Comio X1 Note review: The budget flagship smartphone, meant for the youth

Comio is a brand that not many may have heard about. Comio is the flagship brand of TopWise Communications, a Chinese original device maker, known in the market for manufacturing OEM phones for Micromax, a well-known brand that earlier seeped into the DNA of Indian smartphone consumers. Almost a year ago, Comio entered into India with an aim to raise itself as one of the top three smartphone brands in India, with a target by the year 2022. The rookie smartphone manufacturer in India has its main USP — smartphones for the youth. Hence budget is top priority for this brand.

Comio has recently launched their flagship phone, the X1 Note in India and has priced it pretty aggressively. Also, the brand has thrown in several deals, such as Rs 2,200 cashback through Reliance Jio, one year + 100 days of extra warranty that includes screen damage/replacement. They also have buyback and upgrade offers.

The market for premium handsets in the sub 10K price range is soon getting crowded as many brands are often launching products that look attractive and sport features such as dual-cameras. For example, Redmi Y2, Honor 7A and 7C are presently hot models in the market. Based on the specs, Comio's X1 Note is perfectly poised to give these and other smartphones some complex.

Design and Build quality

There aren't many smartphones in the market below the Rs 10K bracket, which offer premium design. The first thing that grabs your attention is the Moto X-styled dual rear cameras crammed into a circular housing. This spells that it rivals a design from handsets that are priced higher than the X1 Note. Well, it does tick the first box towards a premium design.

Moving away from the rear cameras, the next thing that caught our attention was the glass panel on the rear. This design trait is usually found in handsets that are far more expensive. The glass panel has a mirror finish and without a case, expect it to be a fingerprint magnet. The fingerprint scanner too finds its home on the rear, just below the dual-cameras. Lastly, the rear also features the company’s branding, which is unassuming and its something that we quite liked. Subtle branding is the way to go.

The handset comprises of 6.0-inch edge-to edge curved display with an 18:9 aspect ratio. This makes it look a bit taller and gives it a phablet feel. Though the phone seems on the taller side, holding it is not as cumbersome as you would think. In fact, one would get used to handling it instantaneously.

The USB charging port and the speaker grilles are located at the bottom and the 3.5mm headphone jack is oddly located at the top. Additionally, there is a triple slot tray that can house two nano SIM cards and simultaneously allow expansion of the storage with a micro SD card. This feature is fairly new and not many handsets sport it.

Moving on, the handset feels sturdy and seems like it could survive a few accidental drops or bumps. As far as looks go, Comio has ensured that the design is top notch.

Performance

The Comio X1 Note features a 6-inch Full HD IPS display with an 18:9 aspect ratio that boasts a resolution of 2160 x 1080 pixels — no notch here. It comes with a 401ppi pixel density, so you can be assured that the display quality is sharp. The handset features pretty slim bezels on the sides and the screen has a 75.3 percent screen-to-body ratio — pretty incredible for a handset in the sub 10K price bracket.

The Comio X1 Note is powered by a MediaTek MT8735A SoC with a 1.45GHz quad-core processor and the graphics are taken care of by Mali-T720 GPU. Sadly, a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset would have definitely helped it gain popularity and demand. This configuration is pretty standard in budget smartphones and nothing really special to write home about. It comes equipped with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, expandable up to 128GB.

Android 8.0 Oreo with custom UI called ComioUI powers the Comio X1 Note. The interface seems a bit laggy, but is not too much of an inconvenience. The lag kicks in while playing games though — casual games such as Subway Surfers also reflects the struggling graphics. Multitasking on the handset is possible and one can do it without any worry as the 3GB of RAM takes care of it. However, don’t expect to keep many tabs opened without it slowing down the phone.

The handset features face unlock too, apart from a fingerprint scanner. However, while using it, we noticed that it struggles to recognise the face at most times. But when it did, it worked flawlessly without the need to put in the password. Probably a future update is needed to get  this issue sorted. The fingerprint scanner on the rear worked each and every time making it the only go-to way to unlock the phone, other than PINs and passwords.

We ran couple of benchmarks and recorded a score of 42008 points in AnTuTu. In comparison, the Huawei Honor 7C managed 70054 points. The Honor 7C runs on a SD450 processor and is priced similar to the Comio X1 Note. With Geekbench, the handset registered a score of 629 points in the single-core test while the multi-core test achieved 1746 points. The Honor 7C beats these scores again as it registered 763 and 3648 points respectively in its single and multi-core tests. These tests, though useful, shouldn’t determine the real-world capabilities of a handset. Hence, the Comio X1 Note’s performance shouldn’t be decided by tests. However, the synthetic tests do show the prowess of the Snapdragon over the MediaTek chips.

Camera

The dual-camera system on the Note features a 13MP primary shooter along with a 5MP secondary sensor. Colours appeared natural and images were sharp. However, the camera does come with focusing issues, making shooting photos a bit of pain, especially when in oddly lit areas.

In outdoor shots colours looked pleasing and saturation was at bay. The handset produces skin tones well and we had no complaints whatsoever. In indoor shots, images decent, but low-light and indoor photos are nothing much to talk about. Clicking photos in broad daylight is what the Note can do best, while night photography is best kept away.

The 8MP front camera works well with selfies. However, we did notice a few colours off route when in test. For example, the image above shows a pink hue present around. There is a flash available for the front camera that helps in lower light areas. However, similar to the rear sensors, the selfie camera too picks up a lot of noise. In short, the camera performance is not at par with most budget smartphones we have seen, especially the ones from Xiaomi and Honor, which are in similar price brackets.

Battery

One of the biggest concerns people have with smartphones today is the battery life. The Comio X1 Note is a big handset and one would expect a sizable battery for sure. Sadly, a puny 2900mAh battery keeps the device alive for a fair part of your day. The MediaTek chipset and the OS are well optimised to help extend the life of a battery, substantially. With casual usage such as streaming music and videos, playing usual games, and surfing, the battery just about lasts a working day. However, this is all down to an individual user as it depends on the use and apps concerned, which is subjective. However, on an average, you should expect at least 6 - 8 hours on a full battery.

Verdict

The Comio X1 Note is an interesting entry into the sub 10K price range. Available for Rs 9,999 and can be bought for lesser through cashback options, this handset is one you could watch out for. It sports a premium finish, which include a glass rear panel, which could be attractive to many.

A great attempt by Comio with their first flagship handset, but they do need to iron out some kinks such as excluding the bloatware, a larger capacity battery, and polishing up on the tad quirky performance. We would recommend giving the Comio a fair trial or listing if you are hunting for a smartphone on a tight budget.

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