The smartphone market is no longer what it used to be. The top of the range tend to be more and more expensive and less and less innovative and low-end smartphones aim to offer performances that will hardly make you regret much more expensive phones. Fortunately, there are still some brands able to surprise users by offering elegant, fast and affordable devices. One of them is B.Q.
The Spanish company, founded in 2009 by 6 engineering students of the University of Madrid, has already had the opportunity to amaze us with BQ Aquaris X and returns to do so with its older brother, BQ Aquaris X Pro. But what changes between the two terminals? I try to explain it to you in this review.
Goodbye to polyurethane
I confess: the differences between the two smartphones of the Spanish manufacturer are almost non-existent. One, however, will immediately catch your eye.
In fact, the BQ Aquaris X Pro abandons the rubberized polyurethane back, which characterizes its younger brother, to make room for glass, curved on the sides, and protected by Gorilla Glass 3. The general feeling is that of a more elegant and more refined device, but no less resistant. In fact, the BQ device also survived a couple of accidental drops without any scratches and boasts a truly excellent olephobic treatment.
The back cover also houses the very fast fingerprint reader, placed above the Iberian company logo, and the flush rear camera, accompanied by the double LED flash.
On the front instead we find it again soft touch keys, again not backlit. A shortcoming that we could forgive the Aquaris X but which is much less justifiable with the more expensive Pro model.
The display is also practically identical to that of its younger brother. We are in fact faced with a 5,2 inch IPS LCD screen with Full HD resolution and a maximum brightness of 650 nits. The result is a display that performs wonderfully in any situation and is not even afraid of direct sunlight.
Never change a winning team
BQ Aquaris X Pro is presented on the market with the exact same configuration as the cheaper model: Qualcomm Snapdragon 626 processor and Adreno 506 GPU. To change are the RAM, which now reaches 4 GB, and the internal memory, which can reach 128 GB depending on the configuration chosen.
To accompany the hardware, which is not very innovative in itself, we find the latest Android distribution, namely 7.1.1 in its stock version. A combination, the one created by BQ, that works really well. The interface is fluid, the terminal responsive and the user experience is absolutely pleasant and capable of keeping up with much more expensive devices. Simply put, you can use the BQ Aquaris X Pro for anything, confident that it can keep up.
The battery is also excellent, from 3.100 mAh, which allows you to get to the end of the day without major problems; if you tend to use it less intensely, know that Aquaris X Pro will have no problem taking you even to the next afternoon.
Then there is no flaw with regard to the telephone sector: the audio coming from the capsule is of good quality, the reception is excellent and the device performs well even by inserting two different SIMs. Finally, the speaker is more than discreet, offering powerful, clean and never distorted audio.
An amazing camera
The differences between Aquaris X and Aquaris X Pro become evident again when comparing the two cameras. While the first in fact uses a 298 megapixel Sony IMX16 sensor, the second comes with uon the 12 megapixel photocamera which is based on the same sensor as the Galaxy S7 and uses a bright F / 1.8 5-lens optics.
The shots turn out to be of excellent quality, the focus is very fast and the HDR works great. However, some problems arise at night, where the noise unfortunately becomes very evident.
Note of merit also for the front camera, from 8 megapixels, also with Samsung sensor. Of course, even in this case the result worsens in low light conditions, but to help you there will be a small LED Flash that will allow you to obtain more than discreet selfies even at night.
Finally, the videos are good, as long as they are shot in Full HD. In fact, by activating the 4K resolution the device will become a little less fluid in the recording, even by deactivating the digital stabilization.
European elegance
This BQ Aquaris X Pro is certainly not a perfect terminal, but we are close to it. In fact, putting aside the non-backlit soft touch keys and the problem with videos in 4K, we are faced with a device that has little or nothing to envy to the top of the range.
Of course, the camera does not allow us to obtain the excellent shots in the dark that other devices have accustomed us to, but we are talking about a smartphone that comes on the market with a base price of 339,90 euros. A real deal, especially considering the attention to detail and design of the Spanish engineers.
