Xiaomi Poco F3 5G

Xiaomi Poco F3 5G

Xiaomi Poco F3 5G features a 6.67 inches display, Android 11, and Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 5G processor with Adreno 650 GPU. It has a triple rear camera setup where a 48MP primary camera with an IMX582 sensor along with an 8MP ultra-wide camera and 5MP 50mm telephoto macro lens and a 20 MP front camera for selfies and all these are powered by a 4,520 mAh battery. The phone arrives in the Arctic White,  Night Black, and Deep Ocean Blue.

Xiaomi Poco F3 5G specs & price in Kenya

Xiaomi Poco F3 5G Design

The design of the Xiaomi Poco F3 is perfectly functional. Its backend is constructed from Gorilla Glass 5, which is exactly what the frontend is also built with. You even get a pre-installed screen protector upfront as well. It is this glass build that ensures it has IP53, dust, and splash protection. As for your color options, Arctic White, Night Black, Deep Ocean Blue, and Moonlight Silver. The phone itself has a charm with a soft-touch finish that gives it a great hand feel and a matte finish. That side-mounted fingerprint sensor looks just like your typical power button. It does work impressively well. And it’s also backed by a dependable slice of face recognition which is absolutely fine.

Xiaomi Poco F3 5G Cameras

What about that camera tech? Well, what you get on Xiaomi Poco F3 is a triple-lens setup spearheaded by a 48-megapixel primary. The good news is this does a decent job with everyday shots. You got a bit of 4-in-1 pixel binning in which means the 48MP sensor produces 12MP photos on auto mode and they look perfectly sharp and blown up. Now pixel bin helps to deal with less than ideal light so you get bright balance shots. Colors look natural, even soft indoor light.

If you need an alternative viewpoint, the Xiaomi Poco F3 has an 8 MP, f/2.2, 119˚ (ultrawide) shooter. It is standard fare. The image detail and colors take a bit of a hit, but not to a serious degree. You’ve also got a 5-megapixel tele-macro, then similar to the Xiaomi Mi 11. So you can get really up-close shots of subjects. You’ve also got a night mode and a portrait feature. The 20-megapixel selfie shooter on the POCO F3 is good too. Skin tones look natural, even white soft light or strong contrast.

Xiaomi Poco F3 5G Qualcomm SM8250-AC Snapdragon 870 5G

The real highlight of Xiaomi Poco F3 5G in one area where rivals really cannot touch it is the Qualcomm SM8250-AC Snapdragon 870 5G (7 nm) chipset. In case anyone doesn’t know this chipset was announced by Qualcomm a couple of months ago (as of 2021, March 22). It is essentially a Snapdragon 865 Plus with basically the same architecture with a bit of a boost to the primary CPU core. With storage options Poco F3 offers 128GB 6GB RAM, 128GB 8GB RAM, and 256GB 8GB RAM. This is DDR5 RAM with UFS 3.1 storage infrastructure.

It’s Adreno 650 GPU can keep up with even the most demanding Android titles. And then you’ve got that aforementioned game turbo feature packed into the POCO launcher as well. It packs the usual stuff like notifications blocking and a bit of performance boost functionality too. This is not all because you’ve also got Qualcomm’s X55 mode so that means full 5G support on the Xiaomi Poco F3 as well as Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/6.

Xiaomi Poco F3 5G Platform

Now, Xiaomi Poco F3 5G comes with a tweaked version of MIUI 12.5.6 for the POCO launcher. It, simply put, is a bit different from the POCO launcher. And on the surface, you get an almost stock Android 11 vibe, but plenty of bonus bits have been packed in there such as the excellent control center, which has been 100% copied off of Apple. And as usual, you got that excellent Game Turbo Mode. MIUI 12 is a massive improvement over previous versions of the same. Oh and yes you will see some adverts lurking here in the launcher. But these are very rare like whenever installing a new app from the Google Playstore.

Xiaomi Poco F3 5G AMOLED, 120Hz, HDR10+ display

Xiaomi Poco F3 rocks a 6.67 inch AMOLED display which is bigger and brighter than most other OLED screens. You get respectable enough detail levels from the Full HD Plus resolution – 1080 x 2400 pixels. Although the sheer size of the screen means images aren’t as crisp as some of the competition (~395 PPI density). However, the colors are poppy, especially when using vivid more. And that HDR10 Plus support means you get incredible contrast too. And yeah, you’ve got full HGR support so sit back and enjoy those natural realistic-looking visuals. The perfectly flat display also boasts the 360 Hertz touch sampling rates. This is to say that every swipe provokes an instant response.

With Xiaomi Poco F3 5G you’ve got a 120 Hertz refresh rate which is absolutely stellar for an OLED display at this sort of price point. Its stereo speakers are certainly loud on that maxed-out volume. But of course, the top speaker is quite tiny compared with the bottom one. But so you know, there is no headphone Jack on this phone which is something that a lot of budget rivals do offer. An opportunity to consider Bluetooth headphones, maybe?

Xiaomi Poco F3 4G Battery

Xiaomi Poco F3 5G the packs a Li-Po 4520 mAh, non-removable battery. Uh, so not quite as big as that of the Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro which launched at the same time. Still, with it, generally, it can make it through a full day on a single charge. As for charging, this one does support Fast charging 33W, 100% in 52 min (advertised). Also on board is Power Delivery 3.0 and Quick Charge 3+. There’s no wireless charging support.

Xiaomi Poco F3 5G What we think

This smartphone manufacturer POCO is all about providing killer performance for the kind of price that won’t make you break the bank. And on both of those counts, the Xiaomi Poco F3 definitely delivers. This is an absolute unit with a Snapdragon 870 chipset with 5g support. Plus a gorgeous AMOLED screen, stereo speaker setup, and some very respectable camera tech.

Check out the latest Poco phones in Kenya