Poco X3 Best Review

 Poco X3 Best Review

Poco X3 Best Review: Poco X3 is powered with the newest Snapdragon 732G SoC

In case you've been waiting for the successor of the"flagship killer" Poco F1, you'll have to wait more.  

Poco has instead launched the mid-range Poco X3 which unites the Poco X2 at precisely the exact same series.  

Unlike a few other recent Poco tablets which borrow their design from their Redmi cousins, the Poco X3 includes a fresh design.  

It also boasts of the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G SoC which is an update over the Snapdragon 730G that forces the Poco X2.   Is this a suitable successor or a small upgrade?  Let's find out.

Poco X3 Design

Poco has gone ahead with a new design for its Poco X3 Rs 18,499, and it doesn't look like any Redmi model that is already on the market. 

Compared to the Poco X2 Rs 19,370, the new X3 loses the double selfie cameras and has one one rather, positioned directly in the centre towards the top of the smartphone. 

Poco has not changed anything regarding the display though, and you still receive a 6.67-inch panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. 

High refresh rates are slowly becoming common in the budget section, and if you match a lot on your smartphone, this will interest you.  T

He boundaries around the screen are slim but the camera hole may be distracting for a couple individuals.

Select the device up and you'll notice it is amazingly heavy.  Tipping the scales at 225g, this smartphone is even heavier than the Samsung Galaxy M51 that packs at a bigger 7,000mAh battery.  

Nevertheless, the burden of this Poco X3 is nicely balanced and the telephone is not very likely to tip and fall out of your hands.  But after using the device for some time, you may feel some fatigue.

Poco has made the frame and the back out of plastic.  In my experience, the back panel needed constant wiping as it kept picking up fingerprints.  Unsurprisingly, the Poco X3 has a quad-camera setup in the back in a thick and very noticeable module.  

The rear panel has a shiny round patch directly under the camera module, very similar to the Poco X2.  I discovered that the side-mounted fingerprint scanner to be well placed, however, the volume buttons are not easy to reach.

I had been pleasantly surprised to see Poco launch the X3 so soon after its predecessor.  The Poco X2 was started about seven months ago and managed to make a mark with what it had on offer.  

Poco has not changed much about the formulation; you still get a big full-HD+ screen with a 120Hz maximum refresh rate.  It doesn't change refresh rates mechanically, but enables you to choose between 60Hz and 120Hz.  

I had it put to the latter all the time that helped the Poco X3 provide a smooth visual encounter.  The panel also has a 240Hz touch sampling rate and the X3 is quick to respond to your actions.

There's a new processor under the hood, the Snapdragon 732G, that is much like the Snapdragon 730G concerning architecture but the CPU cores in addition to the GPU are clocked slightly higher.  This should result in better performance.  

Poco offers the X3 in three configurations: 6GB of RAM with 64GB of storage, 6GB of RAM with 128GB of storage, and 8GB of RAM with 128GB of storage.  These variants are priced at Rs. 16,999, Rs. 18,999, and Rs. 19,999 respectively.  I had the middle variant with this review.

While the International variant of this Poco X3 gets NFC, the Indian version overlooks it in favour of a bigger battery.  We now get a 6,000mAh battery and there's support for 33W quick charging.  Poco has also gone ahead with stereo speakers to the X3, and the smart phone is graded IP53 dust and water resistant.

Poco ships the X3 using MIUI 12 working along with Android 10, and it's quite a few customisations.  My device was operating the September Android security patch.  

There are quite a few bloatware programs and games preinstalled on the X3 and I'd suggest you take a little time and delete the ones you don't need.  Apps such as Topics and GetApps (a Play Store alternative) stored pushing notifications, which got annoying, and that I could not uninstall them.

The Poco X3 has powerful enough hardware to deliver decent performance, and I didn't confront any issues while using it.  The X3 is quick to load programs and games, and it is capable of multitasking very easily.  

I enjoyed watching videos to the Poco X3 as the display has good viewing angles and the stereo speakers do enhance the experience.  The side-mounted fingerprint scanner is quick, and face recognition only needed a quick glimpse to unlock the device.

For casual users, the Poco X3 is more than sufficient, and it should also retain some power users content.  I conducted AnTuTu about the Poco X3 and it managed 280,030 points.  

It also scored 8,328 points in PCMark Function 2.0.  The Poco X3 handled 567 and 1,777 points in Geekbench 5 single-core and multi-core ratings respectively.  It also managed 60fps in the GFXBench T-Rex graphics evaluation.

I played Call of Duty and Among Us on the Poco X3, and the device didn't show any signs of slowing down.   Call of Duty conducted easily at High settings with no difficulties.  I played the game for 25 minutes and observed that a 7 percent battery level drop on the smartphone.  The X3 was slightly warm to the touch after gambling.

Battery life is very nice and that the Poco X3 will last you over a day without any issues.   There's support for quick charging and Poco bundles a 33W charger in the box.  Using this, I could bill up the smartphone to 57 percent in thirty minutes, and 92 per cent within an hour.

The Poco X3 has a quad-camera setup consisting of a 64-megapixel main camera with an f/1.89 aperture, a 13-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera using a 119-degree field of view, a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a depth sensor.  

At the front, it has one 20-megapixel selfie shot.  The camera program is simple to use and has multiple shooting modes which you may choose from.

There are fast toggles for HDR as well as AI, which enables you to take control over from the smartphone whilst shooting.  The camera UI has transformed in MIUI 12 and is now easier to use.  

There's a new Vlog manner that adds background music and movie effects right while shooting.  This is new, and it might help save you a edit time by making it possible toupload video straight to social media.

That he Poco X3 adds a watermark on photos by default, so make sure you uncheck this option in the camera settings prior to going taking photographs.  Its 64-megapixel primary camera takes 16-megapixel photos by default.  Photos shot using the primary camera in daytime had good detail, and even text at a space was legible.  

The X3 crushes blacks rather harshly though, causing a loss of detail in the shadows.  Changing into the front-facing camera delivers a wider field of view but at the cost of detail.  The wide-angle camera also produced a slightly different color tone which was evident from the output.

Close-ups were nice and the Poco X3 managed good separation from the topic and the background.  Additionally, it adds a depth effect into the background.  Edge detection in portraits was good and the X3 does allow you set the level of blur until you take a shot.  

The macro camera is restricted to some 2-megapixel resolution and lets you get close to a topic, however, the output will be strictly average.

Low-light camera performance is average.  Pictures taken in the default style were had a watercolour-like effect.  Enabling Night mode made a noticeable difference to the output signal -- photographs were sharper and had improved detail.  

However, it takes 3-4 minutes to have a shot at Night mode.  The wide-angle camera isn't the best for shooting in low-light since it cannot capture as much light as the primary sensor.

Daylight selfies were adequate and you have the option to take portrait shots with the selfie shooter.  The AI doesn't detect faces with masks on and doesn't blur the background in these cases.  Selfies shot in low light were average, but this phone does let you use Night style for selfies.

Video recording maxes out at 4K for your primary camera and 1080p for the selfie shot.  In daylight, footage is stabilised at 1080p as well as 4K however there's a wobbly effect.  In low light, a shimmer effect is observable at both resolutions.

Verdict

It does everything only a little better in contrast to the Poco X2.  It offers better functionality and the larger battery helps it last a lot longer.  But, it is bulkier than its predecessor, which might be off-putting to a lot of possible buyers.  

If you were eyeing the Poco X2 but have the choice to invest a bit more, you could go ahead with the Poco X3 as it offers some excellent updates for a slight increase in cost.  The Realme 7 Pro Rs 19,999  is just another suitable option that you could consider for exactly the same quantity of money.

Great 

• Strong functionality 
• Stereo speakers

Bad

• Spammy notifications