X1 Note.
Comio X1 Note : Overview
The Comio X1 Note is a Android Oreo based smart-phone with some additional enhancements from Comio, we would talk about it in the later part of the review. The device sports a 6 inches Full View FHD+ display with a pixel resolution of 2160*1080p. The screen density is 402 dpi.
Specifications
Display – 6-inch [2160*1080p] FHD+ display, 402 dpi
OS – Android Oreo, with minor enhancements from Comio
CPU – 1.4 GHz quad-core Mediatek MT8735 SoC, 3 GB RAM
Storage – 32 GB storage [with additional micro SD slot along with dual SIM slots]
Cameras – 13MP+5MP primary dual camera with auto focus, flash and 8MP front facing camera
Connectivity – Wi-Fi, 3G/4G LTE/2G, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0, USB OTG
Battery – 2,900 mAh
Dimensions – 16.2 x 0.8 x 7.6 cm
Weight – 168 grams
The Comio X1 Note is available in offline stores, as well as on Amazon. The smartphone comes in two different variants – Royal Blue & Sunrise Gold. Inside the box, you receive a back cover, charger, SIM removal kit, a pair of headphones, and a screen guard. We received the Sunrise Gold version for the review.
Comio X1 Note – Design
The X1 Note is around 6 inches tall and the display resolution is 2160*1080p. When ‘Note’ is tagged to any smartphone, consumers expect a big & tall display, with a battery with exceptional capacity. Though X1 Note has a huge display, the battery capacity is only 2900 mAh which might be a let-down for the phone.
Talking about the other aspects of the phone, the back cover is made of plastic but you would only come to know once you hold the phone in your hands. From the farther distance, the back cover might not give the plastic feel and would look like it has a metallic back. Since the back cover is very shiny and it is prone to scratches, hence it is recommended to use a back cover with the phone. Since the company is positioning this phone as its first flagship, this is a very good effort to give a premium look & feel to the device. Regarding the other aspects of design, there is the volume rocker on the left side, power button and the dual-SIM tray on the right side. There is a 3.5 mm audio jack along with a micro-USB charging port at the bottom.
As the target segment of the X1 Note might the smartphone-aspiring audience, they have retained the normal USB port instead of opting for the USB type-C charging port which has become a norm nowadays.
Comio X1 Note – Software, Display & other Specifications
Comio X1 Note – Software
As far the software is concerned, the X1 Note has Android 8.0 Oreo. There is very less bloatware on the phone [with only few additional apps like Xender, WPS Office] and the experience is more or less looks like a stock Android one. There is finger-print scanner on the back and it was very responsive. You can also opt for facial recognition to lock or unlock the phone. You can customize the Navigation Bar and opt for your preferred button layout. For ensuring the best possible after-sales service and simplying the service-centre discovery, the X1 Note comes with the ‘Comio Connect’ app which lets you find the nearest Comio Service centre.
‘Venus Broswer’ is the default browser on the X1 Note. It is the first Indian browser providing hyper-regional content covering majoring Indian states. It offers a Light Weight Web Platform for Smart Phones users with advanced functionalities like Browsing, App store and Services [Source]. Since there is limited on-board storage, having a browser like Venus that is light on memory and helps users to do majority of their tasks is a good addition to the phone. X1 Note also has a built-in call recorder and support for 22 Indian languages.
On the very first glance, the back side of the phone might look strikingly similar to the Moto G5/Moto G5 Plus as the rear-camera design & placement is somewhat identical to them. In terms of software features, the phone also has an ‘App-Cloner’ with which the user can have two instances of the same app in the RAM. However, the customization is limited since you can only clone Twitter, Facebook, FB Messenger and WhatsApp. This feature is not completely unique as it is already available in couple of competitor devices in the market.
Comio X1 Note – Display
As mentioned earlier, the display has a 18:9 aspect ratio and the colors look vibrant on the phone.he display is equipped with ‘MiraVision Tuning features‘ which is a set of engines to enhance the display picture quality. This interface allows for interactive tuning with real-time quality feedback, making it easy for users to tailor the picture quality based on their needs.
There are three picture modes – User Mode, Standard Mode & Vivid Mode. User Mode is for power users where you can do Basic Color Tuning [Contrast, Saturation & Change picture brightness], Advanced Tuning [Sharpness & Adjust colors according to temperature]. The viewing angles on the X1 Note are good and performing daily activities like reading e-mails, news etc. is a real pleasure on the X1 Note due to it’s excellent display quality. Though the readability is very good indoors, it falters a bit when taken outdoors, especially when it is sunny outside. Overall, the display looks good [if not great], especially when the price s taken into consideration.
Comio X1 Note – Hardware, Battery & Performance
The X1 Note has Mediatek 8735 processor under the hoods. The processor can be clocked to maximum frequency of 1.45 GHz and 4 ARM A53 cores in order to get the best possible performance with minimum drainage in battery. The MT 8735 is a slightly old processor of the Mediatek family but since the phone is priced handsomely at Rs. 9,999; this step could have been taken in order to reduce the BOM [Bill Of Material] cost. The review unit which we received had the Android security patch dated 5th March 2018. The battery capacity is 2900 mAh which is a slight let-down considering that there would be a good amount of consumption especially in the active use-cases!
The phone comes with 3 GB RAM and 32 GB ROM which can be expandable upto 128 GB via a micro-SD card. Out of 32 GB, around 8 GB was already utilized and 24 GB storage capacity was available. The performance is perfectly fine when couple of apps are kept open, but it might deteriorate and slowly it might become sluggish if you are playing games. In some of the scenarios, we could even see that the app-launch time was more, even though there were no apps running in the background. There are couple of ‘Battery-saving modes’ that might come-in handy when there is very less juice available on the phone. With average daily-useage, the battery on the phone lasted for close to around a day and the consumption is very high when the device is used for HD gaming or HD video viewing use-cases.
In a nutshell, the performance of the X1 Note is average and same is evident from it’s AnTuTu score of 42,524. However, from a user’s perspective we hope that in the future there would be many performance updates available for the phone 🙂
Comio X1 Note – Camera
The X1 Note comes with a 13MP+5MP primary dual camera with auto focus, flash and 8MP front facing camera. The camera has a in-built Image Stabilization. The camera is equipped with features like Auto Focus, Continuous Shot, Smile Shot & Face Detection.
The shots from the rear camera are of decent picture quality. The performance & photo-tuning of the rear-camera was much better when it was used in the HDR mode since in the normal mode, the sharpness of the objects deteriorated a lot and hence, HDR mode is preferred in case you want the best out of the rear camera. There are different filters like Aqua, Gorgeous, Calm, Movie, Sepia, Fresh, etc. in order to give some extra effects to the photos captured using the phone. During the camera testing, we did find some lag especially while taking burst shots. The camera performance can be termed as average since there are phones with much better camera features & performance in the same price range.
Some of the sample images are below
Comio X1 Note – Pricing & Verdict
There are some perks for being a Comio customer since the Comio X1 Note comes with 1 year+ 100 days extra warranty, 30 days replacement*, Buy-back offer*, Screen breakage warranty* and Upgrade offer* [* – More details on Comio.in]. Barring aside these benefits, the Comio X1 Note is competing with many other devices in the market with better specifications & performance that are available in the sub 10,000 price range. This would be the biggest challenge for Comio that has released its first flagship in the Comio X1 Note.
As far as pricing is concerned, both the variants – ‘Royal Blue’ & ‘Sunrise Gold’ are priced at Rs. 9,999. The Comio X1 Note in Royal Blue & Sunrise Gold are available online on Amazon.in here and here.
What are your thoughts on the Comio X1 Note, do leave your feedback in the comments section…