There's a new Poco phone out, but it's kinda boring

When Xiaomi launched its Poco F1 (or Pocophone F1, depending on the market) phone in 2018, it made quite a splash as it offered top specs for an absurdly low price. It also looked great (especially the aramid fiber-coated edition), had fairly unobtrusive software, and its battery lasted forever.

Curiously, despite the rave reviews, Xiaomi didn't launch a successor in all of 2019. Now, finally, it has one. It's called Poco X2, but it's not nearly as exciting as the first Poco phone.

Despite the fact that Poco was recently spun into a separate brand, the Poco X2 is basically a rebranded Xiaomi Redmi K30, which was launched in China last December. It looks pretty much the same, with the vertical camera array in the back placed in a shiny circle, and the dual selfie camera on the front residing in a punch-hole cutout.

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The specs are the same as well. The 6.7-inch Poco X2 has a 120Hz LCD screen. It's powered with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G processor and has up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, and a 4,500mAh battery. There's a 64/8/2/2-megapixel camera on the back, and a 20/2-megapixel selfie camera on the front.

None of this is bad for the starting price of Rs. 15,999 ($225), but it's just another mid-ranger in a sea of similar devices. What makes this launch notable is the fact that the Poco F1 was quite an amazing phone, while the X2 is just...meh. However, the name of the new phone – X2 vs. F1 – gives some hope that an actual successor to the F1 is still on the way.

The Poco X2 is launching in India on Feb 11. The version with 6/64GB of memory costs Rs. 15,999 ($225); the version with 6/128GB costs Rs. 16,999 ($239) and the variant with 8/256GB costs Rs. 19,999 ($281).