Cubot X100 Review: A Genuinely Stylish Entry-Level Phone That Knows What It Is

The Cubot X100 is the brand's other non-rugged budget line, sitting alongside the existing Cubot P90 rather than replacing it. Root Nation's review specifically praised the phone for feeling "reminiscent of the Cubot A40 but with upgraded hardware and improved cameras" — a fair, modest framing that holds up across the rest of its coverage too. What actually sets the X100 apart from a sea of similarly-specced budget phones isn't the main camera or chipset, though — it's a small secondary touchscreen built directly into the rear camera module, a feature Root Nation built its entire review around and one this phone shares with only a handful of other devices at any price. Notebookcheck's aggregation of that review lands the phone at a solid 82% overall — a genuinely respectable score for the price bracket, and one this review's deeper breakdown of strengths and compromises below explains in full.

Design and Build

Available in Black and a distinctive Gold-Copper finish, the X100 measures 171.9 x 78.1 x 8.9mm and weighs 207g, with a glass front on a plastic frame and back. Root Nation called the gold-copper colourway genuinely premium-looking despite the entirely plastic construction — a real, honest compliment for the price bracket rather than faint praise. There's no official IP rating for dust or water resistance, so this isn't a phone to treat casually around rain or splashes the way a genuinely rugged Cubot model would allow. Unite4buy's more critical review is blunter about the compromises this construction brings: it specifically calls out wide screen bezels and a 16MP front-camera housing the reviewer describes as "a direct descendant of 2018," alongside the widespread use of plastic instead of tempered glass or metal elsewhere on the body. Both reviews agree, though, that the rear panel's texture and the camera module — which visually integrates the secondary display into a single design element — look more considered than the price would suggest. A side-mounted fingerprint sensor and a dedicated "smart button" on the left edge round out the physical controls, with that button supporting distinct single-, double-, and long-press actions.

The Secondary Display

The X100's defining feature is a 1.72-inch TFT touchscreen built into the rear camera module, running at 320 x 380 pixels. Root Nation's review describes it functioning "much like a built-in smartwatch": it shows the time, incoming notifications, and battery status, offers basic music playback controls, and even includes a compass. Wake it either by pressing the smart button or double-tapping the screen, and it works while the phone is placed face-down on a surface — genuinely useful for a quick glance at a notification without lighting up, and draining, the much larger 6.88-inch main panel.

The more interesting use case is photography. Because the secondary screen sits right next to the 64MP main sensor, it doubles as a viewfinder for selfies shot on the rear camera rather than the weaker 16MP front lens — a genuinely practical workaround for a common budget-phone compromise, not a gimmick bolted on for a spec sheet. Cubot isn't new to this idea: Root Nation's wider coverage of the brand notes similar secondary-display setups have appeared on the Cubot P90, the Cubot A20, and several rugged KingKong-series models, so this is a recognizable house feature rather than a one-off experiment on the X100 specifically. Whether it's worth the trade-offs elsewhere in the phone is a separate question, but as a piece of functional, thought-through hardware at this price, reviewers are consistent that it works as advertised.

Main Display

The main panel is a 6.88-inch IPS LCD at 720 x 1640 resolution (~260ppi), running up to 120Hz with Mohs level 6 scratch protection. Reviewers land in genuinely different places on how this reads day to day. Root Nation found the display "comfortable to look at, offering natural color reproduction and sufficient brightness," and rated the phone's overall display category a strong 70% in Notebookcheck's aggregated scoring. Unite4buy is considerably less forgiving, calling the HD+ resolution on a screen this large "unpleasantly surprising" and concluding it results in "mediocre clarity" up close. Both things can be true at once: at typical arm's-length viewing distance and with the smooth 120Hz refresh rate doing a lot of work to mask the modest pixel density, day-to-day use is comfortable, but anyone who looks closely at fine text or detailed images will notice the resolution shortfall unite4buy flagged directly.

Camera

The rear array pairs a 64MP main sensor with phase-detect autofocus (but no optical image stabilization) alongside a 5MP ultrawide and a 2MP macro camera, with a 16MP fixed-focus front camera for standard selfies. Reviews are consistent that this is a one-lens system in practice: unite4buy found the secondary ultrawide and macro sensors "practically useless," and even the main sensor — lacking OIS — "can't deliver good detail in evening photos," a real, disclosed low-light weakness rather than a close call. In well-lit conditions the main 64MP sensor is genuinely competent, consistent with how most budget triple-camera systems in this bracket perform: one camera doing the real work, two along for the spec sheet. The one place the X100 has a real answer other budget phones don't is selfies specifically — using the secondary rear display as a viewfinder lets you shoot self-portraits on the capable 64MP main sensor instead of the much weaker 16MP front camera, a genuinely useful workaround for the segment's usual selfie-quality compromise, even if it requires the extra step of flipping the phone around. Video recording tops out at 1080p on both the rear and front cameras — there's no 4K capture at all, a real ceiling worth knowing about if video quality matters to you, and a further sign of where Cubot chose to spend its component budget on this phone.

Software

The X100 ships on Android 15, and Root Nation's review specifically praises how close to stock the experience is — "free from pre-installed bloatware, heavy graphical skins, or proprietary manufacturer features," a genuine point of difference from budget phones that bury a clean OS under a heavy custom launcher. Two software features are worth knowing about beyond the interface itself: Dura Speed, which prioritizes whichever app is active by restricting background processes (with user-configurable exceptions so essential apps aren't affected), and support for virtual RAM expansion, letting the phone borrow up to an additional 8GB from internal storage to supplement its physical RAM under heavier multitasking loads.

Performance

MediaTek's Dimensity 7025 on a 6nm process — an octa-core setup pairing two 2.5GHz Cortex-A78 cores with six 2.0GHz Cortex-A55 cores — paired with the IMG BXM-8-256 GPU and a choice of 8GB or 12GB of physical RAM, handles everyday multitasking and light gaming reasonably well according to Root Nation's testing, which found the device "operates stably, without noticeable lag or freezes." Unite4buy's benchmarking backs that up with real, measured numbers rather than a general impression: an AnTuTu score of 487,933 and a Geekbench single-core result of 948 — solidly entry-level figures that match the chip's positioning honestly rather than overselling it as mid-range silicon. This is honestly-positioned entry-level performance throughout, not an overreaching marketing claim: comfortable for everyday apps and casual gaming with reduced graphics settings, not a phone built for sustained demanding workloads.

Connectivity

The X100 supports 5G alongside dual Nano-SIM connectivity, dual-band Wi-Fi (802.11 a/b/g/n/ac — the older Wi-Fi 5 standard rather than Wi-Fi 6, a real if minor omission at this point), Bluetooth 5.1, GPS, and NFC for contactless payments. One real, practical trade-off worth planning around: the second SIM slot is a hybrid design shared with microSD expansion, so using two physical SIM cards means giving up the ability to add storage beyond the fixed 256GB built in, and vice versa — not a hidden limitation, but one worth knowing before buying rather than discovering afterward. There's also no 3.5mm headphone jack; audio output over a wired connection requires a USB-C adapter, and there's no IR blaster for using the phone as a remote control, a feature some budget rivals still include.

Price and Availability

Root Nation priced its review unit at roughly $160 on AliExpress, framing that as "the upper half of the budget segment — an area where consumer expectations increase, and the choice typically comes down to either a well-known brand or impressive specs." That's a fair way to think about where the X100 sits: not the cheapest phone in its class, but priced to compete on capability rather than on being the absolute lowest bid. The review unit arrived in Cubot's standard green retail box alongside a plastic case, a screen protector already applied, a SIM tool, a USB-C cable, a charging adapter, and a manual — a complete, no-surprises unboxing rather than a stripped-down budget-phone bundle. As with most Cubot devices, there's no official retail presence in the UK, US, or EU: buying one from those regions means going through AliExpress or a similar import channel, with the usual caveats around warranty support and delivery times that come with that route.

Battery and Charging

A 5,100mAh battery with 33W wired charging (no wireless charging support) is a solid, dependable spec for the price. Unite4buy's measured testing found the combination of the energy-efficient Dimensity 7025 and that battery capacity delivers roughly 9-10 hours of active screen time — a genuinely competitive result for a budget phone, and one that, combined with the secondary display's ability to handle quick glances without waking the larger panel, likely stretches real-world endurance further for anyone who uses that feature regularly.

Verdict

Frequently Asked Questions

How it compares: X100 vs P90

Cubot

X100

From £150 (import only)

61

Cubot

P90

From £150

58

vs

Dimensity 7025

Chip

Helio G100

64MP + 5MP + 2MP

Main cam

—

5,100mAh · 33W

Battery

5,100mAh

From £150

Price

From £150

Full X100 review

Full P90 review