POCO F3 1 Month Review - Exceptional. By The Tech Chap

You know what it's been a long time since I've actually wanted to spend this much time with an affordable budget phone, but the Poco f3 kind of redefines what you can expect to get for this kind of money, so I've spent the best part of the last month. With this in my pocket. I didn't want to rush out a quick review, as this is something special and, in my opinion at least it's the best phone. You can buy right now for around 330 pounds or 350 euros. So why is the f3 so special? Well keep that price in mind, and we're getting a 120 hertz AMOLED screen the brand-new snapdragon 870 g processor, which supports 5g and in terms of performance, is only just behind the flagship triple eight that you gain: phones that cost two or three times as much. We get great battery life, a solid, triple camera setup and an impressively sleek design.

This is just 7.8 millimeters thick, and also we get this lovely white satiny, look to the gorilla glass 5 body and together with the 360 hertz touch sampling and that 120 hours refresh rate, it's an incredibly responsive phone, particularly in games, and also the fact that we get stabilized 4k video, whereas usually at this price range, it's only smooth at 1080p. It is genuinely, as the title says, an exceptional phone but nothing's perfect, and there are still a few compromises with this. For example, the camera setup isn't the best in the world and actually the mix 582 sensors on the main lens is a couple of years old. Now we also don't get any kind of IP water resistance rating, and also the lack of micro, SD card support and the fact that there's no three and a half mil headphone jack are a bit disappointing, although Poco do bundle a three and a half mil two USB adapter in the box, along with the 33 watt, fast charger, there's also a bunch of pre-installed apps aka bloatware, which you'll probably want to remove or hide into folders. But aside from that, I think the mini 12 software on top of android 11, is nice to use and there are tons of customization.

But you have to keep reminding yourself. This costs just 330 pounds or thereabouts, which is in the same ballpark as something like the new Nokia x20. This is about 300 pounds and this actually comes with a 60 hertz LCD screen and a much lower power. Snapdragon 480 processor, again similar price or you've got the new realm 8 pro, which does cost about 60 pounds less. So it's a little cheaper, but there's no 5g.

We have a pretty old and slow snapdragon, 720 g processor, it's still only 60 hertz as well, and also this slightly questionable design, which I'm not really a huge fan of. But it's a little less. I guess so. Yes, this is a little more expensive, but you're getting a lot more for your money, but speaking of the processor, because this is actually one of the more interesting specs on the f3, and it's slightly frustrating that Poco and Xiaomi actually block the use of benchmarks on some phones. So on this geek bench 5 crashes before it completes- and it doesn't even let me download benchmarks in 3dmark, but still what I do know is the snapdragon 870 g chip is essentially an overclocked version of last year's 865, plus it's about 10 faster.

So what it means is that this is faster than most of last year's flagship phones and together with that 120 hertz refresh it's incredibly fast, and it comfortably maxes out games that support the higher refresh. So don't let this stylish thin and light design fool you. This is one of the best mid to high-end gaming phones. You can buy even more so than the traditionally more gaming oriented Poco x3 pro now to be fair. This is about 50 pounds cheaper than the f3 plus you get a bigger battery micro, SD and a headphone jack as well as tougher guerrilla glass 6, and some basic ip53 watch resistance, so the x3 pro is still worth considering, but I would definitely pay the extra to get the f3, which gets you 5g, an AMOLED rather than LCD screen a faster snapdragon 870 rather than the 860, and it's also one and a half millimeters thinner and about 20 grams, lighter anyway back to the f3, and I want to talk to you guys about this camera because it's good, but in what is otherwise an incredible phone.

I do feel like the camera. Maybe is one of the more mediocre features. It's a triple lens setup, with a 48 megapixel main, along with an eight megapixel ultra-wide and a third five megapixel macro lens. So by default we get pixel, bins, 12, megapixel photos and, on the face of it, photos, look sharp with a good amount of detail. Although if you do look a little closer fine detail often looks a bit over processed either unnaturally sharp or quite soft and blurry.

This seems to be particularly true in portraits her face kind of lacks detail and looks a bit artificial, so in some respects the f3 actually falls behind cheaper phones, like the Redmi Note, 10 pro or the Realme pro 8 that actually have higher 108 megapixel resolution cameras. But to its credit, the f3 does offer some impressive dynamic range and throughout the colors, are accurate and true to life. You can also digitally zoom in two times five times or ten times are the standard options and two times is fine, but beyond that it's a bit of a mess, since we don't have a proper telephoto lens or any kind of lossless zoom that we might get on a 108 megapixel phone, but it does seem to struggle in low light, even when I'm using night mode, it doesn't make that much of a difference. Colors are still a bit unnatural, and it just doesn't get that bright. Selfies do look good, though, even accurately, representing my purely hay fever-ridden eyes and on the whole I think the selfie camera is better than I expected.

And finally, when it comes to video, you can shoot up to 4k 30 or 1080p 60 up front. But, as I mentioned earlier, it is impressive that we're getting stabilized 4k video on a phone for this money. For example the Redmi Note 10 pro, is a shaky mess at 4k. So the camera is good, but there's nothing really to write home about, and it would have been good to see. Maybe a 108 megapixel sensor like we get on the note 10 pro, but it's absolutely fine.

What I was surprised about, though, is the battery life. It's actually very good. The 45 20 million power cell is a good size, although it's not the biggest, and it's about 500 less than the Poco x3 pro or the Redmi Note 10 pro, but still after 10 hours of YouTube at 50 brightness, the f3 still have 30 of his life remaining and if you do keep it at 120, hertz like I do, it will automatically switch between 60, 90 and 120, depending on what you're doing to save battery. So I wouldn't say it's best in class battery, but it's definitely above average and will confidently get you over a day. So that's the f3, fantastic design, great battery life, really, really good performance with that snapdragon 870 g chip 5g a good camera, if not the best in the world and overall, just a perfect package.

As I say, for an affordable, slash budget phone. It's a shame. We don't have a headphone jack or micro SD, and it would have been good to maybe get that high resolution camera option as well, but for 330 pounds if you want a premium affordable phone with 5g as well. I don't think there's a better option than this, which is saying something because there are about a billion perfect budget phones at the moment. And if you do want to spend a little less, then I would go with the Redmi Note 10 pro.

But what do you reckon? Would you be tempted to buy this and if not, why not? Let me know in the comments below thank you so much for watching guys if you've got any questions about this at all. Let me know, and I'll see you guys next time right here on the tech chat thanks for watching.

Source : The Tech Chap