The Xiaomi Redmi 6 is an opponent, but cheaper, better camera, display and processor, more memory and more battery.

Introductory

Cubot devices have undergone tremendous development over the past year. The company is still not working on conquering the upper category, their goal is much more to carve out as many slices as possible from the market in the middle and middle of the lower category. We can already safely say that he succeeds, since last year they had two phones with us, a detailed article was written on one of them. This was the Cubot Power, which housed a bitang of strong battery in a housing the size of a traditional phone, plus a surprisingly large 128GB of storage. These were really well done devices.

When it comes to Cubot devices, two negatives are usually mentioned. One is the lack of software updates, the other is the quality of the cameras. Fortunately, we also see an improvement in the case of the first point, updates are coming now, even if not in the same number as in the case of a strong mid-range or high-end phone. This is helped by the fact that we are increasingly seeing the "factory" version of Android on devices.

For the second point, I made some explanations, I wanted to describe how much better the so-called bad Cubot cameras are than a few years old top iPhone camera, but then I looked around the net and found tests on the X19 that also had high-resolution photos. It’s no exaggeration to say I’ve been looking for the state ever since. The improvement from last year’s level is something quite amazing, so much so that we don’t have to excuse these cameras at all, we don’t have to look for excuses as to why they are the way they are. I will insert some of these test images in full size into the article, you will see what I am talking about.

The bottom line, then, is that Cubot, with the X19, offers a very competitive, and perhaps without exaggeration, an unbeatable device to customers, posing a serious challenge to other manufacturers. In terms of price, we would expect a mobile phone with entry-level hardware, which we can only use with serious restrictions, but in terms of specification, we are surprised to find that the engineers put together a very correct iron, and for that we have to put more than 30 forints on the table. But let there be an end to the introduction, let’s see the details instead!

Exterior

The Cubot X19 gives the impression of a large phone, although smaller than the majority of the new devices. The side frame is shiny, but more importantly made of metal. The back is curved on all four sides, the housing thickening towards the center. This curvature can also be found on the front panel, here we find 2,5 Ds of glass, the manufacturer of which is unknown. The gradient back cover is an increasingly common trend in today's phones. This shows really well live, it’s a shame that the backsheets that protect against physical influences usually hide this from our eyes. Nevertheless, Cubot also thought that it would be worthwhile to introduce such a mobile phone in the offer. When shopping, you can choose from two options in terms of color, one of which is the aforementioned popular, gradient, Twilight (purple-blue-green) fancy name, and the other the more solid black.

As mentioned in terms of physical parameters, the X19 lags behind recent trends, albeit only slightly. What’s more, this lag will be more positive for many, because the ever-expanding mobiles are also becoming more unusable, with one hand, at least in any case. The compact size of the X19 means 155,06 x 74,67 x 9,55 millimeters, accompanied by a weight of 175 grams. The smaller housing can only hold a smaller display, which in this case is a 5,93-inch screen. Although the bottom and top frames are slightly thicker than a top-of-the-line phone, the display-to-front ratio is above the category at 78,63 percent. What even belongs to the exterior and it is important that there is no notch on the display so it does not obscure any pixels from the panel.

All in all, the look of the phone is very well done, it looks good, and in my opinion it is more usable than usual, and we will not be ashamed of it if we have to take it out of our pockets in company.

intrinsic value

Processor

An eight-core processor is already expected at the top of the lower category and in the middle category. Fortunately, more and more phones are meeting the more modern units, as is the case with the X19. The central unit is the roughly one-year-old Helio P23, which is a MediaTek product. This chip is fully capable of serving the needs of today, be it multimedia, various radios or even an image processing unit.

The Helio P19 processor in the Cubot X23 can handle eight cores, located in two clusters. In the lower group, four ARM Cortex-A53s work at a maximum clock speed of 1,65 GHz, while the other group consists of four ARM Cortex-A2,3s also operating at 53 GHz. Many times we are asked what good these many cores are in a phone processor. Fortunately, we also have an exhaustive answer to this question, as you can read a detailed article on the subject here. ITT.

The Helio P23 and its processor are known to be 16-nanometer bandwidth, 64-bit and support the ARMv8_A instruction set. In addition to proci, the chip contains the integrated GPU, the hardware responsible for speeding up graphics operations. In this case, it is a dual-core ARM Mali-G700 MP71 solution operating at 2 MHz, which in our opinion provides completely adequate performance in this lower-middle category SoC. The memory controller integrated in the P23 handles dual channel LPDDR4X memories, this phone comes with 4GB. The memory clock is 1600 MHz. The phone presented now has 4 GB of RAM capacity and at least 64 GB of built-in storage based on eMMC 5.1 technology. This can be expanded with a memory card with a maximum capacity of 128 GB.

Display

You may have read more about the display above, but let’s talk about it a little more now. The Cubot X19 features a 5,93-inch, 2: 1 aspect ratio FHD + display with a resolution of 1080 x 2160 pixels and a pixel density of 407 ppi. The manufacturer uses GFF technology to reduce the thickness of the phone. This essentially covers a multilayer film with two layers of PET film (one layer containing the horizontal and the other containing the vertical contact electrodes) and an optically completely water-clear adhesive between them. With this process, manufacturers can save a lot on the thickness of the device, essentially making the display panel, the foils containing the sensor sensors, and the glass stretched above them a single unit.

Although the IPS technology used in the display lags behind the now fashionable (and expensive) AMOLED in terms of contrast, there is no reason to be ashamed. The manufacturer specifies a brightness of 450 cd for 1300: 1 with contrast. According to independent tests, these values ​​are not only correct, but the panel and the backlight also slightly exceed them. The maximum white brightness is 664 cd and the maximum contrast ratio is 1520: 1. We can safely say how, among the phones under $ 150-160, the brightness of the Cubot X19 is outstandingly, unparalleledly good! In addition, the color fidelity of the built-in display is noteworthy, which faithfully reproduces colors regardless of the intensity of the backlight. While this is how the display is praised for the uniformity of the backlight, nowhere do we encounter brighter or darker parts.

Overall, the Cubot X19 not only excels in terms of price in terms of display, but is also ample in the one-higher price range of around $ 200. This will deserve a serious red dot in the evaluation!

Kamerák

We have already mentioned cameras in the introduction, but it does not hurt to have a more detailed presentation here as well. The Cubot X19 has three cameras, these are located in the usual layout on the phone, one at the front and two at the back.

The most significant of these is the rear main camera, which has been given an Omnivision OV16880 PureCel Plus sensor. The physical dimensions of the sensor are 1 / 3.06 inches in diameter, the pixels are 1,029 micrometers in size and have a resolution of 16 megapixels. The sensor uses modern color filtering and separation technologies (BCFA, DTI) to reduce pixel blur and produce a great signal-to-noise ratio when taking both images and videos. Above the sensor is a five-member lens system with an aperture of f / 2.0. In addition to the main camera, we also get a 2 megapixel auxiliary camera. This is probably an interpolated VGA resolution Galaxy Core GC0310 unit that only gets involved in depth washing. Capture images and videos with a rear LED flash and fast autofocus. The maximum resolution that can be taken is 4608 x 3456 pixels, and the maximum video resolution is 1080p at 30 frames per second.

The phone's self-contained camera uses an 8-megapixel Sony IMX219 EXMOR sensor, with a four-lens structure above it that works with an f / 2.2 aperture. Here the maximum image resolution is 3264 x 2448 pixels, the video resolution here is also FHD, ie 1920 x 1080 pixels.

The phone works with the basic Android camera software with the usual setting options. For this reason, we will not discuss this in more detail now. The test pictures are much more interesting!

As I wrote in the introduction, looking at the pictures, I was specifically looking for the state. No, I’m not claiming at all that I haven’t seen better phone images than these, but I do say that in the price range where the X19 moves this quality is not at all common. In fact, I dare say, I would consider it good in the more expensive segment. And the improvement is really noticeable compared to previous Cubot types. The colors are beautiful, real, the images are not over-saturated. If I want to be very fluffy, maybe all I can mention is that the sharpness of the photos is barely noticeably blunt towards their edges, they seem a little more pixelated in the corners, but I mostly noticed them only on the 4K monitor in full size, looking for bugs.

Although I couldn’t find a picture taken in low light conditions, knowing the camera system, it can be enveloped that it won’t even come close to the quality of competitors that cost three to four times as much. Although we find a dual camera in the back, the auxiliary camera has no role in the captured images, except for the aforementioned depth wash, of course, so this solution will not be able to help the main camera in low light conditions. Instead of further word-of-mouth, check out the images and test video from the page called device specifications!

Other skills

Finally, we briefly summarize the other capabilities of the Cubot X19. Your phone has GPS and GLONASS support for positioning, and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for wireless connections. The former supports the 802.11 n standard, and this can also be used in two-channel mode, ie in addition to the traditional 2,4 GHz, we can also use the more modern 5 GHz band. The latter, i.e. Bluetooth, is a 4.2 standard solution. The CAT 6 LTE radio used to access broadband Internet is capable of uplink 51 megabit speeds and, of course, supports the B301,5 20 MHz band used in Hungary.

We also get plenty of sensors, we find the proximity sensor, accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, and of course the fingerprint sensor could not be missed either. The built-in Lithium-polymer battery has a capacity of 4000 mAh and can be charged via the 2.0 USB Type-C connector. Since the phone will be available with the unmodified Android Oreo 8.1, we can expect updates via OTA, so we are expected to get the Android 9 update as well.

Summary

I think from the above it has become clear that this phone, the Cubot X19, has become an extremely well managed mobile. It has everything you would expect from a modern phone, we won't be short of strength, and it looks good. The camera system and display are clearly outstanding in their category, in fact, we can safely say that they stand out among the more expensive devices.

As we wrote at the beginning of the article, Xiaomi Redmi 6 is close to it in terms of capabilities, but Cubot is miles better in terms of capabilities. The cheaper version of the Redmi 6 with 3GB of memory is also more expensive at $ 20, while here we find 4GB of memory. The display on the Xiaomi is only 1440 x 720 pixels, i.e. HD, on the Cubot X19 FHD, i.e. 2160 x 1080 pixels. The camera sensor in the Cubot is more modern, and in addition, the central unit is one year younger. Finally, the Xiaomi Redmi 6 has a battery capacity of only 3000 mAh, while the Cubot X19 has a capacity of 4000 mAh. The only positive about the Xiaomin (but it’s also taste dependent) is the MIUI system, which I prefer more than the factory Android.

Finally, another important thing we didn’t talk about is the price of the Cubot X19. I think feel free to dare mean that this will be the icing on the cake! The phone’s introductory campaign has just started, so it sold another phone for $ 170 last week  between February 18 and March 10 we can add it to the basket for 120 dollars, which means a price of about 34 thousand forints, depending on the daily exchange rate. I don’t think we need to particularly brush up on how little money this is for this phone. Perhaps it is no exaggeration that at the moment there are not many similar value-for-money mobiles on the market, if any at all. If you are planning to get a new phone for the spring, think about this mobile because you will not find another one for that much money.

We consider it important to draw your attention to the fact that the lucky ones can buy the Cubot X60 for $ 17 (~ 000 forints). Every day between February 19 and 18, the top 22 customers a GBCBBX19 you can get it so cheap using a coupon code. All you have to do is be among the top 11 shoppers at 10 a.m. these days. It won’t be easy, many will try to target the $ 60 price tag. If you don't succeed, don't despair, because the $ 120 (~ 34 forints) introductory price is a great price!

You can buy the phone here: Cubot X19 - 4/64 GB

You can find more information about the introductory campaign here: Cubot X19 introductory action

Remember, choose Priority Line as the mode of delivery, with which you can buy your mobile phone free of customs and VAT!