Xiaomi Poco F1 128GB Brief Review, Ratings, Pros Cons, Specs, Cases & Covers

Xiaomi Poco F1 128GB Brief Review and Pros Cons:

Pocophone is a sub-brand of Xiaomi like Realme is of Oppo and Pocophone or known as Poco has launched its first smartphone in India on 22nd August 2018. Pocophone has left everyone amazed with a very aggressive pricing despite being powered by the top shot Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 which we saw in the OnePlus 6 and the Zenfone 5Z. Poco F1 comes with a notch display, a powerful battery, a good to go camera and everything that a user looking to spend 25k would look for. It smashes all the record of the value for money score and here in this review, we discuss the specifications, features and every detail on the Poco F1, which you as a prospective buyer would look for.

Poco F1 comes with a 6.18 inch Full HD plus display having a resolution of 1080 x 2246 pixels. The display has a notch design which is slightly big and holds the front camera and the IR sensor. The software gives you the option to disable the notch if you do not like it and use the phone like a bezel-less display phone. The screen is of IPS LCD type and is of good quality with perfect brightness and no issues could be observed even using it in the direct sunlight with auto brightness. The one thing which we found a little weird are the thin bezels even above the notch which does affect its looks and design. 

On the build quality side, the Poco Phone comes with a polycarbonate body which is a small compromise comparing the beautiful and gorgeous glass design pattern which we see in the phones today. That does not mean the phone ranks poor on the build quality, overall it is good with metal in between back and front and is decent at the price point considering what all it offers as discussed below. The 8GB 256 GB variant comes in a Kevlar back material which is textured and looks better with a better build quality and is priced at 29k. You can take a look at the Kevlar variant here. The Pocophone is not a fingerprint magnet and there are no smudges as we see on the smartphones with glass designs. Also, there is a translucent case bundled in the box.

Coming to the highlight of this Poco F1, The Performance, and here everyone has their jaw dropped as we witness the all-powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 which till date was only seen in the budget flagship and the flagship smartphone. The Snapdragon 845 in a budget smartphone at 21k is totally insane and has put a big question in front of other manufacturers to think of what should they introduce next. Snapdragon 845 needs no introduction as it was seen in the OnePlus 6 and the Zenfone 5Z. It is an octa-core processor comprising of 4x2.8 GHz Kryo 385 Gold & 4x1.8 GHz Kryo 385 Silver along with Adreno 630 GPU. The Poco F1 also witnesses the LiquidCool Technology, which keeps the CPU temperature maintained that allows the Snapdragon 845 to perform to its full capacity when you are gaming in the super heavy mode.

The phone comes with a 6GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage which can be expanded up to 256 GB with the hybrid micro SD card slot. Without any iota of doubt, the performance is mind-blowing and the RAM management is amazing, the multitasking is super smooth, the gaming performance is brilliant and we did not find even a small hiccup in our usage. The Poco F1 scores a massive 285302 on the Antutu Benchmark shattering any record that existed for a smartphone priced around 20000. On the GeekBench, the Poco F1 scores, 2467 on the Single Core and 9081 on the multi-core, and we would ask you, what else would you get for only Rs 20000. Full marks on the performance to the master of speed, Poco F1.

On the next important aspect of the Poco F1, the camera. Here we get a dual read camera placed vertically in the middle of the phone with 12MP Sony IMX363 + 5MP Samsung, f/1.75 sensors and dual LED flash. The colours in the photo look rich and the shots are pretty much detailed. The images are sharp and you are going to love it for 21000 bucks. Frankly speaking, the camera is not as great as the OnePlus 6 priced at 35000 but gives a tough competition to it.  There is support for 4K videos but the Poco F1 only supports Electronic Image stabilization (EIS) and does not support Optical Image stabilization (OIS). In the portrait mode, the edge detection in bang on and we could see even the hairline edges are very well aligned. There are some AI optimizations in the colours using the object detection. The low light shots are also very bright and contain very less noise, OnePlus 6 is better but only by a tad margin as it captures more light and has slightly better low light images. Also, OnePlus 6 has better image stabilization because of the presence of OIS and the difference could be seen in the videos recorded at 4K resolution of Poco F1 and OnePlus 6.

The front camera comes with a 20 MP sensor and it also supports the portrait mode. The shots are full of details and you might even look better than what you look in the real life. At the pricing of 21k, we are in love with what the camera has to offer. A budget flagship capability in a budget pricing in what Poco offers. The camera configuration, is similar to the Redmi Note 5 Pro and people had questions that if the camera performance in any better? So here, we do not think we should compare, because the camera image quality on the Poco F1 is far better and class apart than the Note 5 Pro which is also directed by a far better image signal processor in the Snapdragon 845.  Poco F1 has the best ever camera seen in any phone in India for a pricing of 21000.

The PocoPhone F1, runs on MIUI 9.6 with POCO specific optimization and is build over the Android Oreo. Poco has promised an update to the MIUI 10 and also the Android P (Pie). The MIUI has some bloatware but the POCO has enabled the gesture recognition which if enabled on your device removes the three button from the bottom and reads your gesture for all the tasks, something similar to what we saw in the iPhone X.

Poco F1 not just comes with a massive processor but a huge battery life. it features a non-removable 4000 mAh battery and gives a screen on time of around 6.5 to 7 hours and with medium usage, you can easily run with the phone for at least 1.5 days. Fro the heaviest of usage, you may still see a battery backup for a full day, this speaks volume of the optimization that comes with the phone and the efficiency of the Snapdragon 845 processor. The Poco F1 has a USB type C port and supports Quick Charge 3.0(quickly charges up the first 20%) with a fast charger bundled in the box. The total time it takes for the charging is about 100-110 minutes.  Poco F1 is not water or dust resistant and there is no IP rating so keep it protected from any damage.

For the unlocking, Poco F1 comes with a fingerprint sensor just below the rear camera and is super quick. It takes less time than the blink of the eye. For the face unlocking, which is also very accurate and fast comes with an additional feature of IR sensor, which enables you to unlock the phone even in darkness. It has a stereo speaker where the main speaker is located at the bottom and the earpiece is used as the second speaker but you do not get a true stereo speaker like seen in the Zenfone 5z but it is decent enough for the pricing. 

After all this, we can just say that Poco has entered the market with a band and is a total game changer for the industry. Without any doubt, the Poco F1 is the best smartphone under 25000 and we can hear the trumpets of the thumping victory this Poco F1 from Xiaomi is going to blow.

The Poco F1 sale starts from 29th August 2018 and is exclusively available on Flipkart via the flash sale. For the 21k variant, you are going to see huge demand as was for the Note 5 Pro. There is a launch offer with Poco F1 where you can get additional Rs 1000 discount if you pay via HDFC credit and debit card.

User Reviews of Xiaomi Poco F1 128GB:

If you would like to read the reviews given by customers who bought Xiaomi Poco F1 128GB, check out the links below

Read Xiaomi Poco F1 128GB User Reviews on Flipkart

Read Xiaomi Poco F1 128GB User Reviews on Amazon