Poco X3 Pro Specifications , Price , Features and best deal

    Poco X3 Pro Specifications , Price , Features and best deal

Poco X3 Pro price in India

The Poco X3 Pro has been launched starting at Rs. 18,999 with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. If you want 8GB of RAM, there's another variant priced at Rs. 20,999, but storage remains unchanged. If you consider yourself a power user and expect to use this phone heavily for several years, you might notice the difference between 6GB and 8GB of RAM. There are three colour options: Graphite Black, Steel Blue, and Golden Bronze.

In terms of positioning, the Poco X3 costs less than the Poco F1 (Review) did at launch time, although that model received several price cuts and was often discounted on sale. It will compete with the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max (Review), Realme X7 5G (Review), Moto G60 (Review), and several other popular recent models.

Poco X3 Pro design

The Poco brand is clearly targeting younger buyers who like flashy designs that will stand out anywhere. We've seen bold colours, unique camera module shapes, and eye-catching patterns on some recently launched Poco phones. Unsurprisingly, the X3 Pro looks a lot like the Poco X3 (Review), with the same kind of oversized camera module in the centre of the rear which looks like a circle with the top and bottom flattened out.

On the front, there's a 6.67-inch display with a camera hole at the top-centre. There's a notification LED hidden in the speaker grille right at the top, but while this is a popular feature, it isn't really visible unless you're looking at this phone head-on.

Poco has gone with a side-mounted fingerprint sensor which is slightly recessed. The volume buttons are right above it. On the left is the hybrid dual-SIM tray which means you'll have to sacrifice a second SIM if you want to use a microSD card for more storage, or vice versa. Xiaomi's trademark IR emitter is on the top, along with a hole for better sound through the earpiece when used as a second speaker. On the bottom, you'll find a 3.5mm audio socket, a USB Type-C port, and the primary speaker.

   Poco X3 Pro specifications

The most interesting thing about the Poco X3 Pro is its Qualcomm Snpadragon 860 SoC. This is a relatively uncommon processor and we're seeing it in action for the first time. Qualcomm rarely offers multiple 800-series models in a year, but now we have not only the flagship Snapdragon 888, but also an 870 and 860 in the mix. It is a slightly tweaked version of the Snapdragon 855 from a few years ago, but that's still pretty powerful by today's standards. It echoes the Poco F1's use of the Snapdragon 845 which was a bit dated but still very capable for its time.

The Snapdragon 860 has eight CPU cores with one running at 2.96GHz, three at 2.42GHz and four more at 1.8GHz, and also features the Adreno 640 integrated GPU. It does not have an integrated 5G modem, and while 5G is not a practical reality in India yet, Poco might seem to be a bit behind the curve since most other manufacturers are pushing this as a big selling point at the sub-Rs. 20,000 price level.

You get a fairly large 6.67-inch full-HD+ LCD screen. It does have a 120Hz maximum refresh rate and 240Hz maximum touch sampling rate, as well as HDR10 support. There's a fairly generous 5,160mAh battery and 33W fast charging, with a matching charger included in the box. Poco has used UFS 128GB of 3.1 storage and 6GB or 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM. In other countries, the higher-end variant has 256GB of storage, but market segmentation was seemingly calculated differently for India. Other specifications include dual-band Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5, GPS, stereo speakers, and high-res audio certification.

Being an offshoot of Xiaomi, Poco's phones run MIUI. We've spoken about MIUI 12 in detail in our recent reviews of the Redmi Note 10 and Mi 11X, plus all their siblings. The UI is packed with features such as a Game Turbo for optimisations and shortcuts, a Video Toolbox overlay, and a Second Space for privacy. You can customise the notifications shade to behave like iOS with split sections for quick toggles and notifications, and you can also switch between on-screen buttons and gestures for navigation. There are a few preloaded apps including the GetApps store and Themes browser which do generate a lot of spammy notifications, and you also have to disable the Glance lockscreen carousel if you don't want to see promoted content.

 

 Poco X3 Pro performance

You should now expect perfectly smooth performance in casual everyday use when you're paying around Rs. 20,000 for a smartphone, and that's what the Poco X3 Pro delivers. The hardware is more than enough to run all your social media and communication apps, plus casual games and productivity tools. I didn't feel any slowdowns when switching between multiple heavy apps.

Benchmark tests show how good the Snapdragon 860 SoC is. AnTuTu 9 reported a score of 5,43,796 which is remarkable for a phone at this price level. In contrast, the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max managed 2,71,830 and the Realme X7 5G scored 3,35,698 (though scores for older versions of AnTuTu are not directly comparable). In Geekbench 5's single-core and multi-core tests, the X3 Pro managed 752 and 1,892 points respectively. The 3DMark Wild Life graphics tests posted a score of 3,476, while GFXBench's T-Rex and Car Chase scenes ran at 119fps and 39fps respectively.

Poco X3 Pro cameras

In an interesting twist, Poco has gone with lower resolutions for the X3 Pro's rear cameras than it did with the Poco X3. You get a 48-megapixel primary camera and an 8-megapixel ultra-wide one, compared to 64 and 13 megapixels respectively on what is supposed to be a lower-end model in the same series. Of course, sensor and lens quality are much more important than resolution alone. It will be interesting to see how the Poco X3 Pro delivers, and whether people are willing to look beyond the usual “bigger is better” marketing message. There's also a 2-megapixel macro camera and a 2-megapixel depth sensor.