- The Poco F3 GT is the latest flagship smartphone from the company.
- It is Poco’s return to form, promising to deliver great value for money just like the company’s first phone, the Poco F1.
- Poco has tried to strike a good balance between price, performance and overall desirability of the F3 GT. Does it succeed? Read our review to find out.
For long, Poco fans have been yearning for a true successor to the Poco F1, the company’s first smartphone that launched back in 2018. The Poco F3 GT, the latest smartphone from the stable of the Chinese smartphone maker, promises to deliver the goods to Poco fans and gaming enthusiasts alike.
Since the Poco F1’s launch in 2018, the now-independent smartphone maker has launched several smartphones across the budget and mid-range segments. However, most of them have failed to elicit the kind of response that the Poco F1 did – one of the reasons is the price, and the other is, the phones were not targeted at gaming enthusiasts like the F1 was.
The Poco F3 GT has a lot going for it in terms of hardware and design. The GT moniker is becoming increasingly common – the Realme GT is another smartphone that is worth a shoutout in this price segment. While this branding is just that – branding – it is intended to suggest that the companies are aiming at gaming enthusiasts.
Poco has been subtle with its lines and hasn’t gone overboard to justify the GT moniker, but it has a couple of neat tricks up its sleeve that promise to offer more value.
Without much ado, let’s dive into the full review of the Poco F3 GT.
Poco F3 Gt price in India
The Poco F3 GT is priced at ₹26,999 for the 6GB + 128GB variant, ₹28,999 for the 8GB + 128GB variant and ₹30,999 for the 8GB + 256GB variant. It is available on Flipkart in Gunmetal Silver and Predator Black color options.
In this price range, the Poco F3 GT competes with the Realme X7 Pro 5G, OnePlus Nord CE 5G and the OnePlus Nord 2.
How is it to use the Poco F3 GT in day-to-day life?
Right off the bat, the Poco F3 GT makes a mark with its clean design. It has a few lines on the back to make it look a little different, and the camera module, too, is different from the bland designs that have become a little common these days.
But the biggest takeaway here is how good it feels to hold the phone. It sits very nicely in the palm and despite being a fairly large phone, it felt easy to hold and manage the phone thanks to the curved sides.
The front of the phone is dominated by the flat 6.67-inch AMOLED display. Combined with the 120Hz refresh rate, the Poco F3 GT offers a fluid experience. The MIUI experience is now cleaner than ever before and it has been optimized well, making it a breeze to use. The new control centre and notification panel, for example, does away with blurred background and odd iconography, presenting the notifications and control options clearly.
Another key aspect of a smartphone experience is the launcher – it’s often overlooked, but given how often we interact with the homescreen and the app drawer, it is important to have a fast, smooth launcher.
This has been improved radically over the past few iterations of MIUI. It is clean, fast and yet, customizable, and if you are a purist, you can simply disable or remove the extra fluff for a smooth, distraction-free experience.
Another interesting aspect of the Poco F3 GT is the dedicated gaming buttons on the right side of the phone. Poco calls them ‘maglev’, but essentially, these are trigger buttons that you can use while playing games. They can be toggled using their respective sliders next to the buttons. The power button is placed towards the centre on the right side, and it also doubles up as the fingerprint sensor. The volume buttons are placed on the left side.
Overall, all the buttons offer very good tactile feedback. The fingerprint sensor is fast and has a high success rate. The buttons are neatly tucked while still being easy to detect.
Poco F3 GT gaming, performance and battery life
Out of the box, the Poco F3 GT offers a familiar experience if you have used a Xiaomi smartphone before. It runs on the latest Android 11 update with MIUI 12.5 on top. Overall, the user interface has been cleaned up really well and regardless of which Android smartphone you’ve used before, you should feel mostly at home on the Poco F3 GT.
As usual, MIUI offers plenty of customization options, right from the lockscreen to the shape of the app icons. There are plenty of options to choose from for the always-on display screen as well, which is another useful feature.
The phone does come with a few pre-installed applications, but thankfully, you can uninstall them.
Powering the Poco F3 GT is the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 chipset, paired with up to 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. The phone handles everything, from games to media apps, with ease. From app loading times to the smoothness of the user interface, everything worked well.
I played popular games like Call of Duty: Mobile and Battlegrounds Mobile India, which the Poco F3 GT handled with ease. The gaming triggers are a nice little addition that makes the experience a little more enjoyable.
As for the battery, the Poco F3 GT is powered by a 5,065mAh unit and supports 67W fast charging. It charges from 0-100% in less than 50 minutes, and a full charge usually lasts me an entire day of usage with ease. This includes social media, messaging, calls, streaming a few videos and a few gaming sessions.
Poco F3 GT camera performance
The Poco F3 GT sports a triple camera setup on the back, with a 64MP primary camera, an 8MP ultrawide angle snapper and a 2MP macro camera. The front has a 16MP camera for selfies and video calling. The camera app is straightforward to use, with adequate options for different shots.
In daylight conditions, the Poco F3 GT performed well for the most part, but the sharpening is slightly on the aggressive side. This tends to make images look a little artificial when zoomed in, but they are serviceable for the most part.
Under challenging outdoor lighting, the Poco F3 GT tends to lose detail and the colours are a little too punchier when compared to the actual colours.
Surprisingly enough, images clicked indoors come out really well even under challenging artificial light.
It is worth noting that while indoors, the primary and ultrawide angle cameras produce relatively similar colours, but the macro camera tends to lack details.
Overall, the phone is fast enough when it comes to focusing. There are plenty of options available in the camera app, like HDR and AI modes, portrait, short video, panorama, night mode and a dedicated document mode for when you want to click a photo of a piece of paper.
What could have been better?
The Poco F3 GT’s direct rival is the Realme X7 Max 5G, with both offering comparable performance thanks to the Dimensity 1200 chipset. Both the phones also face similar issues when it comes to camera performance, so there really isn’t a lot that sets the two phones apart.
Should you buy the Poco F3 GT?
The Poco F3 GT fares very well when it comes to performance. The Dimensity 1200 chipset is fast enough to handle even graphic-intensive games with ease. The display quality is good, and Poco has done a good job with the way the phone feels in hand.
MIUI is now cleaner and gets out of your way when it comes to using the phone. The large battery, 67W fast charging, a bright and smooth display and the two dedicated gaming triggers make the Poco F3 GT a very good smartphone in this price segment.
Other phones in this price segment include the OnePlus Nord CE 5G, OnePlus Nord 2 and the Realme X7 5G.
SEE ALSO:
Realme GT Review — Pocketable powerhouse but not perfect
Oppo Reno 6 Pro 5G review – buy it if you want a mid-range smartphone with some interesting camera features
OnePlus Nord 2 review — catching up to the hype