The upcoming Poco X3 Pro has some big shoes to fill as the real successor to the legendary Poco F1. Well, not everyone wants all the new features – some customers who have tight budgets like choices on cameras, battery life, or even gaming results. The Poco F1 was all about its high-end processor and made no regrets for its delays. Poco also decided to adopt a slightly fresh approach to the X3 Pro, emphasizing the youth market. Furthermore, the parent Xiaomi unveiled in India recently the Mi 11X (Review) in other countries, known in terms of price as the Poco F3, similar to the F1.
Clearly, the Poco brand targets millennial consumers with flashy styles that are all over. On some newly unveiled Poco phones, we saw bold colors, unusual modular shapes, and sight-seeing designs. The X3 Pro looks a lot like the Poco X3, with an oversized camera module of the same kind in the back part, which looks like a shell flattened out on top and bottom.
There is a thick strip down the center of the rear panel, which is bright and reflective and has a pattern of diagonal lines that can be seen at some angles. This area at the rear quickly collects fingerprints and is much more distinctive as the matt sections on both sides remain fairly tidy. There is also an enormous Poco mark in this stripe, but it is outlined and not as powerful as in the X3, which makes it a little less in your face.
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Poco X3 Pro Performance
The Poco X3 Pro is most relevant with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 860 SoC. The processor is unique, and we see it for the first time in operation. Qualcomm typically provides several 800-series models each year, but now we have a mixing 870 and 860, not just the flagship Snapdragon 888. The Snapdragon 855 was a little tweaked a few years back, yet still quite strong according to today’s expectations. Yes, It is powerful. The use of Snapdragon 845 by Poco F1 conveys somewhat outdated but still quite capable of doing so.
The Snapdragon 860 has eight CPU core units with an ADRENO 640 embedded GPU, with one functioning at 2.96GHz, three at 2,42GHz, and four others 1.8GHz. The 5G modem has no built-in and, while 5G is still not a real reality in India, Poco could seem behind the curve because this is a major selling point at ₹20,000 prices for most other manufacturers.
You will get quite a big FHD+ LCD screen of 6.67 inches. It has a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz and a maximum touch rate of 240Hz and supports HDR10. There is a generous battery with a capacity of 5,160mAh and 33W and a suitable charger in the case. Poco has been using 3.1 UFS 128GB and LPDDR4X RAM 6GB or 8GB. The higher-end version has 256GB of capacity in other countries, although the market segmentation for India was measured apparently differently. Other requirements include Wi-Fi 5 dual-band, Bluetooth 5, GPS and high-resistance audio certifying, and stereo talkers.
Poco’s phone runs on MIUI Operating System, becoming a Xiaomi offshoot. In MIUI OS, there are features including Game Turbo, a Videos Toolbox overlay, and a Second Privacy Room for optimizing and shortcutting the UI. For short toggles and alerts, you can adapt the notification shade to iOS and switch between on-screen buttons and navigation gestures—many previously downloaded applications like the GetApps store, the Themes browser, and several spam alerts. If you don’t want to see advertised content, you must also uninstall the Glance lock screen carousel.
In casual daily usage, you can now predict perfectly smooth results when paid for a smartphone for about 20,000, and that is what the Poco X3 Pro provides. The hardware is more than sufficient to run both the social media and networking applications and casual games.
The Snapdragon 860 SoC is fine, as the reference tests indicate. A score of 5,43,796 was posted by AnTuTu 9, which is notable for a smartphone of this standard. In comparison, 2 71,830 is handled by Redmi Note 10 Pro Max and 3,35,698 by the Realme X7 5G (though scores for older versions of AnTuTu are not directly comparable). The X3 Pro managed 752 and 1.892 points, respectively, in the Geekbench 5 single and multi-core evaluations. The 3DMark T-Rex and the Car Chase scenes played at 116fps and 39fps, respectively, with 3,476 results. 3DMark posted the results of the graphics comparison.
In terms of color reproduction, the screen on the X3 Pro is not the highest that we can see at this price range. It’s good for casual use, but you can be a little underwhelmed if you want your content to pop. The high rate of refresh rate is good, and HDR begins when you play YouTube videos. The camera hole is on the bigger side by the standards today, and in lighter scenes, it can be distractive in videos. High-quality music is not the only good thing about stereo speakers, and though those on the Poco X3 Pro are noisy and good enough for sound effecting at sports.
The life of the battery is pretty good. Even an hour or two of games, you can comfortably go a whole day. You might also extend for a day and a half if you use it moderately. In 30 minutes, the Poco X3 charged 55% and 93% in an hour, with the 33W, which was not at all bad.
Poco X3 Pro Camera
Poco’s rear cameras of the X3 Pro were in an odd twist than with the Poco X3. You will get a 48-megapixel main camera and an ultra-wide 8-megapixel instead of a 64- and 13-megapixel variant, respectively, in the same sequence. Naturally, the accuracy of sensors and lenses is much more critical than the resolution itself. It’s fun to see if you’re ready to take a peek beyond the normal marketing slogan, “bigger is better.” There is also a macro camera of 2 megapixels and a sensor of 2 megapixels.
The 20-megapixel front camera has no natural skin tones, and the default smoothens for a normal person’s taste is too brutal. Both day and night selfies are fine, but they are not great. Portrait mode is good when the backdrop is separated, even though the emphasis is not always flawless.
The main back camera enables video capture up to 4K 30fps. No stabilization is there, and we can see a bit of jitter when you are moving in the frame, regardless of the resolution. As with stills, the quality for casual use is OK, but at this price range, you should improve. Video taken during the night is grainy and dull in bright streetlights.
Poco X3 Pro Pricing:
The Poco X3 Pro has been released with a RAM of 6GB and a storage capacity of 128GB starting from ₹18,999 in India. If you like the 8GB RAM Variant, ₹20,999 will be charged for that variant. You will see a difference between 6GB and 8GB of RAM when you consider yourself a power user and intend this smartphone to be used for many years. The choice of graphite dark, steel-blue and golden bronze exist in three different colors.
