POCO’s super-cost-effective strategy has always been the reason for its immense popularity. Not long ago, the brand launched the POCO M2, and 130,000 units were sold in India in just a few minutes. And today the company is bringing its next generation model in the M series – the POCO M3. Will it continue to sell exceedingly well like the Poco M2? There’s still time to find that out but let’s see what the new model has to offer in this Poco M3 hands-on.

By the way, our full review about the M3 is in progress and will be uploaded soon.

POCO M3 Box Contents

First let’s take a look at the box. The exterior of the box still comes with POCO’s iconic yellow design. Open the box and take out the accessory set. There is a SIM card pin, protective case and manual, so your usual stuff. Then you can see the Poco M3. The packaging film gives you a glimpse of its main selling points: a triple-camera setup led by a 48mp camera, an ultra-large 6000 mAh battery, a 6.53-inch teardrop screen and a Snapdragon 662 chipset. We’ll talk about them in detail, later. Underneath the phone there is an USB A to C charging cable and an 18w fast charger. And that sums up what’s inside the box.

POCO M3 Hands-on: A Youth-Centric Design

As a super affordable model, it’s not surprising that the phone features a 6.53-inch waterdrop screen, which is also the same size as what we usually have on a mainstream phone. It’s one of the few phones to come with a dot-drop display in 2020, especially after seeing a hoard of hole-punch display models this year.

Although it features the standard 60Hz refresh rate, we have to say that its color representation is still impressive at first glance. The fingerprint recognition is on the side. An IR transmitter, dual speakers and a 3.5mm headphone jack are also available.

Coming to the back, its design is much more recognizable, which should be one of the most unique designs for a phone in 2020. This design is indeed refreshing on such an inexpensive model.

The cover and the frame are made of one-piece plastic. We’ve seen a lot of phones in the same price range using the similar plastic cover. But unlike those phones, the plastic cover is textured to a fine leather finish. And the creative design does make the cover look more elegant than most smartphones. In addition, the leather-like plastic design should be more resistant to slip, fingerprint and scratches than glossy finish, while still keeping costs under control.

The camera module is also unique. A large piece of glossy plastic is used for aesthetics. The triple camera module is arranged on the upper left and the POCO logo is on the right, which is still recognizable even among most models in the market. Compared to the plain front, the rear design of the M3 is much more impressive.

POCO M3 Hands-on: Camera & Hardware

When compared to the Poco M2, the camera module has gone from a quad-cam setup to a triple camera combination. However, it doesn’t mean that the whole camera performance is downgraded.

Likely to keep the cost down, the ultra-wide-angle lens was sacrificed for a better-quality primary lens. Actually, from a practical perspective, we were impressed with the 48MP main lens and it did perform very well under most conditions. The lack of wide-angle camera could be a drawback in case of wide-open scenarios, such as landscape photography, but the fact is that most wide-angle lenses equipped on such inexpensive models are useless because of their poor quality.

The other two lenses are the macro lens and the portrait depth of field lens. It can help you shoot close objects and portraits better.

The POCO M3’s processor uses Snapdragon 662, which is about the same as the M2’s MTK Helio G80 in performance, but Qualcomm’s processor will be better optimized for camera performance. So that should be also the reason why the M3 uses the 662 chipset.

Meanwhile, the M3 comes with a super-large 6000mAh battery, which, when working with the low power consumption design of the Snapdragon 662, guarantees a really long battery life. No matter how you use it, the M3 would support sufficient power for at least a whole-day use. But you may need a little patience to get to full charge, as it only comes with 18W charger.

We’ll put detailed camera reviews and performance tests in our full-review video, which will be updated in a couple days. If you’re curious about its camera quality and gaming performance, keep an eye out for our follow-up review.

Like the M2, the POCO M3 is also worth its price, and there are some fine upgrades on the M3 that makes it an interesting option, such as its rear design and the large battery. Considering POCO’s previous track record we feel this one should sell well too as it ticks most of the features that you want in its price segment.