Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro: price and availability
• Out now
• Starts at $250 / £199 (around AU$320)
XIAOMI POCO X3 PRO SPECS
Weight: 215g
Dimensions: 165.3 x 76.8 x 9.4mm
Display size: 6.67-inch
Resolution: 1080 x 2400
Chipset: Snapdragon 860
RAM: 6GB/8GB
Storage: 128/256GB
Rear camera: 48MP + 8MP + 2MP + 2MP
Front camera: 20MP
Pre-installed software: Android 11
Battery: 5,160mAh
Charging: 33W wired
Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro: design
• Plastic construction (bar the display glass)
• Large at 165.3 x 76.8 x 9.4mm
• Fairly heavy at 215g
The Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro looks a lot like the Poco X3 NFC. And some of you are going to hate it.
There’s a very large ‘Poco’ logo printed on the layer under the back cover. Buy one of these and you can’t help but advertise for the brand every time you leave the phone on a table.
However, at least it’s not quite as bad as the ‘Dare to Leap’ slogan etched into some Realme rivals. A brand name is one thing, but a Facebook-grade inspirational quote? No thanks.
The back of the Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro is dressed up to look like dual-finish strips of matte and glossy glass. It is all-plastic, though.
Xiaomi used rear glass in 2020’s Poco X2, but this phone and the Poco X3 NFC are largely plastic. There’s no glass bar the screen cover and top-most protective camera layer.
This is common among cheaper phones. Glass was once fairly common. Now it isn’t.
Other parts are typical of a value-first phone. The Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro has a fingerprint scanner on its side, rather than an in-screen one, but it’s great. It hasn’t, to the best of our recollections, failed recognition once during testing. And it feels fairly quick.
You get a headphone jack, and there are stereo speakers with good maximum volume and enough mid-range output to avoid sounding thin. We’ve listened to hours of podcasts on the Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro. It did the job well.
When playing a game or watching movies you might notice the speaker above the screen sounds less powerful than the one on the bottom, but it is still far better than a mono speaker.
The Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro also has an IR blaster, the little black dot on the top of the phone. This is used by the Xi Remote app to function as a universal remote. And while its library doesn’t have the commands for all our gear, we’re not going to complain about a more-or-less free feature. And we have some obscure techy stuff at home.
The Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro is a fairly large phone. It’s 76.8mm wide. That’s wider than a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra or the nearer-in-price 21:9 aspect Moto G 5G Plus.
We haven’t minded too much, choosing for once to live like a rebel and not use a silicone case. But with a case attached, the Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro may be a struggle for some hands.
However, it does at least have basic IP53 water resistance, giving it a fighting chance against splashes.
Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro: display
• Smooth 120Hz scrolling
• Large 6.67-inch 20:9 display area
• Sharp enough 1080 x 2400 resolution
We can blame the screen for the Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro’s larger size. And, well, it’s worth it.
This is a 6.67-inch IPS LCD screen with a 1080 x 2400 resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. First, second and third impressions are great.
The Poco X3 Pro’s screen looks sharp, color is bold, and the fairly large size instantly gives you the sense it’s made for games, video, and other stuff the enthusiast Poco crowd would enjoy. Poco phones seem to be popular among people who like to get a lot of tech for their cash.
Having a 120Hz screen at this price is excellent. And switching between 60Hz and 120Hz, an option here, shows there’s a real boost to Android menu scrolling at the higher refresh rate.
This is an LCD screen. It does not have perfect contrast, but we didn’t actually find raised blacks too noticeable even in a very dark room, at least with mixed content. You’d want an OLED if you spent a lot more, and its fast-responding pixels would make better use of the 120Hz refresh rate. But at this level? No major complaints.
The one other quirk is unlikely to bother too many people. Xiaomi puts two color intensity modes in the Poco X3 Pro, Standard and Saturated. Both are ‘hotter’ than the traditional sRGB color standard, so there’s no true relaxed color mode here. But this is probably more a sign we spend too much time looking at phones than anything else.
The Poco X3 Pro lost ground in the camera section of this review, but it makes up a good deal of it with its chipset. That’s the Snapdragon 860, a processor that should interest many of you.
It’s a mid-range chipset with power similar to the Snapdragon 855 Plus, used in phones like the Asus ROG Phone 2 and OnePlus 7T.
Yes, they are old, 2019 phones. But the older 8-series Snapdragon chipsets are still more powerful than today’s 7-series ones.
The Poco X3 Pro is the best budget Fortnite phone you can get, at the time of review. Aside from short drops when loading new textures, this phone sticks glue-like to the maximum 30fps. It probably deserves a crack at the 60fps mode Epic Games unlocks for some high-end phones.
If you want serious gaming power for next-to-no cash, the Poco X3 Pro is a killer choice. Other phones may get the Snapdragon 860, but they don’t have it at the time of review.
The Poco X3 Pro has a 5160mAh battery, just like the Poco X3 NFC. Its stamina is similarly impressive, even with a much punchier processor.
We left the 120Hz display mode switched on during testing and were routinely left with 40% or more charge remaining by the end of the day.
On one day we kept a closer eye on the level. After starting the day at 7am, we still had 48% left by 11:30pm. That was after a solid day of use, including some browsing, a short gaming session, and a lot of audio streaming.
It lost several more percent of charge overnight and needed to be plugged in by lunchtime on day two. However, if you’re a lighter user you can expect the Poco X3 Pro to last two full days.
There are obvious benefits here for gamers, and we don’t think many should buy the Poco X3 Pro if they don’t care about gaming at all. You can play for, say, an hour a day and still not worry about whether it will last until bedtime. Stamina is impressive.
Charging speed is good enough too. The Poco X3 Pro comes with a 33W charger that takes the phone from flat to 59% in 30 minutes. Or to 100% in 59 minutes.
This isn’t sensationally fast like the OnePlus 9, but considering the lower price and the high capacity of the battery itself, it’s a winner. Of course, there’s no wireless charging at this price.