Poco X3 NFC Full Review: The mid-range beast??

Just when the Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 series was rocking the market with their Redmi Note 9 Pro max and Note 9 Pro as the best budget phones. Poco unveiled their Poco X3 NFC at aggressive pricing to rock the market. Currently, Poco X3 NFC is among the best mid-range phones in the market. I have been using the midrange beast for about a week now as my primary phone. Here is the full review of the Poco X3 NFC.

Poco X3 NFC Specifications

Poco X3 NFC- Full Review

Built & Design- Certainly not for small hands

Built-in an aluminum frame, Poco X3 has a glass front and a plastic back instead of a Glass back you saw on the Poco X2. And the rear has a camera module and a huge Poco branding, which many many not fancy. But despite the plastic back, Poco certainly does not give you the cheap vibe and feels excellent. 

Talking about the phone’s size, you certainly don’t want to go with the Poco X3 if you have small hands. The phone isn’t small with the 6.67 inch IPS LCD, and on top of that, Poco X3 NFC comes with a thickness of 9.4mm and weighs 215g. You can instantly feel the heavyweight and thickness of the phone once you pick it up. Despite just the 5160mAh battery Poco X3 is still bulkier than the Galaxy M51, which features a 7000mAh battery and similar specs.

Poco X3 NFC has impressed me with other device features with the IP53 splash and dust resistance. The fingerprint scanner is also quite useful for a midrange phone, considering I didn’t have issues with the scanner. And the notification LED light on the top speaker makes it easier for you to keep track, considering the absence of an always-on display.

Display- 120Hz Adaptive Display but with Stutter

Like any other phone at this price, you get an IPS LCD with the Poco X3 of FHD+ resolution. The display is of 120Hz, and you will undoubtedly feel the smoothness of the 120Hz, but you might even notice some stutters at times. I felt the stutters and ghosting issues at times, which happens due to the adaptive display. When you stop touching the screen, the frame rate drops, and then after touching the display, the frame rate increases back to 120Hz but at a slower pace. And the time taken for the device to get back to 120Hz causes the stutters. I really hope Poco fixes this issue with some software updates. The 240Hz touch sampling rate is beneficial during gaming. 

You can switch with different color saturations on display, but the standard setting gives better color and contrast on the LCD panel. The display is also bright, with peak brightness at 460nits and max brightness at 630nits, making the display good outdoors. 

And you don’t have to worry about dropping the phone or scratching it as it comes with Gorilla Glass 5 protection and a screen-protector from the Poco itself. 

Performance and Gaming- Snapdragon 732G does the job well.

Things get pretty impressive with the performance of the device. You get a Snapdragon 732G with the phone; unlike Snapdragon 730G and Snapdragon 720G, you get in devices of a similar price range. You might not feel a huge difference with the 730G and 732G chipsets but choosing a better performing chipset is always a plus, especially as the Snapdragon 732G is just an overclocked version of the Snapdragon 730G. 

The phone is smooth with the Snapdragon 732G and 6GB RAM for everyday tasks, and you can even do serious gaming with the phones but at medium to low graphics. 

 While using the phone, I played PUBG mostly at balanced graphics, where I could play around 40-45 fps. While playing PUBG, you can get Ultra frame rates with this phone at Smooth and balanced graphics and high frame rates at HD graphics. But you won’t be able to enjoy the 120Hz display during gaming as most games aren’t optimized to run at 120fps. I had no heating issues with the phone too, while gaming, the phone got just a tad bit warm as the “LiquidCool Technology” seems to do its job well. Overall the phone performs excellent considering such a low price tag. I also tested this device’s benchmark with Geekbench, which had higher benchmark scores than its competitor Galaxy M51.

Cameras- Sony 64MP Sony IMX682 sensor

Moving on to cameras, Poco. X3 has a quad-camera setup with a 64MP Sony IMX 682 sensor as a primary camera with 13MP ultra-wide camera and 2MP depth and macro sensors.

Talking about the primary camera, it is decent for the price you pay. The camera gets the job done during daylight with AI image processing that clicks images with good details and colors. But there are certain times when I felt oversaturation of colors while using the AI mode in normal cameras, which wasn’t there after turning the AI mode off. The autofocus also does its job pretty well, and I had no issues with it. 

The ultrawide camera of 119° is excellent on the Poco X3 and is wide enough for you to get your job done. Also, kudos to Poco for the addition of a 13MP lens instead of an 8MP ultrawide lens you see in most phones at this price. The ultrawide photos come out great with pretty great details and natural colors. But like the normal camera, you do not get a night mode for ultrawide photos.

With good lighting with everything on point, the portraits and macro cameras are also decent. Still, it struggles when the situations are not favorable. 

Night Mode and nighttime images have also been a hot topic these days. But safe to say, Poco has gotten better in this department with better night time images. The photos are optimized well with good colors and details. The dedicated night mode does a better job capturing more light from the subject and improving the dark areas. 

Moving on to the selfies, Poco X3 shoots excellent photos with the 20MP lens. The selfies are great, and the portrait mode during the selfie also does a good job considering the device’s price.

Battery- All-day battery with full charge at 65 Mins

Poco X3 NFC features a 5160mAh, a step down from the 6000mAh battery from the Indian variant. But considering the 33W fast charger, I had no complaints about the battery of the phone. 

For an average normal day-to-day usage, the phone got me an all-day battery, but with heavy gaming, you will drain the battery pretty quickly. On a heavy usage day, the battery has given me more than 7 hours of screen-on time with just about 3 hours of standby time. 

But with the Poco X3, the drain of the battery isn’t an issue for me due to the 33W fast charger. With the fast charger, the battery charges about 65% in just 30 mins and 90% in around 45-50 mins. Like the company claims the battery fills up from 0 to 100% in just over an hour.

Software and UI- Bloatware that can be uninstalled and Ads

Poco X3 NFC runs on the Android 10 OS with MIUI 12 on top, and the phone uses a Poco launcher. As expected from any MIUI devices, the UI has ads on it and comes with heavy bloatware. Although the pre-installed games and ads can be disabled, it’s still some effort to get a better experience. Overall the Software experience is like any Xiaomi and Poco phone.

Conclusion

Overall, the phone is excellent, Poco Nepal did a great job with its aggressive pricing. Considering the price, this is among the best phones you can get for under 40k, and the phone costs just 32k. The best thing about the phone is the performance with which I had no complaints. The camera is also pretty good considering the price. You might experience some amount of ghosting on the display while scrolling through texts, which I hope Poco fixes with a software update. Currently, Poco X3 is the best budget phone in Nepal alongside the tough competitor Samsung Galaxy M51(review).

Poco X3 NFC Review- Pros and Cons

Pros

• 120 Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch Sampling rate
• Snapdragon 732G
• 5160mAh battery with 33W fast charger
• Value for money
• Gorilla Glass 5

Cons

• Ads and heavy bloatware
• Thick and Heavyweight
• Ghosting and Stutters on the Display