Tuesday, November 24, 2020

POCO M3 Hands-on, First Impressions

POCO has just announced the M3, just a couple of months after the POCO M2 was released.

While the M2 is powered by a Mediatek processor and primarily aimed for gaming, the Poco M3 sports a Snapdragon 662 chip that’s tuned for optimal power consumption.

In a way, we can’t really say that the Poco M3 is an upgrade to the M2 but more of an alternative option for those looking for battery performance. The Poco M3’s 6,000mAh battery capacity spells that out quite well.

Right out of the box, the Poco M3 looks unassuming, with that large fullscreen display and a small notch at the top end. It uses an IPS LCD with a full HD+ resolution that’s just enough for its 6.53-inch size. The bezels are a bit thicker than usual with the bottom (or chin) part being more prominent.

It’s got chiseled sides with the physical buttons protruding from the plastic frame — a volume rocker on the right and a recessed power button that doubles as a fingerprint sensor. The fingerprint sensor can be activated by either a simple touch or a gentle press, whichever you prefer and configure in the settings.

The SIM slot is found on the left side which houses the dual SIM tray and a microSD card.

Up top are the IR blaster, secondary speakers, noise-canceling mic and a 3.5mm audio port. At the bottom end are the primary microphone, speaker grills, and the USB Type-C port.

The backside is a bit of a surprise with that big, bold POCO logo just beside the triple-camera module. The black plastic back is somewhat water-repellant and has a bit of texture that reminds you of faux-leather. It still feels smooth to the hands yet provides a good grip and a stark contrast to that glossy plastic module of the triple-camera setup.

I particularly liked the design touches and finish of the back panel and, despite the polycarbonate material used, it still looks good if not intriguing.

Powering the Poco M3 is a lower midrange chip that was released early last year, the Snapdragon 662. It’s composed of a quad-core 2.0GHz Kryo 260 Gold and another quad-core Kryo 260 Silver running at 1.8GHz top speed. It’s paired with an Adreno 610 GPU and 4GB of RAM. The default 128GB of internal storage can be expanded to 256GB via the microSD card slot.

The Poco M3 runs on a custom Android 10 with the latest MIUI 12 interface.

The M3 has a triple camera setup, one less than the M2 had. Despite that, the 48MP is a big jump from the 13MP of the latter. And it performs really well too based on the early sample photos we took. The second one is a 2MP macro lens and the 3rd one is another 2MP depth sensor. There’s no ultrawide camera here.

As for video recording, max resolution is pegged at full HD (1080p) at 30fps and slow-mo is set at 720p at 120fps. The Pro Mode allows you to shoot at a full 48MP resolution and even save the photos in RAW format.

Perhaps the biggest draw of the Poco M3 is its huge battery. The 6,000mAh Lithium polymer battery has 20% more capacity than its predecessor, the M2/M2 Pro. It also comes with a 22.5W fast charger.

Considering that the Snapdragon 662 is more power-efficient than the Helio G80, we could be seeing impressive battery life on this device.

Poco M3 specs:
6.53-inch IPS LCD display, 1080×2340 pixels @ 395ppi
Corning Gorilla Glass 3
Qualcomm Snapdragon 662 octa-core 2.0GHz
Adreno 610
4GB LPDDR4X RAM
64GB/128GB internal storage
microSD card slot up to 512GB
48 MP, f/2.0, PDAF
2 MP, f/2.4 (macro)
2 MP depth sensor
8 MP, f/2.0 front-facing camera
Dual Nano-SIM, 4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth 5.0, A2DP, LE
GPS with aGPS support, GLONASS
FM radio
IR blaster
USB Type-C 2.0
Fingerprint sensor
Li-Po 6000 mAh, 18W fast-charging
Android 10, MIUI 12.0.1