Poco M3 review: Stylish and feature-rich budget phone

Poco, earlier in the month, launched the M3 series, the company's first mobile of 2021. It promises a lot for a pocket-friendly price. However, it faces fierce competition from Infinix, Tecno, and Realme in the budget segment.

. I used the Poco M3 for a week and here're my thoughts on the new smartphone.

. Design, build quality and display Poco M3 comes with a top-class futuristic design language. The bright yellow model is an instant eye-grabber, but the power black unit too, looks really good in the sunlight. The company also offers Cool Blue and is worth checking out.

. It has a dual-tone finish. While the top portion houses a raven coloured smooth camera module with three sensors and LED flash along with a massive Poco branding to the right. The ivory-hued engraving doesn't hurt the visual appeal at all but adds value to the aesthetics.

. The rest of the space is occupied with leather-like material and exudes premium hand-feel. But, most importantly, it offers an excellent grip for the fingers to hold on to the phone. If you are worried that the back may get damaged over time from fingernails, the company offers really soft and sturdy transparent silicone cover.

. Also, it is one of the very few in the budget class to boast Corning Gorilla Glass 3 shield on the display. This will protect against daily wear and tear, for instance, resist small scratches from keys and pens in the pocket.

. It has two speakers on the top with a 3.5mm audio jack and IR blaster at the top and another at the base with Type-C Port and mic. The device offers really surround sound effect and loud enough to liven up any room in the house into party mode.

. On the top left side, you will find the SIM tray slot, it has three dedicated spaces for two SIMs (nano + nano) and a microSD card to expand storage. On the opposite side, there is volume rockers and a power button, which by the way comes with a fitted capacitive fingerprint sensor. It worked flawlessly during the entire review period. Big thumbs up to the Poco engineers from my side.

. On the front, it sports a 6.53-inch full HD+ LCD screen with 2340 × 1080p resolution and has a pixel density of 394 ppi (pixels per inch), peak brightness up to 400 nits, 60Hz screen refresh rate, and a contrast ratio of 1500: 1. It has a dew-drop design with the front camera occupying a very small space at the top and the rest is a fully functional display. It has a 90.3% screen-to-body ratio.

. The display is bright and decent enough to watch HD videos for long hours and also while doing other chores like browsing, and viewing emails did not face any pressing issues to read the content even under sunlight.

. Performance: Poco M3 comes packed with an 11nm class Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 octa-core processor, which can clock a peak speed of 2GHz. It is backed by Adreno 610 graphics engine and 6GB RAM.

. It runs Android 10-based MIUI 12.0.3 OS. It offers an array of customisation and shortcuts to key features. The MIUI continues to be the best among peers to user-friendly interface over the Android platform.

. The device comes in two storage-- 64GB and 128GB. Users get the option to expand the memory up to 512GB storage.

. Poco M3 works smoothly in terms of day-to-day tasks such as launching apps, switching between multiple apps, playing videos, or gaming for long hours without any issues of over-heating.

. As far as the battery life is concerned, the Poco M3 features a 6,000mAh Lithium-ion polymer battery. It consistently lasted two days under normal usage. If you indulge too much of gaming or binge-watch videos on OTT (Over-The-Top) apps, the phone still can deliver a full day's battery life. It comes with a 22.5W charger with a retail box. But, for now, it supports 18W charging capability and it takes a little over two hours to fully power up the phone from zero to 100%. It also supports 2.5W reverse charging to power up other devices just like a power bank.

. Camera: As mentioned earlier, Poco M3 features triple camera module-- one main 48MP(f/1.79) + 2MP depth + 2MP 4cm sensor (f/2.4) with LED flash.

. The subject looks warmer (colourful) compared to the real-life, but I don't like to complain as the pictures are too good. This is exactly what consumers want from their phone; great pictures worthy to be posted on social media platforms and Poco M3 does a fine job. Also, with portrait mode, it again does a decent job of getting a nice picture with a blurred background effect.

. With the night mode on, the phone takes its time to capture the details. The resultant picture is again quite good compared to peers in its class. It keeps the dark, the essence of the night quite well, and also still manages to capture details of the objects in the scene.

. The only qualm is the night mode is buried in the more section and this annoys me. Hope the company offers the option right beside the portrait mode.

. On the front, it flaunts an 8MP (f/2.05) sensor. It takes decent selfies and offers a good set of filters to liven up the somber photography session. It enables the user to personalize skin tone, adjust jaw bone, the shape of the eyes, and more. Also, gives the option to customise the background with warm, dusk, B&W, and more settings.

. Final thoughts Poco M3 comes jampacked with the right features -- a big bright display, smooth performance, excellent battery life, and the camera is just too good for its price. It takes spectacular pictures in sunlight, far better than any rival in its class. Also, the design language with the leather-like finish is so refreshing and undeniably one of the best looking budget phone.

. It comes in two variants --6GB RAM + 64GB storage and 6GB RAM +128GB storage-- for Rs 10,999 and Rs 11,999, respectively.

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Poco M3 review: Stylish and feature-rich budget phone

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