The Neffos X9 smartphone was announced in Malaysia late last month. The smartphone is made by TP-Link.
I have been using the phone for the past 3-weeks. This is my short review.
The Neffos X9 is a mid range smartphone with good specs at a very affordable price, starting from RM599. It has a large Full-View Display on the front — and a nice polycarbonate body with metallic look and feel.
The phone has two back cameras, 13- and 5-megapixel and one 8-megapixel camera on the front for taking selfies and video calls.
Key specifications:
- Display: 5.99 inches, HD+ resolution (1440 x 720), 269PPI, IPS, 2.5D Gorilla Glass with AF coating
- Processor: MTK MT6750 processor (4 Cortex-A53 1.5GHz + 4 Cortex-A53 1.0GHz), ARM Mali-T860MP2 520MHz GPU
- Operating System: Android 8.1 with NFUI 8.0
- Storage: 3GB RAM + 32GB Storage / 4GB RAM + 64GB Storage, Micro SD Card (up to 128 GB) on second sim slot
- Camera: Front 8 Mega-pixel with Face Unlock AI technology, Rear 13 Mega-pixel + 5 Mega-pixel, Dual Camera, PDAF, double flashing light
- Connectivity: 4G FDD-LTE/3G WCDMA/2G GSM (4G FDD-LTE:Band1/2/3/4/5/7/8/20), GPS/A-GPS, GLONASS, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n 2.4GHz & 5GHz, Micro USB, Bluetooth 4.1
- Sensors: Fingerprint Sensor, Compass, Accelerometer, Ambient Light Sensor, Proximity Sensor
- Battery: 3060mAh with Fast Charging
- Others: Dual Nano SIM Card slots
- Colour options: Space Black and Moonlight Silver
- Price: 3GB RAM with 32GB internal storage at RM599, 4GB RAM with 64GB internal storage at RM799
- What’s in the box: Charger, micro-USB Cable, Earphone, Transparent back cover, screen protector
What I LIKE about the Neffos X9:
Look and Feel: To be frank, the phone doesn’t look “cheap” for its affordable price. Neffos said “the X9 achieves a classic look with a polycarbonate unibody processed by a delicate 0.03mm CNC finish, creating a stunning metallic feel. The elegance of this design is combined with 7.85mm of precision, finished with a perfectly rounded 2.5D glass edge.” Not a bad design for the price. Neffos has included a Transparent phone cover in the box.
Display: The 5.99″ screen is decent, although its not the brightest screen I have seen. For a normal user, the screen isn’t that big or small, its just nice. In auto-brightness mode, the display intelligently adjusts the screen’s brightness as lighting conditions change. If you Turn on Eye Protection Mode, it would reduce blue light emission by up to 89%, making it really comfortable to read a book. When the screen is off, you can also double tap on the screen to turn it on. There’s also a screen protector provided in the box.
Latest Android with NFUI 8.0: The user interface created by Neffos is simple, comes with a friendly UI that allows you to easily configure the phone. Neffos has included some Wifi-functions from TP-Link including- Share Wifi by QR Code (allowing someone to scan your QR code to connect to the same Wifi network) and WLAN Extender (allowing your phone to extend the Wifi coverage to a wider area, extending its signal). Neffos also said that once an app launches, the octa-core CPU accelerates simultaneously. NFUI 8.0 is said to run 78% faster than previous NFUI 2.0. At the time of writing this, Neffos X9 has Android 8.1.0 with a security patch level as of June 2018.
FingerPrint Scanner: The finger print scanner which is located just below the camera is really fast. You can use it to unlock the phone really quick.
Battery: The X9 has a 3060mAh with Fast Charging. The battery optimisation on the Neffos X9 is really good. Even in standard mode, I notice that it turns off certain background task automatically, extending battery life (this could be annoying for some people). For me, with normal usage (some streaming, emails and Facebook), the phone could last almost a day. However, for power intensive usage, for example streaming video, the battery would last around an hour plus. There are two power saving mode- Smart Power Saving and Ultra Power Saving. In terms of charging, it took about 2 hours to reach 90% capacity.
Warranty- The Neffos X9 comes with 12-months plus 12-months extended warranty for the phone, that’s 24 month in total. The battery and charger have a 6-months warranty while the earphone has a 3-months warranty.
What I DISLIKE about the Neffos X9:
Speakers: The main thing that I 1st noticed about the X9 are the speakers. The sound is powered by an AWINIC K8 Audio PA (public address) system that supposedly offer really good audio experience. However, what I experienced was the opposite. The audio sound was extremely low at times. I also didn’t like the sound quality of the speakers. This can be fixed by using headphones and you get much better sound quality.
Connectivity and Signal Strength: The signal reception on this phone isn’t that good on Wifi and mobile network. For example on Wifi, my other smartphone shows full wifi signal bars and gives me smooth streaming while Neffos X9 only shows 2 bars and buffers while streaming videos. I also experience the same with 4G LTE connectivity where the X9 appears to have weaker signal reception compared to my other phones and this affects the download speed. I couldn’t achieve 4G+ on the X9 despite it has a setting called “Enhanced 4G LTE Mode” for VoLTE and improved “communications”. Note: VoLTE on Neffos X9 is not supported yet in Malaysia although HD voice is available.
Camera: My biggest disappoint on the Neffos X9 is the camera. Despite the phone has two rear camera, 13MP+5MP with f/2.0 aperture, Real-Time Bokeh Effect, PDAF Technology (Phase Detect Auto Focus), the picture quality is bad. The pictures I have taken on this phone has a “so so” quality, even for the selfie camera. I find the pictures not natural and noisy. l believe that this is a software issue instead of a hardware and I hope Neffos will be able to improve it in the next software update.
