So it’s been a month since I have reviewed the POCO F3 and while there were a lot of great comments, there were also some complaints. So yes, in this video I will be giving you my review of the POCO F3 after a month and I will answer all of your complaints about the phone.
Now before I begin, just to let you all know that this review is based on the latest update of MIUI 12.0.5.0 as of making this video.
Build Quality
First, let’s talk about the overall usage using this phone daily from a build quality’s perspective.
I still standby my initial review that the phone does feel good in the hands, the light and thin form factor is surely one of the biggest pluses of the phone.
And in terms of wear and tear, there were some minor scratches on the screen but thank God there is a screen protector on it, so no issues over there.
BUT where I felt a bit of a heartsick is that although the back of the phone seems like a finish which can hardly have any scratches, there was this two-line scratches which I am not sure how it got there, as I don’t usually put my phone together with my keys or coins. But yeah it happened, so I guess you all need to be aware that the rear panel can be scratched indeed.
And for those of you who have asked, the sides are made of plastic and NOT aluminum obviously considering the price point, but to me, it did look nice and kept the phone’s weight at bay.
And the side-mounted fingerprint sensor is still one of my favorites, with the tactile button feel compared to the concave styled ones you’d find like on the Mi 10T Pro and the response time for this was pretty fast as well.
Display
So now, let’s dive in straight to one of the biggest complaints or concerns about the phone, which is the phone’s display.
Firstly as a recap, it has a 6.67-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels HDR 10+ with 120 hertz refresh rate, 360 hertz touch sample rate and 1300 nits of brightness.
So… Is there really screen dimming issues? The answer is yes… and no.
When watching videos, especially Netflix, for a really long time and even when my buddy Lehud is watching his K-Drama as well, the only thing that happened is that it became warm after a very long time, but it was not so hot to the touch.
And even when it comes to playing games, it became just a bit warm as well, which I’ll go into a bit more later. But yes, there were no screen dimming issues when it comes to watching videos or using the phone every single day.
So there’s your answer, everyone!
Cameras
Next, as for the camera’s performance, I still think that the cameras are great on the phone.
A lot of people jump into the comments section scolding me saying “YOU ARE WRONG, there is no optical zoom” and yes, that was an honest mistake as I meant to say that it had a digital zoom and not optical zoom.
But yes as mentioned, everything was totally fine and the quality remains the same for all of the pictures modes and even the high 48-megapixel mode and videos was still one of the most stabilized for its price factor which was neat and shots at night was similar to when I first used the phone initially about a month ago.
And if you guys would like to check more sample photos and videos, if you guys haven’t seen my previous videos, be sure to check it out here.
POCO F3 5G Full Review: https://youtu.be/qlz_kV6TkKA
Sound Quality
Then from the phone’s sound quality’s perspective, the new update apparently gives a better Dolby support which to me I didn’t find any difference as the initial audio sound test was totally fine, whether it was during watching videos or even gaming as well.
Navigation
Let’s talk about using the phone from a day to day usage with the current MIUI update.
So, since the MIUI version 12.0.1 to the 12.0.5.0 update, issues like the dark mode integration have been fixed, with more visible buttons for YouTube Studio, Snapseed, Canva, and even Facebook, so that was good news.
Other than that, if you are used to the MIUI software, you won’t have any learning curve issues but if you are a brand new user of the MIUI software, I still think that Xiaomi has a long way to go to be one of the best compared to Android Skins like Samsung’s One UI and OnePlus’s Oxygen OS, and I personally feel it’s about time for Xiaomi to do a sort of an overhaul for their entire UI for MIUI version 13 because I still find that the MIUI is still not “the best” compared to other Android skins at this moment, where you need to really dig deep into going into some of the settings.
And there were some comments who asked for me to test how the 5G performance was on the phone, yes the phone has 5G connectivity but unfortunately, we don’t have 5G here in Malaysia so I could not test that out.
Battery
In terms of the phone’s battery, the 4520 milliamps still performed well and quite solid with pretty much the same close to 5 hours battery when I was at 10 percent battery, so that is good news as some phones tend to get their battery draining to be worse when times goes by, or when a newer update comes, but that was not the case for POCO F3.
Gaming
Since a lot of people were talking about overheating issues, next let’s look at the Gaming performance.
I tested out two games on the phone to see the phone’s performance, one is Genshin Impact and another is PUBG Mobile.
> Genshin Impact
So on Genshin Impact, I tested the game on a graphic set to Medium and frame rate to 60 FPS and turned off motion blur, and it ran smoothly and then after 20 mins of playing it was just warm to the touch but never beyond hot.
Then we stretched the graphic performance to High with the same settings and ONLY then it started becoming hot and YES it dimmed just a little, not to the extreme that it’s not playable, probably unless you are playing games under a super hot afternoon sun, who does that?
> PUBG Mobile
Then as for PubG, playing it at graphics set UHD and even frame rate to the extreme, and again it ran warm but not extremely hot and it didn’t affect the gameplay at all, like how the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra was (Yeap, review coming soon!) and it didn’t slow down the game at all, and no screen dimming issues as mentioned too.
Conclusion
So there you have it, all of your questions answered. So with this, my honest conclusion is that, I still humbly think that the POCO F3 5G is worth the money at only RM1,399 for the 6GB RAM with 128GB storage.
And it is nice to know that all the issues are fixed, and while the MIUI isn’t the best Android skin out there, and it is surely a time for a proper revamp, but for what it is, it surely blows out most of the competition out there.
But who cares about what I think, what is important is what YOU think? Would you guys get the POCO F3 right now? Do let me know in the comments section below.
PS: Don’t miss the Q&A at the end of my video review at YouTube!
