Features ◆The Poco M3 value begins at Rs. 10,999 in India ◆It packs in a 6,000mAh battery and offers great battery life ◆The triple came...
Features
◆The Poco M3 value begins at Rs. 10,999 in India
◆It packs in a 6,000mAh battery and offers great battery life
◆The triple camera arrangement conveys normal camera execution
Poco M3 design
The Poco M3 has a design that is similar to the Poco F1. The only differences between the two phones are that the M3 has a dual-rear camera setup and that it has a more traditional fingerprint scanner than the Poco F1. The front is all-plastic, with a single-piece metal back. The 2.5D curved glass does give it a premium look and feel though. The fingerprint scanner on the M3 is accurate and reliable, though the backplate doesn't offer a good grip, though the added use of the rear fingerprint scanner should make the phone more comfortable to hold. The Poco M3 measures 157.37x75.38x8.05mm and weighs 180 grams, making it slightly taller, wider and thicker than the Redmi 9 Power and the Moto G9 Power, though it is lighter than both. It does sport a 12MP+5MP dual rear camera setup and a 20MP front facing selfie camera with dual LED flash and Face Unlock, both of which are relatively identical to the Poco F1 and Moto G9 Power. The selfie camera offers Portrait mode.
On the right edge of the phone you'll find the power button, which is slightly recessed and gets the soft-touch finish. There is a physical micro USB port with 2.5D curved edges, and the 3.5mm headphone jack is housed on the top edge. The SIM tray is on the left. The phone has a 5.99-inch 18:9 IPS LCD display with a resolution of 720x1520 pixels and 2.5D curved glass. It looks like a standard 18:9 display, but it has rounded corners and a very small chin. The display has very good viewing angles and offers a solid viewing experience even when outdoors. Colours are accurate and the brightness levels are quite good. The response time is good too, and this phone is well suited for outdoor use. The display quality is very similar to the display on the Redmi 9 Power, though we found it a tad brighter. The screen also supports Dolby Vision HDR, something that the Moto G9 Power doesn't have. The phone has a single speaker which is located at the bottom edge of the phone, and is tuned by AKG. This is the loudest speaker we've heard on a phone this year. The audio is loud and crisp, and the audio quality is good even at high volume levels.
Poco M3 software The Poco M3 runs MIUI 10, the latest version of MIUI, and is based on Android 8.1 Oreo. It looks almost identical to the MIUI 9 based Poco F1 in terms of software, apart from the lack of gesture-based navigation, and the Poco launcher. One major advantage of this software is that it is nearly stock Android, unlike other Chinese OEMs who try to give their phones an Android look and feel. You will also find features like a Do Not Disturb mode, the option to view the battery percentage on the status bar, and the option to customise your wallpaper. You also get the ability to run two apps in split screen view and run two accounts of WhatsApp and Facebook. Poco has also provided some useful camera software in its camera app, and there are a lot of features that we didn't find on the M1 and M2. For example, there is a face recognition feature which works well for unlocking the phone when wearing glasses. There are three main modes, HDR, panorama and slow motion, which should cater to most users. The front-facing camera, which is a 16MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture, also supports a feature called Portrait mode that allows you to adjust the lighting after you take a shot. It also offers portrait lighting, which simulates the look of a DSLR. The settings are quite complicated and we were never quite sure of what was what, but this can be altered to your liking. There are a couple of editing features as well which are a bit gimmicky. Overall, the Poco M3 gets the software aspect of a stock Android phone right, and in our experience, there was hardly any lag when opening apps or switching between them. There was no app or message looping bug either. Poco M3 performance, cameras and battery life The Poco M3 uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 SoC which is the same processor found on the Redmi Note 6 Pro and the Moto G6. This SoC was paired with 6GB of RAM, and both of these phones did pretty well in our benchmark tests. In AnTuTu, the Poco M3 scored more than the Redmi Note 6 Pro, thanks to a better processor, more RAM and larger battery. In our HD video loop test, the phone managed to run for 17 hours and 41 minutes. This is very impressive, but it is worth noting that this phone runs Qualcomm's ultrasonic fingerprint scanner, which is a faster alternative to the physical fingerprint scanner found on other phones. You also get face recognition and the phone does well when it comes to unlocking the phone. In our benchmark tests, the Poco M3 managed an impressive score of 223,088, which is higher than the score of the Redmi Note 6 Pro (208,149), which is a much higher-end phone than the M3. In PCMark, the Poco M3 scored 7,360 which is slightly lower than the score of the M2 (8,637). The Poco M3 also managed just 24fps in GFXbench's Manhattan stress test. The phone feels smooth during everyday use. The Poco M3 has 2.5D curved glass on the front, and it is quite comfortable to hold. There is no Gorilla Glass protection on the phone, which makes it prone to fingerprint smudges. The smartphone gets pretty hot after extended use. As mentioned earlier, the Poco M3 is backed by a 4,000 mAh battery, which is more than the 2,700 mAh battery that the M2 has. Poco says that the battery has a fast charge feature, but we never tried this.
Verdict The Poco M3 gets most of the right things right in our opinion. It looks stylish and sports a powerful processor, a large battery, and a good-looking design. The Poco launcher is fairly basic, and could be improved upon. If you are buying a phone based on its design, the M3 seems like a good choice. There are some nifty software features, but we'd like the fingerprint sensor to be located on the back, or it can use the ultrasonic method to unlock the phone.
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