POCO M3 - Review

Hello everyone,

Welcome to my blog!

In this blog, I will be looking at the POCO M3. A smartphone from late 2020. I will be going through the specs and the performance it offers.

Now, before we get into the technical parts, let us talk about the unboxing experience and the overall design of the phone.

The Unboxing experience is surprisingly good. The POCO M3 comes in a Box that is yellow in color. The box includes the sim card ejector tool and a transparent case. It also comes with an 18 W fast charger which is a great thing to include.

Now, lets get into the specifications.

The POCO M3 alongside its box.

Processor:

The POCO M3 comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 octa-core processor.

The Processor core is the Kyro 260 architecture and is 2.0 GHz.

The GPU is based on the Adreno 610.

The POCO M3 is based in android 10 and MIUI 11.

The Specs of the POCO M3 as seen in the image.

The Snapdragon 662 processor is great for the phone. It has become rare to see good processor in cheap smartphones. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 scores 319 in single-core and 1411 in multi core ( Geekbench ). Another great fact is that the snapdragon 662 is an octa-core processor. This makes the POCO M3 an extremely fast smartphone. The Adreno 610 GPU is also good for the phone. Gaming on this phone is good. While playing Minecraft, the phone achieved to get about 60 FPS and while playing Fruit Ninja, a classic and iconic game, the phone managed to get 75 FPS. Do take in note that most games run in a stretched resolution which might be uncomfortable at times. But overall, the gaming and the processing power of the phone is good for the price.

The disadvantages are that the POCO M3 is based on Android 10. This makes this phone last generation in terms of software. This phone is also based on MIUI 11 and can be updated to MIUI 12. I suggest using a launcher like Microsoft launcher to enhance your experience with the smartphone in terms of software.

Gaming on the POCO M3

Memory and Storage:

The POCO M3 comes with 6 gigabytes of LPDDR4x based RAM.

The internal storage starts at 64 GB and can be upgraded to 128 GB. The POCO M3 also comes with a Micro SD Card slot which allows you to expand the storage up to 512 GB. The storage is based on UFS 2.1 and 2.2.

With the fact that the storage can be upgraded makes this phone feel like a midrange one.

The POCO M3’s 6 gigabytes of RAM are quite enough for daily tasks and light gaming.

Battery and charging:

The POCO M3 comes with a Non-removable Lithium-ion polymer 6000mAh battery. It also supports USB-C 18W fast charging. Charging from 0% to 100% takes 161 minutes based on tests made by POCO. The box comes with a 22.5 W fast charger and supports up to 2.5 wired reverse charging.

It has become a trend to include high-capacity battery in cheap and midrange smartphones. I have been using the POCO M3 for about 10 days now and I had to charge it only once. The battery rarely heats up and is very efficient at power management.

Security:

The POCO M3 comes with a fingerprint scanner embedded into the power button and support for Face ID. But you must swipe up to unlock the phone while using Face ID. The fingerprint scanner is blazingly fast and unlocks the phone in about a second.

Display:

The POCO M3 features a 6.53-inch Full HD+ display with a resolution of 2340 x 1080. The screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. With an aspect ratio of 19.5:9 and a brightness of 400 nits, the panel is quite good for the price.

The Gorilla Glass protection is also great as the display if protected and will not get damaged when thrown on a hard surface. The display also has a refresh rate of 60Hz which is average and stutters sometimes.

Sound:

The dual Hi-Res speakers on the POCO M3 is good, and the microphone is average. Running several audio tests, the speaker does sound tinny at times. The microphone is also average and does block out your voice sometimes. The POCO M3 also comes with a headphone jack for more connectivity. It is great to see a headphone jack on a phone but as we are moving towards wireless headphones, this phone does look outdated sometimes.

Camera:

Coming to the final and the most important topic for some of you. The camera system.

The camera system on the POCO M3 is good. The rear camera system comprises of three cameras and the front one is a notch camera.

The Rear cameras are surprisingly good and take some stunning pictures. Although it will be difficult as the POCO M3 does not have a great stabilization system. The rear cameras comprise of the following:

Main camera: 48 MP, FOV

Ultrawide camera: 2 MP, FOV

Micro Camera: 2 MP, FOV

The rear camera supports 1080p recording at 30 fps and slow-motion recording at 120 fps.

The front camera is a single camera of 8 MP and has a FOV of and supports 1080p recording at 30 fps.

The Camera app on the POCO M3

Software:

The POCO M3 comes preinstalled with MIUI 11 which is based on Android 10. The MIUI version can be upgraded to MIUI 12. Sadly, you will not be able to upgrade the Android version as it stays on Android 10. This is one of the disappointments about this phone. MIUI also comes with many preinstalled apps which might hamper your usage. This is where other operating systems such as Oxygen OS are better. But, if you download a launcher like Microsoft launcher, the usage will increase as the janky UI elements will be replaced with clean looking icons. A good wallpaper will also affect the usage. I suggest using very minimal and simple wallpapers as they mostly tend to keep you fresh and calm. But do not get me wrong. MIUI is a good operating system. But it sometimes feels janky.

User interface on MIUI 12

My final thoughts on the POCO M3:

The POCO M3 is a great phone for the price. I have been using it for the past 10 – 15 days and here are my final thoughts.

Performance:

According to me, POCO could have put in a better chipset in the M3. The Snapdragon 662 can handle most tasks. But when it comes to Gaming and heavy multitasking, it falls apart. Playing Minecraft, the phone achieved about 60 fps. But after 30 minutes, it started to heat up and the fps was at about 25. The same goes for other games like Fruit Ninja.

Cameras:

The cameras are good for the price. But, if POCO had put a zoom and a better ultrawide camera, this would have been a great phone. The lack of good stabilization also makes it hard to take pictures of good quality.

Charging and battery:

This is where the POCO M3 regains its lost glory. The 6000 mAh battery flies through everyday tasks and rarely heats up. The charger included is good and charges the phone quickly.

Build quality:

Build quality of the POCO M3 is great. The back of the phone has a leather-like pattern which makes fingerprints never stick onto the phone. Holding the phone is also amazingly comfortable. The only time I felt uncomfortable was while gaming. The large bump on the back makes it rather uncomfortable and takes some time to get used to.

Final Conclusions:

Should you buy this phone? Are there other phones in the market comparable to the POCO M3? Well. if you want a phone that just works and has good multitasking capabilities, you should go for this POCO M3. But, if you need better software, and better specs, you can go for the OnePlus Nord CE of wait for the upcoming OnePlus Nord 2.

Make sure to look at my video on this same topic here: https://bit.ly/3wHYqpN

Hope you enjoyed reading this blog. If so, feel free to leave a comment and contact me at contact@udeernsrihari.com .

See you in another blog.

Bye!