POCO M3 Review, Specifications, Price in India - Everything You Need

POCO M3 is one of the latest phones from Xiaomi’s sub-brand POCO in the Indian market. The brand releases the phone in the sub-Rs. 15,000 price point to go against the likes of Moto G9 Power and Redmi 9 Power. It arrives as a direct successor to last year’s POCO M2 with some significant improvements like more RAM, better cameras, and a larger battery. Check out our POCO M3 review to see if those improvements are enough for the fierce competition in the budget segment. 

POCO M3 review: Price in India

The POCO M3 price in India is Rs. 10,999 for the base 6GB RAM + 64GB storage option. You can get twice the storage for just Rs. 1,000 more as the 6GB RAM + 128GB storage option is retailed at Rs. 11,999. 

POCO M3 review: Display

On the front, the device is wrapped by a 6.53” display with Full-HD+ resolution and a dewdrop notch at the top. Just like other budget smartphones, there are also relatively thick bezels on the side. After spending some time with the phone, I find its IPS LCD exceed my expectations. Even though the colors are a bit saturated, you can change that by switching to the standard color scheme option in Display settings.

The viewing angles on this phone are decent, nothing impressive. The handset has WideVine L1 certification, meaning you can stream content in HD resolution on OTT platforms. With a maximum brightness of 400 nits, you can comfortably use the phone both indoors and outdoors, though you might face some issues in direct sunlight. 

POCO M3 review: Performance

Powering the POCO M3 is a Snapdragon 662 SoC, which is by no mean the most powerful chipset in the segment, but it still delivers great performance for daily-to-day tasks. I did notice several fps drops on animation-heavy websites, but not to the point that might bother you. 

One notable advantage of getting POCO smartphones over Redmi ones is the absence of ads. However, that doesn’t mean there is no bloat on this phone as it is still pre-installed with Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, and a few games. You can uninstall most of them, but not all.

On usual benchmark platforms like AnTuTu and Geekbench, the phone’s scores are not inferior to the competition. On Geekbench, it scored 312 points in the single-core test and 1,340 points in the multi-core test. Meanwhile, its performance on AuTu is 1,80,594 points. In Manhattan 3.1 and GFXBench’s Car Chase graphics tests, the phone achieved 31fps and 12fps respectively. 

When I ran Call of Duty: Mobile on this phone, it defaulted to Medium frame rate and High graphics quality. It was smooth during my gaming session, but I did feel the phone get warmer on the sides. The game consumed around 3 percent of the battery after 10 minutes of gaming, which is pretty high. However, with a beefy 6,000 mAh battery, you will still have relatively long battery life.

Overall, it is a good budget smartphone for daily tasks and light or medium games. 

POCO M3 review: Cameras

At the back, there is a triple-camera lens setup, consisting of a 48MP main sensor, a 2MP portrait camera, and a 2MP macro shooter. On the front, it features a single 8MP camera for selfies and video calls. Its camera app is fairly simple and easy to use. All the basic settings are in the right place, but you have to go into the sub-menu for the macro mode. You can enable the built-in AI, which allows the cameras to recognize what the smartphone is pointed towards and pick the most suitable settings.

In good lighting conditions, photos get quite a lot of details with a bit of smoothening. Exposure calibration and dynamic range are good. However, colors of the photos look slightly saturated, but it can be fixed by turning on the AI mode. Shutter speeds are fast, but it sometimes takes a bit too long to focus on an object.

In low-light conditions, photos lack details and are noisy even when assisted by nearby street lighting. In addition, the AI Scene detection appears to overexpose the photos and output blurry outcomes. Fortunately, the dedicated Night Mode is useful as it manages to capture much more details.

The portrait camera performs well at separating the subject from the background, not in low-light situations. Macro shots are not that good and I sometimes had to hold still and wait for the device to lock focus on the subject. Selfies are good, but I find the photos lack facial details even without face smoothening filters. 

POCO M3 review: Battery

The POCO M3’s weight is 208 grams, which is pretty impressive given its massive 6,000 mAh battery. The phone could last up to two days before having to charge, or even longer for light to medium usage.

While having a great battery life, the POCO M3 is pretty disappointing when it comes to charging speed. Even though the device supports 18W fast charging, I still have to wait nearly two and a half hours to fully charge the device. 

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