POCO F3

The POCO F3 is a beast of a phone from the relatively young POCO company. This brand is a spin-off from the Chinese Xiaomi. The first Pocophone was a huge success, partly due to the low price with some high-end specifications. This POCO F3 continue down that path.

This is how you get rid of bloatware and ads

Take a Snapdragon 870 processor with 5G support, a smooth 120Hz and bright AMOLED screen, stereo speakers with spacious Dolby Atmos sound, a fat 4520 mAh battery and throw in a triple camera system. This quickly brings to mind a phone costing in the region of one thousand euros. This POCO F3 does not even cost half of that, in fact you pay about a third. How is that possible? The answer: advertizements in the software and bloatware. The latter you can either uninstall or disable. For the apps that show ads, the advice is to instal an alternative app from the Play Store.

Flagship-worthy screen

What remains is an unprecedented high-end phone which starts with the screen. Here we used an E4 AMOLED panel with unprecedented high contrast values (black is really black), with high colour reproduction (HDR10 + and 100% DCI-P3 colour range) and with a smooth 120Hz refresh. You don't normally see that in this price category. Even the maximum screen brightness of 1300 nits is unprecedented. This makes the screen easy to read even in bright sunlight. The panel is 6.67 inches in size, which means it can literally and figuratively compete with the big boys.

Main POCO F3 specifications

• Large, colourful and smooth display: 6.67-inch 120Hz E4-AMOLED
• Powerful Snapdragon 870 processor up to 3,2GHz
• Choose between 6/128GB and 8/256GB of RAM and storage memory
• 48+8+5MP AI camera with ultra-wide-angle and telemacro
• Large 4520 mAh battery with 33W fast charging
• 5G support for fast mobile internet
• Dual speakers with Dolby Atmos for spatial sound

Performance guaranteed by Snapdragon 870

Performance is provided by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 870. This is basically a higher clocked Snapdragon 865+ and allows manufacturers to equip affordable smartphones with flagship-worthy performance. And this POCO F4 does not disappoint with that. You don't get much faster than this, especially at this price. The F3 is available in 2 configurations; with 6GB of RAM memory (RAM) + 128GB of storage memory or with 8GB+256GB. The memory is not expandable afterward so think carefully in advance how much you need. The battery measures a generous 4520 mAh and can be charged quickly with 33W. This is another area where no cuts have been made.

AI-Video with spatial sound

And now your attention to the camera. On the back of the POCO F3 we find three cameras; a 48MP main camera with bright f/1.79 lens with nite mode, an 8MP ultra-wide-angle camera with wide 119° viewing angle and a 5MP telemacro camera for extreme close-ups. Zooming is only possible digitally and not optically. This usually results in blurrier images. On the front, we find a 20MP selfie camera with f/2.45 lens. It is not really bright, but POCO does offer a selfie nite mode in order to get well-lit nite shots by software. Beautiful videos can be shot with the help of various AI video functions, also called artificial intelligence. Sound is recorded in 360 degrees thanks to 3 different microphones. The stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos support allow you to listen back. This makes the sound as spacious as when you recorded it.

Pro and cons POCO F3

• Colourful & fast screen
• Powerful performance
• Remarkably low price
• Stereo Dolby speakers

• Ads and a lot of bloatware