Idol X is a customized mobile phone jointly launched by TCL and JD. It has a 5 inch 1080P full HD screen, a 13.1 million pixel stack camera, and a thickness of only 6.99mm. We are also looking forward to the performance of the MT6589T it carries. How about the comparison between the idol X and the powerful Nexus 4 at the price of 2000?
Configure hard to hard
First, let's look at the configuration comparison between the two:
From the hardware comparison between the two, idol X has the upper hand in both screen and camera, except for its weakness in SoC and battery capacity. Idol X stands out in terms of screen and rear camera. The rear camera uses Sony stack sensors. Unlike Xiaomi 2S (32G), Find5 and other stack cameras, the aperture of idol X reaches F2.0.
Appearance design
Since everyone is familiar with the shape of the Nexus 4, the idol X is a new mobile phone. Let's take a detailed look at the shape of the idol X first.
From the perspective of appearance, idol X has the excellent elements of the current thin and light mobile phone. The whole machine feels thin and light. The 5-inch OGS fully fits the large screen and also gives a visual shock. The addition of the ultra narrow frame also makes it feel good to hold ▼
There is no sign on the front, which is also the "high-end black" design that will be popular. Idol X uses the design of touch keys. When the screen is not lit, the three touch keys are not visible ▼
We got the red version (plus yellow and black), with frosted baking varnish ▼ on the back
On the top of the machine back are noise reduction microphone, 13.1 million stack camera and a led fill light ▼
The speaker is in the lower right corner, and there are small projections on the left and right sides, which can prevent the sound from being blocked to some extent ▼
The side of the fuselage is coated with smooth baking paint, with brushed dark lines, and the top is open key and 3.5mm interface ▼
The bottom is microUSB interface and call microphone ▼
The left side is card slot 1, and the card slot uses magnetic switch ▼
The right side is card slot 2, and the lower side is the volume key ▼
From the perspective of appearance, the design styles of idol X and Nexus 4 are very different. The whole idol X machine is light and thin, and the body line is relatively strong, while the Nexus 4 machine body is relatively round. As can be seen from the figure below, although idol X uses a 5-inch screen, its body looks more slender, because the screen scale of Nexus 4 is not 16:9, and the border is relatively thick ▼
From the side comparison, it is obvious that idol X is thinner, and there is a little protrusion at the camera ▼
For border comparison, we choose Galaxy S4 and Nubia Z5. These two phones are narrow border phones, but they are still inferior to idol X. ▼
Screen effect
Idol X uses a 5-inch 1080P full HD screen, and uses OGS full fit technology, so it has excellent screen effect. We use the Nexus 4 at the price of 2k to compare. The following is a live shot of the screen color effect.
Solid color contrast, the color of Nexus 4 is relatively dim (Nexus 4 above, idol X below) ▼
White Nexus 4 is cold, idol X is warm (Nexus 4 is above, idol X is below) ▼
Since Nexus 4 and idol X are both screens of IPS technology, they inevitably have a certain degree of light leakage (Nexus 4 above, idol X below) ▼
Bright colors, idol X's performance is closer to the original picture, Nexus 4's color is too rich (Nexus 4 above, idol X below) ▼
Original drawing ▼
Both have distortion, idol X is relatively good (Nexus 4 above, idol X below) ▼
Original drawing ▼
Idol X is closer to the original picture (Nexus 4 on the top, idol X on the bottom) ▼
Original drawing ▼
The screen PPI of idol X has reached 441, which will undoubtedly be better than the general 720P screen in terms of fineness. Of course, it is difficult to make a difference between the two in normal use distance. The difference can be clearly seen through macro magnification ▼
UI Design
Idol X uses a deeply customized UI. Based on Android 4.2.2, the launcher is very distinctive. The system cancels the original secondary menu design, and the system icon has a unified rectangular design. Compared with the native system, the style is relatively fresh (because Nexus 4 brushes the ROM of AOKP, the virtual key has been changed+, left idol X, right Nexus 4) ▼
The biggest feature of idol X launcher is that in addition to being able to slide left and right, the page where the launcher places plug-ins can slide vertically, and with its own flat plug-in, it looks a bit like the "tile" UI of Windows Phone system, That is, the content that cannot be displayed on one page can be browsed by sliding up and down (note that the following figure is the same page of the initiator, and the vertically arranged plug-ins can be viewed by sliding up and down) ▼
The system lock screen of idol X is also unique. It supports full screen weather effects. In addition, the unlocking button supports gravity sensing. After pressing the button, there are shortcuts such as unlocking, phone calls, SMS messages, and photos. Note that the unlocking button in the white box in the figure moves according to gravity induction (left idol X, right Nexus 4) ▼
The multitask management of idol X changes from the original horizontal sliding to the vertical sliding (left idol X, right Nexus 4) ▼
Since idol X uses the system based on Android 4.2.2, the shortcut of the drop-down bar can also be displayed in full screen, but it turns orange yellow in color matching (left idol X, right Nexus 4) ▼
The layout set by the system is similar to that of native Android, but it is changed to gray and white color matching (left idol X, right Nexus 4) ▼
The photo album of idol X supports folder hiding thumbnails, jigsaw pieces and other additional functions ▼
From the perspective of beautification, the UI of idol X is relatively successful and comfortable. Many improvements have been made based on the native system. Compared with MIUI, a system with relatively large changes in usage habits, idol X is more suitable for users who are accustomed to the native system, and has many remarkable features.
System fluency
On the TCL Y900 tested earlier, we were impressed by the optimization of TCL's UI fluency. This time, the idol X was upgraded from 720P+MT6589 to 1080P+MT6589T. In terms of UI fluency, there was no problem that we were worried about. The overall system felt smooth.
Hardware performance
The SoC used by idol X is the MT6589T newly launched by MediaTek. Its advantage over the previous MT6589 is mainly the improvement of frequency. The CPU is upgraded from 1.2GHz to 1.5GHz, and the GPU is upgraded from 286MHz to 357MHz. The overall performance improvement is obvious. We also test the performance of idol X.
Theoretical comparison test
Anrabbit evaluation 3.3.1
According to the evaluation of Anthare, the score of idol X in terms of RAM performance and CPU performance is much higher than that of previous MT6589 mobile phones. However, due to the high resolution, the drawing performance is pulled down (left idol X, right Nexus 4) ▼
GFXBench 2.7.2
In the graphic test, the MT6589T with increased frequency performs better than the previous MT6589 phones, even surpassing the OMAP4470 with higher frequency, but there is still a gap between it and the Adreno 320 (left idol X, right Nexus 4) ▼
Sunspider 1.0（Chrome V28）
In the web page Javascript test, the performance of 6589T at the same 1.5GHz is better than that of APQ8064 (the lower the score, the better. Left idol X, right Nexus 4) ▼
Game Test
In the game test, Modern Warfare 4 and Iron Man 3 are used for testing, and FPS Meter is used for frame number detection.
Modern Warfare 4
idol X▼
Nexus 4▼
Iron Man 3
idol X▼
Nexus 4▼
Video playback capability
Idol X uses a full HD screen, which is suitable for playing videos. Here we also use 720P and 1080P videos for testing.
Both phones can meet the general video requirements. Among them, the "fluent" of idol X means that it can be played with its own player, and the rest needs to be decoded with the help of a third-party player (BSPlayer test is used here). MXLayer's support for idol X is not so good. It is estimated that the reason is that the CPU model is relatively new.
photograph
The idol X uses a 13.1 million pixel Sony stack sensor with aperture F2.0. The following is a comparison with the live shot sample of the Nexus 4.
Daylight environment
Idol X (click to view the large picture) ▼
Nexus 4 (click to view the large picture) ▼
Due to its inherent advantages in hardware, idol X's analytical power is much better than Nexus 4 even in daylight.
Indoor
Idol X (click to view the large picture) ▼
Nexus 4 (click to view the large picture) ▼
In indoor imaging, the color of idol X is more realistic, while that of Nexus 4 is too dim.
Macro
Idol X (click to view the large picture) ▼
Nexus 4 (click to view the large picture) ▼
In terms of macro performance, idol X is much better at grasping details.
Nightscape
Idol X (click to view the large picture) ▼
Nexus 4 (click to view the large picture) ▼
Idol X (click to view the large picture) ▼
Nexus 4 (click to view the large picture) ▼
It can be seen that due to the large aperture of F2.0, idol X has a better picture measurement under weak light, and performs better in color and detail. The glare of Nexus 4 is also more serious.
In comparison with the rear camera, the imaging quality of idol X is undoubtedly much better than that of Nexus 4. In the feature function, Nexus 4 can call out the menu by long pressing, while idol X long pressing is equivalent to pressing the shutter. In addition, idol X supports the volume key shutter (Nexus 4 can also be modified through a third-party system). In terms of focusing speed, idol X is slower, and there are fewer photo options. I believe that these will be improved by upgrading the firmware.
Front
Idol X (click to view the large picture) ▼
Nexus 4 (click to view the large picture) ▼
This... no need to explain.
It is worth mentioning that idol X also supports "four grid selfie", which increases the interest of selfie ▼
Endurance
In the past, MediaTek's SoC has shown outstanding performance in terms of endurance. Idol X is equipped with 2000mAh battery, which is relatively small compared with the 2100mAh of Nexus 4. What's the actual comparison?
We first conducted a high-intensity modern war 4 test for 30 minutes, and the results are as follows:
Idol X: 100% → 86% (consumption 14%)
Nexus 4: 100% → 74% (consumption 26%)
A further 20 minutes of 3G Internet access test is conducted, and the results are as follows:
Idol X: 84% → 78% (consumption 6%)
Nexus 4: 74% → 69% (consumption 5%)
From the two test results, there is a big gap between the two in terms of power consumption during the game test. Idol X obviously saves a lot of power, while in the 3G Internet test, there is little difference between the two.
fever
Next, in the first part of the endurance test just now, we immediately checked the battery temperature and found that the Nexus 4 has reached 49 degrees Celsius, while the idol X is 41 degrees Celsius. Both are quad core 1.5GHz, 28nm process processors. It can be seen that the Cortex-A7 is really outstanding in terms of power consumption ▼
network
Idol X supports WCDMA+GSM dual card dual standby, while Nexus 4 only supports WCDMA single card, both of which support H+networks. The following figure shows the dual SIM card setting ▼ of idol X
summary
As a customized machine cooperating with JD, TCL idol X has achieved a 5-inch full HD screen and 13 million Sony stack camera at the price of 1699, which is much better than mobile phones at the same price. The appearance design of idol X is also impressive. Its ultra narrow frame and 6.99mm ultra-thin body add color to its shape. In terms of UI, idol X also shows its own characteristics among many customized ROMs, and has done a good job in beautification and functions. In comparison with the Nexus 4, idol X shows certain advantages in screen, photography, temperature, and endurance. Double cards and double stays are also more suitable for the use habits of domestic users. In terms of hardware performance, the absolute performance of MT6589T is weaker than APQ8064. Of course, most of the users who buy Nexus 4 are interested in the "son" status, and its hardware configuration is not the main selling point. In general, idol X is a very recommended product for its own positioning, and is suitable for fashionable users who have requirements for screen and photography.
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