Review: POCO M3 Pro

As somebody who’s experience with android devices has been limited to owning a Samsung back in 2010, when I received my first cellphone, and typing out texts for others who owned various kinds of android cellphones, I was pleasantly surprised with my experience with the Xiaomi POCO M3 Pro, and for just less than P12,000.

Design and Build

The POCO M3 Pro is sizable with a 6.5 inch Full HD+ LCD display, but is still quite light at 190, and a 8.9mm thickness. It boasts a 90Hz Refresh Rate that supports a responsive, and smooth viewing experience, whether in-game or watching a video. The glass front is made of Corning Gorilla Glass 3, with a plastic back that is a fingerprint and dust magnet. It would be best to keep the clear protective case it comes with to maintain the sleekness the POCO M3 Pro has to offer in three different colors: POCO Yellow, Cool Blue, and Power Black – which is the version being reviewed.

The volume rocker, along with the power button that doubles as the fingerprint sensor, can both be found on the right side, while the dual SIM (nano SIM) card slots are on the left. Up top, the headphone jack, IR blaster, and secondary microphone, and at the bottom of the phone, the USB Type-C charger and speakers.

Camera

A noticeable feature of the POCO M3 Pro is its cameras, with the protruding back camera and the punch hole at the front for the selfie camera.

The POCO M3 Pro sports a triple camera at the back, with a 48 MP main sensor, a 2 MP macro sensor, and a 2 MP depth sensor.

From left to right: a) regular photo, b) 48MP Ultra HD, c) 2x zoom, d) 10x zoom, e) portrait selfie, f) night mode. 

The regular photo mode captures sharp photos in the daytime, making for crisp and clear details with vibrant colors, especially when focused correctly, and the 48MP lens builds on this with even more clarity. The camera also zooms up to 10x with some grain and muddiness but is not too bad. Furthermore, night mode works considerably well as it provides a little more light, though it takes about three seconds of holding the phone in place, and another three seconds to process the photo.

Meanwhile, the front camera falls a little short as selfies look washed out, making the colors seem much paler and cooler than in reality. The POCO M3 Pro can also shoot up to 1080p at 30 fps for videos, which is not bad for a quick clip or an Instagram story.

Performance

Personally, I have been used to hooking my phone up to a charger a couple of times a day, but the POCO M3 Pro was a welcome new experience with its 5,000mAh battery. A full charge lasted a little over 21 hours with light to moderate use that included watching videos/movies, and online gaming. I was delightfully surprised by its 18W fast charger that powers the battery back up by 53% in a little over an hour, especially at its price point.

The POCO M3 Pro’s security features include a built-in fingerprint sensor on its right side, as well as facial recognition.

This smartphone employs a MediaTek Dimensity 700 5G chipset, coupled with 4GB or 6GB of RAM, and 64GB or 128GB of storage, respectively. It ran graphic-intensive games, such as Genshin Impact and Asphalt 9 fairly well with rarely any drops. 

After running the device through Geekbench and 3D Mark, the results are as follows:

• Geekbench OpenCL Score: 1420
• Geekbench Single-core: 525
• Geekbench Multi-core: 1630

Verdict

Even with limited experience with Android phones, the POCO M3 Pro still holds up with a vibrant and impressive display, a highly capable battery capacity, and a fair camera for sharp photos. The device does fall a little short in terms of aesthetics, with the large brand logo on the back, along with sound quality, as some sounds came out garbled through the speakers when high quality music was played. The POCO M3 Pro comes in at P8,990 for 64GB + 4GB RAM and at P11,990 for 128 GB + 6 GB RAM, and with all things considered, it is a pretty good deal.