Whenever it comes to mobile phones, there’s always tough and cut-throat competition involved with the budget segment. If you see the 15,000 to 20,000 INR (200-300 USD) market, the segment involves every brand as we know. From Xiaomi to Vivo and from Oppo to Samsung, every brand has its budget champs. Many people may think the sale of flagships devices is the only concerns for major brands, but, in reality, this market is like a gold rush to them. Every major brand is going up for it one way or another.
While some brands saw the potential in it before anybody else, some are taking their time to realize it. Even, Apple changed its perspective and started making some budget-friendly devices. For instance, the SE series from iPhone was specially designed to attract people who want budget-friendly devices. Before that, Apple used to be an exclusive for sophisticated users.
Xiaomi Saw The Potential & Unleashed POCO
Of all the brands, Xiaomi uncovered the potential in the budget friendly segment and never stopped acting upon it. Since its inception, they’ve launched a bunch of budget-friendly devices under its name. Xiaomi even started brands like Redmi & POCO and made them go independent. These brands are now capturing the budget segments like no one else, especially POCO.
Since 2018, POCO has released some amazing smartphones that are absolute budget monsters. Even its newest release, M3 has shattered every sale record. Its first sale sold more than 150,000 Units and created new records in Flipkart. We all know how POCO F1 disrupted every sales figure out there and made everyone mad. The phone single-handedly built an empire for the brand in Asia and European markets. Now, POCO has launched two new models for the global markets, POCO X3 pro and POCO F3. Both of these models were designed to capture the budget segment by storm. Especially X3 Pro, the phone is a mid-range beast.
POCO X3 PRO Unboxing
Let’s see a quick unboxing video of the new POCO X3 Pro before jumping to its initial impressions.
POCO X3 Pro Design Impressions
The phone looks amazing. It looks similar to its predecessor POCO X3 NFC, however, the phone has got its unique design elements. The stripe pattern on the back combined with a glossy finish on the sides gave this phone a distinctive look. In addition to that, the camera bump that holds the quad-camera setup looks striking and compliments the design.
The design also does not attract any fingerprints and I like it when companies designed their smartphones like this. Design-wise, this model is an absolute stunner and looks fantastic for everyday usage. However, if POCO managed to make it more sleek and thin, this would’ve conquered the mid-range smartphone segment entirely by storm.
Although the phone looks a tad bit bulky, the extra protection from Corning Gorilla Glass 6 is a noteworthy feature that has to be mentioned here. In general, this range of protection is only available for flagship smartphones. For instance, Samsung S20 and ASUS ROG phones are flaunting this level of protection and they cost an average monthly pay of a software engineer. Kudos to POCO for bringing that to a budget segment smartphone. POCO X3 Pro is available in 3 different variants. It is available in golden bronze, graphite black and steel blue.
Verdict: Design-wise, this phone looks stunning. However, a slightly slim body would never kill anyone.
POCO X3 Pro Battery & Power
POCO X3 Pro comes with a gigantic battery (5610mAh) and a big charging (33W fast charging ) brick to juice it up. According to GSM Arena reports, POCO X3 Pro got a total 113h endurance rating. It is said that the battery can withstand nearly 33 hours of calls, 17 hours online, or play videos for half a day. The 5160 mAh battery is more than good enough for daily usage.
However, for hardcore gaming enthusiasts, you might observe some serious battery discharges depending on the games and their display settings. If the settings were maxed out, you might observe the highest rate of battery consumption with some games.
The 33W adapter and a 3A-rated USB-C cable inside the box is a lifesaver. According to POCO, the adapter can refill up to 59% in 30 mins and can reach 100% in 59 mins. However, we observed some slight differences here. According to our test, the charging brick was able to fill 50% of the battery in 34 Minutes and 100% in 67 minutes.
Verdict: The battery was monstrous. For normal usage, the phone will certainly make it to the end of the day. However, the charging speeds are descent and not jaw dropping.
POCO X3 Pro Performance
As the name itself suggests. this phone is a real pro performer. POCO X3 Pro comes with Snapdragon 860, a new and improved chipset range from Qualcomm. It’s the fastest 4G chipset ever made by the company and POCO X3 Pro is the only phone that’s getting this chipset (as of now). That’s not it, the powerful chipset has also got a powerful wingmen of its own. A DDR5 RAM and UFS 3.1 storage for faster storage accessing. Together they took the phone’s performance to a whole new level.
It comes with two variants to choose from. An 6GB+128GB model & 8Gb+256 GB Model. Both of these models are fast and certainly gives you a bang for your bucks.
Verdict: The phone has got an amazing combo of a Powerful Chipset (Snapdragon 8-Series) combined with the fastest storage (UFS 3.1) and powerful RAM (6GB/8GB). Performance-wise, it’s the fastest in the price segment we’ve ever seen.
Gallery : POCO X3 Pro
POCO X3 Pro Camera
POCO X3 Pro comes with a Quad Bayer camera setup on the back. The main sensor is a 48MP Sony IMX 582 with aperture F1.79. Apart from this the other three were 8 MP Ultra-wide, 2MP Macra and 2MP Depth sensor. Apart from these 4 camera on the back, X3 Pro also got a 20 MP shooter for taking selfies.
This particular segment has got a massive downgrade when compared to its predecessor. X3 NFC has got a 64 MP camera instead of 48 MP. Maybe, I think, it was taken down in order cut some slack in phone’s budget. However, interestingly, the quality of the pictures taken from X3 Pro are just as same as X3 NFC. Except long exposure shots, X3 Pro equaled it’s predecessor in every segment.
The shots taken using ultra-wide camera are descent, but noise was observed while zooming in. The dynamic range was also not good. The same was observed for the front camera as well. Especially at low light conditions, you’ll observe lots of noise with these shooters. However, things get reversed when enough light was there. The other two cameras were also having the same sub par performance range.
Verdict: The main shooter was good and the real potential of it unlocks in bright lights. The cameras of this phone were more of a morning performers than night. If you want some stunning pictures with it, plan them during the day. You will certainly get amazed with the color profile and details.
POCO X3 Pro Operating System:
Out of the box, POCO X3 Pro comes with Android 11 Based MIUI 12. There’s absolutely nothing new about the OS of this phone. We’ve seeing MIUI a lot lately on many Xiaomi phones and the experience on it was also just the same. I observed a lot of hate towards MIUI on Internet. However, being a MIUI user for over 5 years, I can say that OS is improving a lot.
I still remember the feeling when I saw MIUI for the first time. It’s slugging, not appealing and the bloatware is absolutely out of the world. However, it has improved a lot today. The animations are pretty smooth, responsive and neat as well. I think its just a matter of time, MIUI might become the go to OS for phones.
Verdict: OS on this phone was quite descent and the animations were smooth. But, It needs some polish here and there to make it clean and more responsive. Maybe a simpler UI might make MIUI more usable.
