XTouch X review

Performance

• MediaTek processor can more than handle average tasks
• Mild blips in performance
• Geekbench results are less than impressive

The XTouch X is powered by the MediaTek MT6737H chipset which is underpowered compared to the Snapdragon 430 CPU that’s found in recent budget phones. This low cost chipset is paired with 2GB of RAM , enough for average use and camera but still less than the 3GB offered by competing handsets. 

Running Geekbench on the XTouch X resulted in a multi-core score of 1,589 which is a sub par result when compared to the multi-core scores of Moto G5S which came in at 2,234 and the Nokia 6 at 2,736. Phones from Honor like the 9 Lite and 7x both came out with a 3,000+ score so if you’re planning on doing intensive tasks, they would make a better choice.

That being said, the XTouch X runs relatively smoothly and can do everything you would expect from a budget phone, just a tad slower. 

We’re also not completely sold on compromising key specs on a value phone for wireless charging capabilities. Chances are if you’re on a budget, you might not want to spent extra dough on a wireless charging mats and adapters which can get pricey. We’d take a performance boost over that anyday. 

Music Movies & Gaming

• Big and bright display is great for watching videos
• Built-in single speaker isn’t up to much
• Can handle most gaming apps with occasional frame rate drops

The 5.8-inch display on the XTouch X and its 18:9 aspect ratio make it great for watching movies but only in HD+ resolution. Colors are mainly good and as vibrant as you can expect from an IPS panel but the dismal contrast brings out the greys more than the blacks and can prove problematic during darker scenes. 

The single downward-firing speaker on the bottom of the phone is sufficiently loud and blares mediocre fuzzy audio. If you’re looking to appreciate your music and podcasts you’re better off plugging in your earphones.

There’s a 3.5mm jack for wired headphones and the phone comes with a pair of wireless sports headphones out of the box. Their sound quality is impressive with clear tones and connection is solid so long as you don’t stray too far from the phone. We were pleasantly surprised with its battery life that lasted around 7 hours.

Gaming is a fairly comfortable experience and the phone can handle most 2D games without a hitch and 3D games run well enough but performance gets jerky if things gets too busy on the screen. Games like Sonic Runners and Spider-man: Ultimate Power run consistently well with the occasional frame rate drop but more demanding games like Injustice 2 and Hearthstone are too jittery to play smoothly. 

Media hoarders will want to invest in a microSD card as the phone is only left with 7-8GB of internal storage after system use. That’s barely enough space for a few of movies and storage-intensive apps. 

Interface and Reliability

• Runs Android 7.0 
• Fair performance with the occasional stutter

The XTouch X runs Android 7 Nougat, which isn’t the latest version of the OS, but can still be found on many phones today. 

It uses a light custom interface based called Launcher3 which almost feels like vanilla Android and uses the Google suite of apps which are top notch and much better than the custom duplicate apps included by many manufacturers these days. There’s no pre-installed bloatware apart from a few games that are in the phone by default but you can get rid of them easily.

Apps are slow to load on the phone fresh out of the box but after a certain amount of caching is done, it starts to feel a lot smoother, although there are noticeable delays when switching apps.

Navigation is quick and easy with no serious blips in performance but the phone does heat up rather quickly the longer you use it and you’ll notice performance stuttering if you try to push it with intensive apps and games.