Cubot X18 Plus Review – Good budget phone with decent specs
For those who are unfamiliar with the brand Cubot, they are a Chinese smartphone manufacturer based in Shenzhen and they launched a number of budget smartphones. Where can you possibly find a Android smartphone with a 6-inch FHD+ display, dual 20MP+2MP rear cameras, 4000 mAh battery and 64GB storage for US$130? Apparently Cubot has it – the Cubot X18 Plus. GearBest have periodic offers/ sales and they recently had one for Cubot smartphones.
With the smartphones from mainstream manufacturers (i.e. Samsung, Apple, OnePlus) trending around US$1,000, some turned to Chinese smartphone manufacturers like Cubot, Vivo, Xiaomi, etc. for affordable/ budget smartphones. They do not come with the bells and whistles (i.e. virtual assistant) of popular mainstream phones but they have decent performance for daily use and casual mobile gaming. Just do not expect to have gaming performance like the Razer Phone, Xiaomi’s Black Shark or Nubia’s Red Magic.
| Cubot X18 Plus Technical Specifications | |
|---|---|
| CPU | MT6750T (8-core 1.5GHz 64-bit) |
| GPU | Mali T860 MP2 |
| Memory | 4GB RAM |
| Storage | 64GB Expandable via Micro SD card (up to 128GB) |
| SIM | Dual SIM (Nano + Nano) The second SIM slot is also a Micro SD slot |
| Battery | 4000 mAh |
| Display | 5.99-inch FHD+ Display (2,160 x 1,080) 403 ppi, 450 cd/m brightness |
| Camera | Rear: Dual Cameras 20.0 MP + 2.0 MP F2.0 with 1A flashlight Front: 13.0 MP |
| Fingerprint Sensor | Yes (at the back) |
| GPS | GPS/ A-GPS |
| Connectivity | 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz 802.11 b/g/n Bluetooth 4.0 |
| Network | 4G FDD-LTE: Band 1/3/7/8/20 3G WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz 2G GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz |
| Operating System | Android 8.0 |
| Dimensions | 158.5 x 73.6 x 8.55 mm |
| Colors | Available in Blue or Black |
| Link | Cubot X18 Plus [Buy from GearBest] |
Unboxing the Cubot X18 Plus
In the Cubot X18 Plus package, you will find the following:
- Cubot X18 Plus Android smartphone
- Protector case
- Charger
- Micro USB cable
- SIM slot ejector pin
Taking a closer look at the Cubot X18 Plus
The Cubot X18 Plus has a glossy black plastic back cover. Although glossy black emanates a classy feel, it is also the recipe for being a fingerprint magnet and disaster if you have butterfingers. The great thing is that the included protector case mitigates all these issues.
Its has a metal body frame. Overall, the Cubot X18 Plus has a solid build that feels great for its size and weight.
The huge 5.99-inch display is definitely one of the highlights of the phone. It sports a 18:9 ratio and thin bezels. The display is really great to look at. Videos and images are crisp and sharp on its 403 ppi FHD+ display.
| Phone | PPI |
|---|---|
| iPhone X | 458 |
| iPhone 8 Plus | 401 |
| OnePlus 5T | 401 |
| Samsung S9 | 570 |
At the top of the screen are the speaker and 13MP camera. To the left of the camera is where the notification LED is located.
On the left of the Cubot X18 Plus is the SIM tray. The Cubot X18 Plus is dual SIM capable. The second SIM slot is also doubles up as expansion slot for micro SD card. If you choose to use a second SIM, you will not be able to expand your storage space. It is not really an issue nowadays as cloud storage is readily available.
On the right of the smartphone are the buttons for volume control and power. The travel for the power button is shorter than the one for the volume. As a resulr, I am not sure did I press or miss the power button. This short button travel is more noticeable when using the included protector case.
On the bottom edge are the loud speakers and micro-USB charging port. I am pretty surprised that the Cubot X18 Plus has not adopted USB-C.
On the top edge, you can find a 3.5mm audio jack. Yes, the headphone jack apocalypse has not yet claimed Cubot. Ain’t you glad?
On the back of the Cubot X18 Plus, you will find the dual cameras (20MP and 2MP), fingerprint sensor and flash.
Benchmarking the Cubot X18 Plus
While the mainstream smartphones are using Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, the Cubot X18 Plus is using the MT6750T processor which is based on Cortex-A53.
| MT6750T | Snapdragon 625 | |
|---|---|---|
| Clock Speed | 8 x 1.5 GHz | 8 x 2.0 GHz |
| Manufacturing Process | 28 nm | 14 nm |
| RAM Speed | 666 MHz | 999 MHz |
| GPU | Mali-T860 MP2 | Adreno 506 |
The MT6750T’s processors are divided into two clusters. The first set of four ARM Cortex-A53 cores are clocked at 1 GHz and the second set of four ARM Cortex-A53 are clocked at 1.5 GHz for performing the heavy lifting tasks like gaming and multitasking. When comes to gaming, the performance is limited by the Mali-T860 M2 GPU.
Benchmark Results
Antutu Benchmark is a quantitative way of benchmarking smartphone’s performance. It is widely used so it give you an idea of how a smartphone fare among others. Antutu benchmark assesses the smartphone’s performance in areas like CPU, GPU, memory and storage access speed, etc. A higher score represents better performance.
So how did Cubot X18 Plus fare in the Antutu Benchmark? I also ran Antutu Benchmark on my current smartphone – OnePlus 3 (A3003). The OnePlus 3 is using a Snapdragon 620 with Adreno 530. Price-wise, the OnePlus 3 was launched at US$399.
To see how it compares with other smartphones using the same processor, I managed to find a review on the Asus Zenfone MaxPlus M1 with Antutu results.
| Device | RAM+Storage | CPU | GPU | UX | Mem | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cubot X18 Plus | 4GB+64GB | 25,103 | 11,688 | 15,382 | 4,800 | 56,973 |
| Asus Zenfone MaxPlus M1 | 4GB+32GB | 13,325 | 7,698 | 17,666 | 4,419 | 43,108 |
| OnePlus 3 (A3003) | 6GB+64GB | 50,645 | 63,619 | 35,403 | 5,619 | 155,286 |
The Cubot X18 Plus’s performance is a little disappointing compared to OnePlus 3 (A3003). Surprisingly, it performed better than another smartphone using the same processor.
Despite Cubot X18 Plus’s Antutu Benchmark result, it is able to handle the workload of common app like Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, email, taking pictures or even enjoy games like Pokemon Go and Mobile Legends (don’t expect fantastic graphics quality).
Using the Cubot X18 Plus
The Cubot X18 Plus is definitely sufficient basic day-to-day activities like checking updates of friends on Facebook, messaging via WhatsApp/ Telegram, enjoying multimedia contents via Spotify and YouTube, sending emails, taking pictures, etc. These activities do not require a high performance smartphone.
The Cubot X18 Plus has no issue streaming Spotify at Extreme quality or viewing YouTube at 1080p quality.
The fingerprint sensor works really well. Unlocks are snappy and accurate.
The Cubot X18 Plus will definitely meet the needs of a typical user.
Casual Gaming
If you are a casual gamer that plays Pokemon Go or even Mobile Legends, Cubot X18 Plus will meet your needs too. In fact, you will welcome the 4000 mAh battery that give you a little more game time. I had to set the graphics quality to low for smooth game play. When it was left at medium graphics quality, skipped frames are observed when minions spawns.
Essentially, you can do casual gaming on the device as long as the games are not 3D intensive otherwise you will notice skipped frames.
Camera
The specifications of the camera are great but the included camera app is a little disappointing with its lack of controls (i.e. macro mode, grid).
Installing another camera app, like Open Camera, made the whole camera experience better. Focusing became faster and accurate. Taking pictures became snappy too.
Picture quality wise, I would say that it is acceptable. Pixel peeping (the photos) reveals a little bit of noise even in good lighting condition. It is not really an issue here as not much people would actually publish a full 20 megapixels photo. However, chromatic aberration was observed which can be corrected with post processing. It is not a DSLR nor advertised to excel in photography so such issues are to be expected.
The Cubot X18 Plus is capable of video recording at 1080p.
In short, the camera is great and you can take good picture with it.
Crisp Display
It is a joy to look at Cubot X18 Plus’s screen. With its 403 ppi display, images are crisp. One thing that I had observed while using the smartphone is that it is easier to view the screen outdoor. This is probably due to the screen peaking at 450 nits. My current OnePlus 3 peaks at 413 nits.
The display got rounded corners! It literally has four rounded corners when viewing in full screen at 18:9 ratio. Most videos are (at most) 16:9 so the black borders at the sides hides the rounded corners. However, when you display items that actually make use of the entire display, the rounded corners become visible.
Conclusion
The Cubot X18 Plus is not the perfect device for gamers or people who wants to take a lot of perfect pictures but that is not the point.
The Cubot X18 Plus is a budget phone that pretty much meet the needs of most basic ( and probably intermediate) users while having the added bonus of a stunning display.
The battery life is pretty good too. My daughter had been using the phone to watch YouTube for the entire afternoon and it has got 30 percent juice left.
To round up the review, the Cubot X18 Plus is not a bad phone at its price point. If you are looking for a budget phone, you can probably consider it.
