Xiaomi POCO F3 review
Creating a successor to the POCOPHONE F1 is not an easy task: offering high-end specifications and adjusting the price to a mid-range. With the POCO F2, Pro Xiaomi approached 500 euros, but the new POCO F3 comes with the original philosophy: the best possible hardware at the lowest price.
We have thoroughly analyzed the Xiaomi POCO F3 to know if it is that bargain mobile that we are waiting for, the weak points that make it have that price and to know in depth the device’s behavior.
A careful design in every corner
It is not easy to stand out in design in 2021 with so many practically clone terminals in this section, but the POCO F3 achieves it, at least in the white unit that we have analyzed. The back of this terminal is glass.
The glass, in the white model, has a matte finish that repels all fingerprints and dirt.
Said glass, curved on its sides, has a pearlescent finish and is completely matte, which means that the fingerprints are not marked. In the same way, it is a terminal that does not slip, although we will talk about ergonomics later.
Regarding the camera module, it protrudes a lot from the body of the terminal, so the POCO F3 will swing if we put it face up on a flat surface. The module is quite aesthetic and, although large, it is quite consistent with the design line of the terminal. The main camera has a small ring painted in metallic color, very in line with the white color of the device.
It’s plastic, but it looks and feels like aluminum for every corner of the device.
Regarding the bezels that surround the device, they perfectly imitate aluminum. Making plastic sides painted to look like aluminum is a common practice, but in the case of the POCO F3, it is completely misleading. We have to look at the detail in that there are no bands for the antennas and see the official disassembly of the device to find out about doubts since they look like metal frames to the eye and the touch. The top and bottom have also been taken care of to be flat.
The fingerprint reader of the POCO F3 looks like one more button
We also liked the position of the button panel, with the power button and the volume buttons accessible to the thumb. The power button is a fingerprint reader, but the design is a normal button, unlike in the POCO X3 Pro (it is not a small indentation for us to put our finger inside).
If we turn the device around, we find what we usually see in terminals of this range: a huge screen with a small hole in the front. At the level of front use, it is somewhat above the average in its price range, with 85.9% of the surface occupied by the panel ,It does not get rid of the lower chin, although it is not too prominent.
Despite being a tall mobile, the reduction in battery allows the POCO F3 to be less thick and obtain good figures in terms of volume.
At the level of dimensions, we observe that, compared to mobile phones with a higher screen diagonal, it is a fairly compact mobile. Xiaomi has given up on a gigantic battery to make its POCO F3 even thinner than a Samsung Galaxy S21. Despite being a tall terminal, it is very comfortable in hand, with a weight of 196 grams that is quite tight although it is small.
In short, we liked the design of the POCO F3. It is a mobile that feels premium, with small details such as the curvature of the rear glass, the matte, pearlescent finish, or how small the front hole is. It is a small notch below the 1,000 euro mobiles, but you cannot ask for much more for a third of this amount of money.
A good panel that needs a bit more shine
The POCO F3 has an AMOLED panel with Full HD + resolution, fixed 120Hz refresh rate, and compatibility with HDR10 + content. As soon as we turn it on, we notice that it is a good AMOLED panel, a small step ahead of what is expected in colorimetry, contrast, and general calibration. It has a bit of a rainbow effect when tilted, although except on white backgrounds, it won’t be noticeable.
POCO indicates that the maximum peak of brightness is 1,300 nits, but this figure is not what we will have when we take the mobile out to the street
Where it limps slightly is at maximum brightness. POCO indicates that the maximum peak brightness is 1,300 nits, although this figure is a bit misleading. The maximum peak of 1,300 nits is only for HDR content, not for manual and automatic brightness in normal situations. When we are on the street, the maximum brightness is around 700 nits, enough for the panel to be seen in the sun, but nothing remarkable. We want to see the POCO F3 shine with about 800 nits in the sun since the screen would be completely round.
The hole on the screen is tiny, although we have leftover the small silver circle that covers it.
The refresh rate is 120Hz, without adaptive technology. This means that every time we touch the panel, it goes to 120Hz, although, as in other Xiaomi, we have noticed some problems in its use. Sometimes it goes down to 60hz in applications where it can run at 120Hz. Without going any further, in the Google Discover panel itself, sometimes we scroll at 120Hz and others at 60Hz. Generally, the performance is good, but Xiaomi still needs to polish its refresh rate to work whenever it should.
At the software level, we can calibrate the screen with different color profiles, activate the reading mode, always-on display mode, or activate the daytime mode, which allows you to adjust the screen’s brightness in bright light conditions, even if the maximum brightness is off.