What you need to know
- POCO today announced the POCO X3 Pro, a follow-up to the POCO X3 NFC.
- It's a powerful multi-media phone with dual speakers, and a 120Hz display
- It's sadly 4G only, shipping with the Snapdragon 860.
POCO is here with yet another powerful smartphone, the POCO X3 Pro. if you looked at the POCO X3 NFC and wanted more, this phone is for you. It comes with everything you'll want in out of the best cheap Android phones, but with one exception. Let's dive into the pros first.
If you're familiar with the best Xiaomi phones, you know what to expect. There's a powerful processor, the Snapdragon 860. There's a large lovely 6.67-inch FHD display with a 120Hz refresh rate. It'll be protexted but Gorilla Glass 6, so expect some drop and scratch resistance. You're getting UFS 3.1 storage and LPDDR4X RAM to keep things speedy, and a 5,160 mAh battery with 33W fast charging to keep this all chugging along nicely.
POCO is aiming this phone at gamers as well. Aside from the 120Hz refresh rate, you'll find a 240Hz touch sampling rate. You'll also find what the company dubs "studio-quality" dual speakers. Marketing fluff aside, we've reviewed phones from the company before, so we already know a bit of what to expect from this. If it's as good as the POCO M3 or POCO F1, it'll be a good experience for gaming, music, and streaming video.
Of course, as it's a 2021 phone, there are a lot of cameras on this thing. The rear has a 48MP main camera backed up with an 8MP camera. You'll find a pair of 2MP cameras for macro and depth-sensing respectively. Round the front, you'll find a 20MP front camera. Expect them to be serviceable, not standouts based on past experience.
The POCO X3 Pro will be available in Phantom Black, Frost Blue, and Metal Bronze when it ships. You'll have a choice of either 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, or 8GB and 256GB. Pricing starts from €249.
It all sounds really good, so let's loop back to the processor. The Snapdragon 860, while fast (a 7nm octa-core CPU with speeds of up to 2.96GHz) is 4G only. 5G is still growing in 2021, but it is very much a thing, more so than it used to be in 2019 or even 2020. If you're planning on keeping this phone for a very long time, you should keep that in mind. Sure, you might not see many benefits from 5G now, but next year? The year after? It's worth asking yourself if you should buy a 5G phone if you plan to hold onto one for a few years.
