Poco X3 Pro Review: Snapdragon 860 takes performance to the next level

Paco Zheng — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 13:07:57 +0000

Last year Poco released the Poco X3, which offered great value for money to its buyers. And recently, at their Spring event, Poco updated the X3 with a new Pro version. And as the name implies, the X3 Pro is the Poco X3’s beefier brother.

The X3 Pro in our hand is a model that we got from the online retailer Goboo.

Goboo usually features a fast global premiere of the latest models in direct partnership with brands like Xiaomi and Poco. And the Poco X3 Pro model was no exception. Their shipping policy promises dispatch within 24 hours and can deliver in countries such as Spain within 2 days. They even offer a guaranteed no-hassle 14-day return policy and a 2-year warranty.

WHERE TO BUY

Poco X3 Pro World Premiere Event, buy it for an early bird price of just € 199 from Goboo.

Especially for the Poco X3 Pro, Goboo offers an exclusive price for early-bird pre-sale buyers that includes free screen repair within the first 6 months of purchase. For the X3 Pro launch, Goboo is keeping a World Premiere event in partnership with Poco, so make sure to check the link down below this video, and you get a chance to win a brand new Poco X3 Pro as well as learn more information about the new Poco products in the market. You also get a chance to win their big prizes like the other Poco series models, Mi smart projector, Mi watch lite, and so on.

In a teaser released recently, Poco talked about how it shook up the budget market with a respectable performance-to-price ratio and suggested that the new phone would be available at the same price as the F1, representing the original spirit of the Poco F series. Now we know the phone they were talking about was the X3 Pro.

Poco X3 Pro Review: Design

The Poco X3 Pro starts with a 6+128GB version but there’s another version with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The phone comes in 3 color versions, Metal Bronze, Frost Blue, and Black.

The Poco X3 Pro in our hands is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 860, which is a higher-binned version of the Snapdragon 855+. Compared to the Poco X3 running the snapdragon 732G, the 860 chipset is definitely a surprising upgrade. But please note that the 860 chipset is a 4G chipset, so it doesn’t support the latest 5G network connection.

The phone features a quad rear camera setup headlined by a 48 MP main sensor, accompanied by an 8MP ultrawide sensor, 2MP macro, and 2MP depth shooters. For battery, the X3 Pro has inherited the non-Pro version’s large battery design and features one with 5156mAh battery capacity and 33W fast charging, which, even when compared to the Redmi K40 series, still brings a comfortable battery life. And the 120 Hz 1080PLCD display also comes back on the Pro model.

The design of the X3 Pro doesn’t change much. It looks almost the same as the Standard X3. So we still have the camera module arranged at the upper-middle position of the back. And the big Poco logo on the back still stands out.

Turn it around, and there is still the same 6.67-inch hole-punch display. As a budget model, the X3 Pro’s narrow chin design is still impressive.

In addition, the X3 Pro also carried forward some useful features related to daily usage, including NFC, Z-axis linear motor for better vibration experience, stereo dual-speakers, and the rare 3.5mm headphone jack.

POCO X3 Pro Review: Performance & Gaming

Thanks to the debut of the Snapdragon 860 chipset, the Pro’s performance has got much better than the standard model. The standard X3’s performance didn’t really cheer up the fans last year, so we were looking forward to seeing the performance on the X3 Pro. Since the X3 Pro in our hands is still a non-commercial sample, we were unable to run most benchmarks on it.

But we could run AnTuTu and the phone scored around 476,000. Unfortunately we couldn’t test out other benchmarks. But if there are any software updates to open this limit, we will be sure to let you know.

While we couldn’t run most benchmarks, we could still test its gaming performance.

Well, the results didn’t disappoint us.

In PUBG Mobile, due to the in-game framerate limit, we were only allowed to run under 60fps with the highest HDR graphics setting. So it was pretty easy for the Pro to achieve an excellent and stable gaming performance without any thermal issues. The phone didn’t heat up, and after 30mins of gaming, its highest temperature reached was only at 45℃, which is much better than those flagships running the snapdragon 888 chipsets.

In NBA 2K20, we again could not access a maximum framerate up to 120fps. However, the X3 Pro easily achieved an average framerate at 59.65fps without any performance down throttling or heating issues.

In Genshin Impact (20mins), under the highest graphics (motion blur OFF), the X3 Pro surprisingly achieved at avg. 49.9fps with some fluctuation in battling.

Genshin Impact – Poco x3 pro

POCO X3 Pro Review: Camera Performance

The quad-camera combination contains a 48MP AI main camera, an 8MP wide-angle camera, a 2MP portrait camera, and another 2MP macro camera.

Now let’s see some photo samples shot on the X3 Pro.

Main Camera

The main-camera samples have pretty good colors and decent contrasts. When you turn on the AI colors and HDR mode, the vivid colors look more delightful but sometimes it may come out a bit oversaturated. Under most conditions, we prefer the samples without AI adjustment as the images had natural colors and were closer to the true tone of the scene.

The exposure of the main camera is pretty accurate except when facing high contrast situations. The main camera also did a relatively good job of removing the fringing effect.

Wide-Angle Camera

On the other hand, the wide-angle-camera’s samples didn’t show a good dynamic range or high contrast when compared to the main camera’s output. But it was good at producing pleasant colors. Under most conditions, the anti-distortion of the wide-angle camera is pretty good but sometimes it wasn’t perfect especially when you look carefully at the corners of the image.

Macro Camera

The 2MP macro camera can focus on subjects close to 4cm. The colors in the macro samples were a bit dull, and the low resolution of the sensor also makes it not so practical. Meanwhile, you have to be careful with lighting conditions since the macro cam performs much better in brighter scenes.

Night Mode Performance

As for the night mode, the improvement in brightness is really remarkable. Make sure that you turn on the night mode without fail under insufficient lighting conditions, as it would definitely boost your shooting experience, no matter for the main camera or the wide-angle sensor.

And we can also see how it stabilizes your image and balances the exposure between brightness and darkness.

POCO X3 Pro Review: Battery Life & Charging

In the charging test, a full charge took around 1 hour and 12mins, which is close to what we got on the X3.

POCO X3 Pro battery charging

To give you a basic idea of how the larger battery extends your battery life, we played PUBG mobile, shot photos, and videos, and watched online videos, and performed each activity for 30 minutes. Then we recorded the power consumption for each activity. Just check out the results here!

POCO X3 Pro Review: Verdict

So this was our quick review of the Poco X3 Pro. We hope you got enough information before you go ahead and make your purchase decision.

This time the improvement of the X3 Pro is more remarkable than what we had on the X3. And the phone almost brought us back to Poco’s golden days to some extent, not just because of its price but also the inclusion of a high-performance chip inside an affordable phone. However, we’re still a bit upset about its design. Honestly, we would have preferred all these upgrades on a newly-designed model instead of just recycling an existing one.

By the way, if you are interested in the Poco X3 Pro, don’t forget to click the link here and join the event held by Goboo and Poco. If you are picked as one of the lucky winners of the newly launched X3 Pro, do let us know!