Zopo Flash X Review

Zopo is a Chinese smartphone company struggling to make its mark in the Indian market. In August, 2015, Zopo entered the country with its Speed 8 smartphone. It launched a couple of devices subsequently, but none that I can remember. Zopo Flash X is a mid-budget offering from the company that costs Rs 13,999. The smartphone has a metal unibody design, a Full HD display and a fingerprint scanner as well. The highlight of the device is dual LED flash, which is accompanied by a 13MP shooter. The front camera is 8MP.

Zopo Flash X competes with the likes of Moto G5 Plus, Lenovo Z2 Plus, Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, Honor 6X which has a dual rear camera setup. We used Zopo Flash X for about a week and here’s what we think of the smartphone:

Zopo Flash X price in India: Rs 13,999 (The price was changed to Rs 9,999 in the first week of May).

Zopo Flash X Design, Display review

The display is Full HD, one that didn’t give me reasons to complain. The viewing angles are good and icons appear sharp as well. I didn’t have to struggle to use the phone in bright sunlight. The design didn’t disappoint me, maybe because I liked OnePlus 3’s design as well.

The smartphone (though not a clone) looks a lot like OnePlus 3 with antenna lines on top and bottom of back cover as well as a pill-shaped home button, which doubles as a fingerprint sensor. A 3.5mm headset jack, along with USB Type 2.0 charging port and speaker grille is at the bottom. However, Zopo Flash X is really slippery and a back cover is a must. Thankfully, the review unit came with a transparent plastic cover, which I didn’t dare to remove after the phone slipped out of my hands once or twice.

OnePlus 5 Video Review

Zopo Flash X Performance review

In the limited period that I used Zopo Flash X, I didn’t face issues with multitasking or switching between multiple tabs. The touch response is a bit slow and there is a lag at times, but that’s barely noticeable.

However, if you’re using Zopo Flash X, heating is something you won’t be able to ignore. During the review period, the phone started to get hot only after 15-20 minutes of watching videos. Making 4G calls one after another or playing graphics-heavy games such as Asphalt-8 really makes the whole heating problem worse.

Zopo Flash X is really slippery and a back cover is a must. Thankfully, the review unit came with a transparent plastic cover, which I didn’t dare to remove after the phone slipped out of my hands once or twice.

The fingerprint sensor doesn’t have a response time of 0.16 seconds as the company claims, it is a lot slower. On most occasions, I couldn’t unlock the phone in one attempt. On other occasions, simply drawing the pattern to unlock my device seemed like an easier option than to fail at unlocking the phone after several attempt.

Zopo X Flash Camera review

The rear camera is good at clicking pictures in bright outdoors. It captures details quite nicely and colour reproduction is also above average. In pitch dark places, dual LED flash does a nice job of clicking detailed pictures, though they look a bit over saturated. But pictures taken in low light with rear camera are really bad.

For starters, I had difficulties focusing on subject and results tend to look super grainy. Same goes for the 8MP front camera as well. Pictures clicked in both low light as well as those taken in bright outdoors appear grainy. The ‘Moonlight’ flash doesn’t help with good colour reproduction either.

Zopo X Flash Battery review

The battery, though 3,100 mAh, isn’t really up to mark. Even on moderate usage, it only lasted under eight hours on most days. Watching videos for about an hour, making a few 4G VoLTE calls and listening to songs will bring down the battery from a full charge to about 24 per cent, which is unacceptable in these times.

Plus it takes close to 3 hours and 10 minutes to charge from 10 per cent to 100 per cent, which is a really, really long time. In our PCMark battery test, the phone scored four hours and four minutes, which is not the best score for a phone with a 3000 mAh plus battery.

Zopo X Flash Verdict

Zopo Flash X is difficult to recommend, despite decent specifications on paper. In terms of actual performance, the smartphone fails to impress, and will have a tough time standing out against rivals. If you’re ready to shell out Rs 14,000 then why go for Zopo Flash+ given there are several other options in the market in a similar price band, some even cheaper.