A whole lot of phone for €250

The Poco brand made a comeback in 2020 when the Xiaomi Poco X2, Poco F2 Pro and Poco M2 Pro sub-brand launched. All of these phones have essentially been renamed as Redmi devices, but the company just announced its first seemingly original device in 2020.

The Poco X3 NFC is kind of a successor to the Poco X2 released at the beginning of the year. However, the new phone has an original design that features a distinctive camera body on the back, a textured top-to-bottom stripe on the back of the polycarbonate cover, and a gigantic “POCO” logo in that stripe. You also have IP53 splash protection here so the device can survive if you get caught in the rain.

This is also the first phone to run on the Snapdragon 732G processor. The new silicon is a mild upgrade compared to the Snapdragon 730G of the Poco X2 and brings an increase in the clock rate both in the heavy CPU core and in the GPU. The latter means you can expect a 15% increase in graphics rendering, which should come in handy for high refresh rate games.

Speaking of high refresh rate: The Poco X3 NFC has a 6.67-inch LCD screen (HDR10, FHD +, Gorilla Glass 5) with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. In contrast to the Poco X2, however, the new panel offers a centrally mounted one Hole instead of a pill-shaped cutout in the right corner.

What else can you expect from the Poco X3 NFC?

A high refresh rate doesn’t mean much if the phone goes down in no time, but the Poco X3 NFC also has a 5,160 mAh battery. The brand says you should expect two days of “moderate” usage while it charges you in 65 minutes with 33W wired charging. You can also expect 63% juice after 30 minutes of loading. Fortunately, Xiaomi has the 33 W charger in the box.

Poco’s latest phone also packs neat camera hardware on paper. The rear quad camera setup has a 64-megapixel main sensor (IMX682), a 13-megapixel ultra-wide shooter (119-degree field of view), and a pair of 2-megapixel sensors for macro shots or depth effects. Selfies are processed by a 20MP camera in the above hole.

Other notable Poco X3 NFC functions are a 3.5 mm connector, a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, NFC (surprise!), MIUI 12 for Poco-Skin on Android 10, a Z-axis linear motor for haptic feedback, Bluetooth 5.1 and Wi-Fi 5. On top of that, Xiaomi said it will offer system updates (no word when it comes to Android or security updates) as well as kernel sources for three years at launch.

The Poco X3 NFC costs 229 euros ($ 261) for the 6 GB / 64 GB version and 269 euros (~ 318 US dollars) for the 6 GB / 128 GB option. The phones will be available from tomorrow (September 8th) at early bird prices of € 199 and € 249 respectively. The device will be available in Shadow Gray and Cobalt Blue. What do you think of the phone Take part in our survey!

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