Nokia X2

Terms like "fingerprint magnet" are used quite loosely for smartphones with a glossy texture, but the Nokia X2 is a real embodiment of this phrase. The shiny finish on the back panel picks up fingerprints like nobody's business, and looked even worse on our piano black review unit. There’s also a glass layer over the plastic at the back, similar to the Asha 502 and 503 handsets, which makes it slippery when held for longer periods.

The 4-inch screen adorning the Nokia X has been increased to 4.3-inches in its successor. While the resolution remains the same at 800 x 480 pixels, the ClearBlack LCD display reproduces good visuals and there's no sign of pixelation even though the pixel density is on the lower side (~217ppi). Compared to its predecessor, the display looks much better, both in terms of colour reproduction as well as brightness levels. The touchscreen also seems more responsive and supports five-point multi-touch, as opposed to just two-point multi-touch.

Nokia's vision of its X series is quite interesting – the devices are intended serve as a gateway to Microsoft's Windows Phone platform as well its services. That's why the Nokia X2, just like its predecessors, runs the Nokia X Software Platform, which is a forked version of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). The X2 runs the latest version of the software, v2.0, which is based on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, as compared to v1.0 which had Android 4.1 as its underlying OS. With v2.0, the software interface on the X2 brings forth numerous differences, many of them much-needed changes.

While the Nokia X offered a very basic setup in the form of a 3.2-megapixel fixed-focus rear camera without an LED flash, its successor seems better equipped for handling shooting requirements. The Nokia X2 features a 5-megapixel camera at the back, which is supported by an LED flash to assist shooting in low-light conditions. The shooter is also capable of recording videos in HD resolution, compared to 480p video recording on its predecessor.

The changes in the X2 continue in hardware, reflecting in performance as well. The Nokia X2 draws power from a Snapdragon 200 chipset offering two Cortex-A7 cores running at 1.2GHz, in contrast to a 1GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 Play SoC on the Nokia X. The more efficient processor gets support from Adreno 302 processor for churning out good graphics. In terms of memory, the phone has double the RAM than its predecessor. All this leads to slick performance. While the Nokia X seemed to lag even with simple scrolling, the X2 was able to handle everything we threw at it.