A cheap Android smartphone with a 100 MP camera

Chinese manufacturers like to shake things up in the market by releasing extremely cheap phones that hide one or two features that we don't expect in such a low price range. This time, the manufacturer Cubot grabbed the spotlight with the X70 phone. For a price of just over €180, it has a 100 MP sensor, which we have so far only seen in a handful of phones that have always cost more than €500. You can buy it on Amazon.

The main advantage is, as mentioned, the 100 MP camera, which, at least in theory, should take care of excellent photos. My main concern is the MediaTek Helio G99 processor, which is not exactly known for top performance, at least not by today's standards, which could affect processing and photo capture. The sensor can be great, but without good accessories, the photos will be worse than they could be. Judging by the first impressions of users, the photos are good during the day, but not superb, the image stabilization is lame and the performance of the cameras in the dark or in poor lighting conditions. For €180, the results are still very good.

In addition to the main camera, it has a 5 MP macro camera for close-up shots and a 32 MP front camera for video calls and selfies. The screen has a diagonal of 6.58 inches with FullHD+ resolution. It is understandable that it is an LCD screen, but it has a fast refresh rate of 120 Hz. The battery also has a very generous capacity of 5200 mAh. All in all, the phone will be fast enough for most everyday tasks and also for gaming at low to medium resolutions. The battery should last at least a full day, if not a day and a half without any issues. Android 13 operating system is installed.

Another surprising component is the RAM, which the Cubot X70 has as much as 12 GB (+ 12 GB of virtual memory) and 256 GB of space for storing files. For just under 200 euros, I can only praise the phone. The dark side of cheap phones, however, is manufacturer support, which usually ends after a year or two.