Poco on Tuesday launched Poco X3 Pro, a performance-oriented midrange phone designed to recreate some of the magic of the Xiaomi spin-off brand’s near-cult-classic Poco F1 from 2018. “Only a Poco can beat a Poco,” Poco India director Anuj Sharma said during the virtual keynote event highlighting how the Poco X3 Pro – with its new hardware – was 40 percent faster while matching the Poco F1’s excellent price-to-performance benchmark with a starting price of Rs 18,999.
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The Poco F1 caught a lot of attention back in the day, being the only phone at its price to come with a Snapdragon 845 – which was Qualcomm’s flagship SoC at that time. Poco had launched it at a price of just Rs 20,999. No other phone has been able to beat that to this day, something that Sharma also pointed out. The Poco F1, in fact, was so ahead of its time even Poco has not been able to replace it with a “true” successor to this day. The Poco X3 Pro, also, is no Poco F2 just to be clear.
Poco X3 Pro hardware
Regardless, it is now the most powerful phone in India South of Rs 20,000 with its Qualcomm Snapdragon 860 chipset. The phone also comes with fast UFS 3.1 storage, which is claimed to be 14x faster than UFS 2.1 seen inside the Poco F1. There is also a new liquid cool plus technology inside the Poco X3 Pro with a heat pipe that is said to be 70 percent larger than the one inside the Poco F1 – so in theory, it should be better at heat management as well.
Rest of the Poco X3 Pro is no slouch either. It has a 6.67-inch IPS LCD display with a 1080p+ resolution and 120Hz refresh rate (240Hz touch sampling) – this is adaptive which means it is capable of automatically adjusting to 50Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz or 120Hz depending on content. It has Corning Gorilla Glass 6 protection and a centrally positioned punch hole cutout housing a 20MP selfie camera.
Software inside the phone is MIUI 12 for Poco without any ads. Fuelling the phone is a large 5,160mAh battery with 33W fast charging support (compliant charger in the box). There is also support for USB PD charge at 26W.
For photography, the Poco X3 Pro has a 48MP main, 8MP ultra wide-angle and two 2MP cameras, one for macro and another for portraits.
Rounding off the package are dual stereo speakers, High-Res audio support and IP53 splash and dust resistance.
Poco X3 Pro price, availability
The Poco X3 Pro starts at Rs 18,999 for the base variant with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage going up to Rs 20,999 for the top-end model with 8GB RAM and 128GB storage. The phone will go on sale for the first time on April 6 exclusively from Flipkart. It will come in three options including Graphite Black, Steel Blue, and Golden Bronze.
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