Comio X1 Note takes on Xiaomi Redmi Note 5: Unboxing, first impressions and more

Comio is a relatively newer smartphone brand in India. Since its debut in August last year, Comio has launched quite a few phones in the Indian market - mostly targeted at the budget segment. The latest offering from Comio is X1 Note.

Priced at ₹9,999, Comio X1 Note competes with Xiaomi Redmi Note 5, Honor 9 Lite and many other budget Android smartphones in the category. Comio is bundling a bunch of deals with the smartphone, including ₹2,200 cashback through Reliance Jio and a one year+100 days extra warranty. Other deals include screen breakage warranty and buy back/upgrade offers.

We have spent considerable time with the new Comio X1 Note smartphone. Here are our detailed first impressions.

Whats's in the box
The package comes with the handset, screen cover, back cover and a warranty card. It also has a charging cable with adapter, along with earphones.

Design
Comio X1 Note joins a small league of smartphones with a premium-like design. The most striking design element is the back panel, which has a mirror finish. The rear houses a circular module that features the dual-camera lenses along with a fingerprint scanner and an engraved Comio logo. The finish reminds us of phones like Oppo Realme 1 and Honor 9 Lite, whereas the overall look and feel seems quite similar to Moto G6 (which sports a glass back panel along with the traditional wristwatch-like circular dial to house the dual cameras).

The similarities, however, end there. Comio X1 Note comes with an 18:9 aspect ratio front, making the display appear a little taller. The catch with X1 Note is that it is indeed a tall screen. The phone has a 6.0-inch edge-to-edge display. The phone is also a little thicker at 8.05mm.

But that's not a deal breaker for the phone. Despite the relatively tall size, the phone fits well in your palms. The volume buttons are placed a little higher on the left edge, forcing you to stretch your fingers a little for single-hand usage. The power button is well within the reach, though. The rest of the stuff - such as the 3.5mm headphone jack located on the top edge and the USB port with speaker grilles at the base - is pretty much run-of-the-mill.

Comio X1 Note comes with a triple slot to house two SIM cards and a microSD slot.

Display, UI, camera and more
Comio X1 Note comes with a 6.0-inch FullView Full HD+ display with 2160 x 1080 pixels resolution and 401ppi pixel density. The display delivers pretty decent legibility indoors and outdoors. The auto brightness works smooth enough.

The smartphone runs on Android Oreo 8.0.0 but comes with a customised UI. Comio has included a slew of exclusive features in the phone. One of the things we liked about the phone is the ability to customise the on-screen navigation buttons. Users can shuffle the task, home and recent buttons as per their preference. Other key software features of the phone include quick access to key functions through the lock screen, and gesture controls like turn over to mute notifications and double tap to wake up the screen.

Overall, the interface is pretty simple but a little slow. But we'd like to spend some more time with the phone before giving you a final verdict on the user experience.

The smartphone comes with a dual-camera setup on the back, which consists of 13-megapixel and 5-megapixel sensors. The camera comes with a bunch of filters along with modes like panorama, time lapse and portrait. The social mode lets you create custom collages to share on social networking platforms. The camera overall seemed pretty average. But we are yet to test the camera in low-light conditions. A few shots taken from the rear camera in indoor lighting turned out pretty much average, which is not bad for an under-₹10,000 phone.

The 8-megapixel selfie camera is pretty decent and comes with a customisable beauty model. The front camera has F2.4 aperture, and supports 720p HD video recording. It also has a front LED flash to help you take brighter selfies in low-light conditions.

Other key features of the phone include a fingerprint scanner on the back and facial recognition for biometric authentication. Both the features are fast enough. The smartphone is powered by MTK8735 quad-core processor clocked at 1.4GHz along with 3GB of RAM. It has 32GB built-in storage (25GB user available), and supports expandable storage up to 128GB via a microSD card.

Summing up,
Comio X1 Note looks like a promising budget Android phone but faces a strong challenger in Xiaomi Redmi Note 5. The X1 Note, however, has an edge when it comes to design and deals. But the Redmi Note 5 has been around for some time, and is a tested performer. Stay tuned for our final verdict on the Comio X1 Note.