Cubot X50 smartphone review: Sleek and smooth – but watch out for Wi-Fi Review | ZDNet

I like the Cubot range of phones. I have looked at slimline phones like the Cubot X30 and Cubot X19, and rugged phones like the Cubot Quest and the Cubot King Kong CS. Both styles of phones have been well constructed and have great performance.

I have received Cubot’s latest slimline and rugged phones for 2021. For the last month I have been using the newly released Cubot X50.

Inside the box you get the X50 phone, charger, USB type-C charging cable and a protective silicone clear case. There is also a SIM card remover pin.

I like the look and feel of the X50, and I love the size of its 6.67 inch screen with a resolution of 2400 x 1018px. Its aspect ratio is 20:9 and it has a tiny bezel giving a 92% screen to body ratio.

The Android 11 OS is quick and easy to install and there is no OEM bloatware installed as standard. The X50’s dimensions are 171 x 75 x 9mm, slightly smaller than the Doogee S86 Pro, and slimmer of course as the X50 has a smaller 4,500mAh battery.

Unfortunately the X50 I received had no SIM holder in the phone – even though out of the box the phone had been fitted with its clear silicone case.

I decided to use it anyway – and permanently tether it to my old phone for a couple of weeks whilst I waited for the SIM to arrive. The SIM when fitted has two slots, one for the phone, and one for the TF card which can extend the storage of the phone by up to 256GB.

Inside the Cubot X50 There is a MediaTek MT6771 octa core Helio P60 with 8GB RAM and 128 GB ROM which gives a nice streamlined experience with no lag.

The X50 has a decent camera. On the back of the phone there are four lenses and two LED lights for the flash or torch. The main lens is a Samsung 64MP camera, there is a 16MP ultra wide angle lens with a field of view of 124.8 degrees, and a 5MP macro lens.

There is also a 0.3MP photosensitive lens for light adjustment, and a good quality 32MP front facing camera

You can unlock the phone by using fingerprint ID using the sensor on the right hand side. You can also use face recognition which is accurate – even in fairly low light conditions. The X50 also has NFC for and Google Pay.

I like this phone – but there is a major drawback for me. Every day, sometimes twice per day, I found that I no longer was connected to the Wi-Fi stack. Turning the Wi-Fi on and off did not work and only a full reboot of the phone enabled me to connect to Wi-Fi again.

I initially thought that my home Wi-Fi network was at fault, but I went on holiday for two weeks and permanently tethered the X50 to my main phone via the hotspot (which I configured to stay connected constantly).

The Wi-Fi stack would not stay connected to the hotspot on my phone. Once or twice per day I would have to reboot the X50 to reconnect to the Wi-Fi. I checked that all updates had been supplied.

It is odd, because my normal phone stays connected to my home Wi-Fi for days – in fact I have never known it to disconnect – let alone daily.

This might be a Cubot feature, but I am watching the connection to Wi-Fi on the Cubot King Kong 50 I’ll cover next week to see if it behaves in the same way.

Apart from the Wi-Fi issue – the Cubot X50 is a streamlined phone with a nice look and feel. Watch out for the Wi-Fi connection dropping and reboot the device daily and all will be well.