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POCO F3 Review — Attractive Hardware For A Value Price
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POCO F3 Review — Attractive Hardware For A Value Price

by April 23, 2021
Overview
Highlights

Powered by a Snapdragon 870 chipset, the POCO F3 comes with several high end features such as a AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, dual speakers, and 33W fast charging at an attractive price tag.

Warranty

1-year warranty

Price

6GB+128GB - RM1,399
8GB+256GB - RM1,699

Positives

+ AMOLED display and 120Hz is an awesome combo
+ 33W fast charging
+ Decent build
+ Price tag is attractive

Negatives

- Camera is average
- Fingerprint magnet at the back
- 3.5mm headphone jack missing
- Weird bug after gaming

Pokde Scoreboard
Pokde Rating
Appearance
8.2
Efficiency
8.1
Features
7.9
Materials
7.5
Performance
8.0
Portability
8.5
User Experience
7.6
Value
8.3
Bottom Line

If performance is what you're looking for in a smartphone without spending too much, the POCO F3 is an attractive option for you.

8.0
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We take a look at POCO’s latest smartphone in this POCO F3 Review, a smartphone powered by the Snapdragon 870 chipset featuring an AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate, and a 48MP triple camera setup at the back. Before we start the review, we’d like to mention that we only received the phone by itself so we’ll have to skip on several parts that would normally be in the review such as unboxing and charging speed.

Appearance

POCO F3 Review

POCO F3 Review – Front

On the front, it sports a 6.67-inch AMOLED display. As you can see, there’s a small DotDisplay camera in the middle of it. There are small bezels around but it’s nothing excessive.

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POCO F3 Review – Bottom

At the bottom is where you’ll find the SIM tray, USB-C port, microphone, and the speaker grille.

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POCO F3 Review – Right

Switching to the right hand side is where you’ll find the usual volume rockers and power button, which also acts as a fingerprint sensor. The opposite side is completely naked however.

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POCO F3 Review – Top

Over on the top, you can find the secondary speaker of the device and IR blaster. Both top and bottom edges are straight and provides a nice finish to it.

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POCO F3 Review – Back

Swapping over to the back, you can see that we’ve got our hands on the Night Black variant of the POCO F3. It comes with a glossy finish that easily shows reflection. The POCO branding can be located on the bottom left and on the top right is where the triple camera setup is found.

POCO F3 Specifications

CPU Snapdragon 870 Octa-core (1 x 3.2GHz Kryo 585 & 3 x 2.42GHz Kryo 585 & 4 x 1.80GHz Kryo 585) 7nm
GPU Adreno 650
Memory 6GB/8GB LPDDR5
Storage 128GB/256GB UFS 3.1
Display 6.67-inch (2400×1080) FHD+ AMOLED, 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10+
Camera 48MP f/1.8 main camera, PDAF
8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide
5MP f/2.4 macro, AF
LED, Night Mode, HDR, AI, Panorama
4K/30fps, 1080/960fps
Selfie camera 20MP f/2.5
1080/30fps video recording, Portrait mode, AI camera
Connectivity 5G Band n1/n3/n5/n7/n8/n20/n28/n38/n41/n77/n78
LTE Band 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/12/17/20/28/38/40/41/66
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (2.4GHz + 5GHz), WiFi 6
Bluetooth 5.1
USB Type-C
Battery Li-Po 4520mAh (non removable)
33W fast charging
Dimensions 163.7 x 76.4 x 7.8mm
Weight 196g
Ingress protection No

Performance

Before we begin with the benchmarks, there are some of the benchmarks that we usually run on our reviews that aren’t working properly for the device (Geekbench 5 and 3DMark). Should they become available, we will update them accordingly for the POCO F3.

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POCO F3 Review – Antutu V8

The POCO F3 is not the first Snapdragon 870 smartphone that we’ve tested, where previously we’ve reviewed the vivo X60 Pro so we have a rough idea on the performance that it brings. Surprisingly, the device’s score here on Antutu is quite far from the latter.

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POCO F3 Review – PCMark Work 2.0

Over at PCMark Work 2.0, we can see that it doesn’t rank too well on the list, where it falls short behind its own predecessor, the POCO F2 Pro.

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POCO F3 Review – PCMark Battery

As for the battery benchmark, it’s a different case as it sits high on the list, only being beaten by the POCO F2 Pro. The battery lasted longer than the vivo X60 Pro which uses the same chip but it’s worth mentioning that the POCO F3 has a slightly bigger battery capacity.

When it comes to real-life usage, the smartphone performed as good as it showed over at the benchmark. With my typical usage, it would last me up to one and a half day before I’d need to juice it back up again, which is decent.

User Experience

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POCO F3 Review – User Experience

Holding the POCO F3 in my hands, it doesn’t give you a feeling of a RM1,400 device, it feels premium. It’s light on the hands and feels solid. Though I hate punch holes at the center of the display, I can forgive the F3 here as the camera cut out is actually quite small and not disruptive.

If I had to complain, I didn’t like the glass back of the device as it’s a fingerprint magnet. You’d definitely would want to put on a case to prevent those. Watching videos is enjoyable thanks to the AMOLED panel that comes with 120Hz refresh rate plus the dual speakers on hand. Other than that, it’s a shame that the phone doesn’t come with a 3.5mm headphone jack.

We decided to test the phone on Genshin Impact and after 10 minutes on the game, we can definitely feel the warmth as it is a very taxing game for smartphones. One weird thing that we’ve noticed is that after we quit the game, the moving background wallpaper suddenly became sluggish so POCO might want to do something about that.

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POCO F3 Review – UI

The skin for the device is similar to the POCO X3 Pro that we’ve recently reviewed and there’s nothing much to be added about it. In terms of user experience, it was pretty smooth and I had no issues whatsoever. I usually find the POCO launcher to be heavy for devices that has 4GB RAM but you should be fine with the POCO F3 coming with at least 6GB RAM.

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POCO F3 Review – Camera UI

The camera UI offers a similar experience where I have nothing to complain about. It’s direct and if you’re not satisfied with the layout, you can customize it to your liking, which is a nice thing to have.

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POCO F3 Review – Camera

Based on on the spec sheet itself, it seems like POCO has downgraded the cameras on hand as it only comes with a 48MP main camera, 8MP ultra-wide lens, and a 5MP macro shooter. We all know that pixel count isn’t everything when it comes to quality so let’s see the results.

While using the phone to capture several shots, it’s not bad, but then again, it’s nothing too impressive to talk about. In good lighting, it does a reasonable job as you’d expect. We can see there some color shifting going on when you switch between the lenses.

Overall, it offers a fair dynamic range in broad daylight. When it comes to night time however, it’s a mixed feeling for me as shots were often a hit or miss kind of thing. Sometimes, images get too soft and the Night Mode doesn’t do much.

Check out the full sized images by clicking the link right here.

Conclusion

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POCO F3 Review – Verdict

At the end of the day, the POCO F3 seems and feel like a solid device, especially if you’re upgrading from older smartphones. For the price, it’s a decent offering considering that you will get a high-end chipset, AMOLED display with 144Hz, 33W fast charging to name a few.

It is far from being a perfect device however but starting from the price of RM1,399, it is an ideal smartphone for those who want the performance without the need to splurge much of your money. For that, I award the POCO F3 with our Silver Pokdeward.

Pokde-Silver

Our thanks to POCO Malaysia for providing the POCO F3 that was used in this review.

About The Author
Raja Idris
The name's King, Kingky King. Likes to keep it simple and straightforward. A person who games regardless of what platform. Need value for money performance? Get AMD.

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