Smart Android And Trik-Commenting on Andorid indeed never endless, because smart devices this one is often updated every certain amount of time. So that the market can always be garapnya menerinya with pleasure. And it is not denied if this device has become the lifestyle of each society. To not wonder if the 6th business information and many are turning to mobail smartphone. With Android which thoroughly dominated the mobile industry, choosing the best Android smartphone is almost identical to choose the best smartphone, period. But while Android phones have few real opponents on other platforms, internal competition is intense.
Introduction
Poco recently unveiled a couple of GT phones with the Poco X3 GT and Poco F3 GT. The duo is aimed at different regions - the X3 is for the middle East and Asia excluding India, while the F3 model is an India-exclusive. These new GT versions are meant to deliver speed on the budget, and they sure look intriguing. Today we are meeting the Poco X3 GT and we are ready to put it through its paces.
Poco and Xiaomi, two supposedly independent companies, are once more trying their best to confuse us. See, the Poco X3 GT is not a new smartphone - it's a rebranded version of the Chinese Redmi Note 10 Pro. The stress here is on Chinese, as it has nothing to do with the global Redmi Note 10 Pro. And in case you were wondering, yes, the other F3 GT model is also a recycled one - it's the Redmi K40 Gaming Edition for China.
Long story short, the GT pair is not new, in fact, it's been selling in China for quite some time under the Redmi brand. However global markets will get them in a different flavor, along with some changes in the UI.
And with the Chinese Redmi Note 10 Pro not available around these parts of the world, we are thoroughly intrigued to see what the Poco X3 GT can do. It's a promising offer with a 120Hz LCD screen, speedy Dimensity 1100 5G chip, a trio of cameras, and a large 5,000mAh battery with flagship-grade 67W fast charging.
The GT model has a lot in common with the Poco X3 Pro - an attractive IP53-rated design, a 120Hz LCD screen, some powerful hardware platform, a triple camera on the back, and a large battery.
But it also improves on the Pro model with the most current Gorilla Glass Victus protection, a better 64MP primary camera (vs. 48MP), and much faster 67W charging (vs. 33W). Poco is also advertising the screen for its adaptive refresh rate - it should be able to switch between 30Hz, 48Hz, 50Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz and 120Hz automatically depending on the content.
The Dimensity 1100 SoC should be as powerful as the Snapdragon 860 inside the X3 Pro model. It is also very close to the flagship Dimensity 1200 chip - the only notable difference being the omission of a designated Prime CPU core.
Enough introductions. Let's scroll through the specs and get this review started.
Xiaomi Poco X3 GT specs at a glance:
- Body: 163.3x75.9x8.9mm, 193g; Glass front (Gorilla Glass Victus), plastic back; IP53, dust and splash protection.
- Display: 6.60" IPS LCD, 120Hz, HDR10, 450 nits (typ), 1080x2400px resolution, 20:9 aspect ratio, 399ppi.
- Chipset: MediaTek MT6891Z Dimensity 1100 5G (6 nm): Octa-core (4x2.6 GHz Cortex-A78 & 4x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55); Mali-G77 MC9.
- Memory: 128GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 8GB RAM; UFS 3.1.
- OS/Software: Android 11, MIUI 12.5 for POCO.
- Rear camera: Wide (main): 64 MP, f/1.8, 26mm, 1/1.97", 0.7µm, PDAF; Ultra wide angle: 8 MP, f/2.2, 120˚, 1/4.0", 1.12µm; Macro: 2 MP, f/2.4.
- Front camera: 16 MP, f/2.5, (wide), 1/3.06", 1.0µm.
- Video capture: Rear camera: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30/60/120fps; Front camera: 1080p@30fps, 720p@120fps, 960fps.
- Battery: 5000mAh; Fast charging 67W, 100% in 42 min (advertised), USB Power Delivery 3.0.
- Misc: Fingerprint reader (side-mounted); Infrared port; Virtual proximity sensing.
The obvious missing bits on the Poco X3 GT are a microSD slot and a 3.5mm audio jack. It also doesn't have dedicated gaming triggers as the Poco F3 GT, but we doubt as many people will be sad about those. Still, it would have made the GT insignia even more relevant and distinguish the GT model from the Pro one.
Unboxing the Poco X3 GT
The Poco X3 GT ships within a black paper box with rich content. Inside the box you'll find a 67W power adapter and a 6A-rated USB cable - the same combo that ships with the flagship Mi 11 Ultra.
In addition to the top-notch charger, the box also contains a transparent silicone case, a USB-C-to-3.5mm adapter, and a bunch of Poco stickers. And since Poco is all about 'Everything You Need, Nothing You Don't', we imagine eventual buyers most definitely need those stickers, right?
Design, build quality, handling
The Poco X3 GT may be a mid-ranger, but it sure doesn't look like one. Whether you get the sparkly Stargaze Black version (ours), the striped Cloud White or the Wave Blue one, you'd have a cool looking phone that will stand out.
This GT model also employs the latest Gorilla Glass Victus screen protection, something that was exclusive to flagships until recently. The Poco X3 GT, its Chinese Redmi counterpart, and the Nokia X20 are actually the first phones to offer Victus outside the top tier segment.
The rest of the Poco X3 GT is made of plastic, though it does still feel decent - the frame has matte finish, while the shiny plastic back looks and feels like glass.
Just like most of the Xiaomi and Poco mid-range phones, the Poco X3 GT is IP53-rated, promising protection from dust and water splashes. It is NOT waterproofed, though. We appreciate ingress protection - some is always better than none, but keep in mind that the X3 GT is still not promising it will survive any sort of powerful water jets nor submersion.
Almost the entire front is occupied by the 6.6-inch LCD screen. An LCD panel it may well be, but it's among the best ones we've seen - it supports adaptive 120Hz refresh rate, HDR10, and DCI-P3 color space. There is a tiny punch-hole below the earpiece for the 16MP selfie camera. The good news is that the backlighting was improved on the GT model and its even around the cutout, just like on perforated AMOLEDs.
The screen bezels are alright - thin enough even if not as slim as on models with OLED panels.
Above the screen is the earpiece grille and beneath is one of the stereo speakers, which also acts as an earpiece. The front grille is not the only opening for the sound - there is a larger grille at the top of the phone, symmetrical to the bottom one. The X3 GT indeed offers two loud and balanced speakers making for a particularly good stereo setup. The top one is doing a solid job when employed as an earpiece too.
The back is made of plastic, but it can easily pass as glass one. It's one of these slightly curved multi-layered pieces, all glossy and pretty thanks to a cool paintjob.
The color is called Stargaze Black model, and we find it an appropriate description. The rear panel is mostly black with a very subtle transition towards dark gray from bottom to top. It is sprinkled with glitter - small colorful particles that look just like millions of stars, and they fade away slowly following the black to gray gradient.
We are glad Poco has decided against a giant POCO logo as seen on the Poco X3 Pro model. It would not have worked with this finish at all.
The glossy back is a giant fingerprint magnet and smudges and unpleasantries stick in mere minutes. We guess regular cleaning is the price you pay for the good looks.
The camera island is jutting out of the back big time. It is unusually thick and large for such a modest setup. Mounted on a silver island you get a 64MP primary camera, while an 8MP ultrawide shooter, and a 2MP macro unit are sitting next to it. A dual-LED dual-tone flash is also around.
The phone does wobble a lot because of the thick camera piece, but most of the phones do these days, so we won't hold it against the X3 GT. And once you put on a case, which is what most people do anyway, the problem is essentially solved.
The frame, just like the back, is made of plastic, but has a grippy matte finish. On the top you can find the IR blaster, one of the mics, and a speaker grille.
The other speaker grille is at the bottom, together with the USB-C port and the mouthpiece.
The dual-SIM tray is alone on the left. The volume rocker and the power/lock key are on the right.
The Poco X3 GT features an always-on fingerprint scanner mounted on its power key. Unsurprisingly for a senor mounted on the body of a phone it is blazing fast and has high reliability.
The Poco X3 GT measures 163.3 x 75.9 x 8.9mm and weighs 193g - meaning it is 2mm shorter, a hair thinner and 22g lighter than the Poco X3 Pro.
Even if most of the Poco X3 GT is glossy, the phone provides good enough grip and we felt it safe in hand no matter the use case. We never thought of using the supplied case for grip purposes. Sure, it provides extra protection, but given that it has Gorilla Glass Victus and plastic frame and back, we'd say the GT is already protected enough. Plus, we didn't want the extra thickness and diminished looks.
Overall, the Poco X3 GT is one well-built phone with great looks, good grip, enough protection, and of reasonable size and weight. And for the asking price we couldn't want more, in fact, we got more than we hoped for.
Display
The Poco X3 GT features a 6.6" IPS LCD that's similar to what we saw on the Poco X3 NFC and Poco X3 Pro. It has a resolution of 1,080 x 2,400 pixels (399ppi), supports HDR10, 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, and 240Hz touch sampling.
Just like the other Poco X3 models, the GT has a punch-hole for the selfie camera, but this time around we are happy to find even backlighting around the cutout.
Poco promises 450 nits of typical brightness for the screen. Well, we did our usual measurements and the display maxed out at 430 nits when we adjusted the brightness manually - it is in the ballpark of the advertised number.
When set to the Auto (or the Sunlight Mode is active) and faced with bright light, it will go as high as 537 nits. That's not a great improvement, but it is on par with the Poco X3 Pro. Yet the Poco X3 NFC's display would go almost 100 nits higher to 630.
The black level is among the deepest we've captured on an LCD, and the contrast turned out excellent at about 1400:1.
The minimum brightness is outstanding - we measured the incredible 0.9 nits at point white.
| Display test | 100% brightness | ||
| Black, |
White, |
||
| 0.301 | 429 | 1425:1 | |
| 0.38 | 537 | 1413:1 | |
| 0.327 | 458 | 1401:1 | |
| 0.4 | 534 | 1335:1 | |
| 0.354 | 460 | 1299:1 | |
| 0.515 | 631 | 1225:1 | |
| 0 | 511 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 716 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 457 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 725 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 443 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 650 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 433 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 640 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 386 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 794 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 514 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 846 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 459 | ∞ | |
| 0 | 585 | ∞ | |
MIUI's display settings offer three different Color presets - Auto (default), Saturated, and Standard - each one tailored to a specific color space.
The Auto option covers the DCI-P3 color space and it would adjust the colors to correspond to your current lighting (like Apple's True Tone). Usually, the screen has this bluish tint and isn't that accurate. The Saturated option makes the color pop even more, so if accuracy is what you are after, you better use Auto and tweak the advanced color settings to your liking.
The Standard setting is made for sRGB, and we captured a good color accuracy (average deltaE of 3.2).
If you want more accurate colors, you can play with the color temperature tool and adjust it towards a bit warmer, yellowish hues.
Now, let's talk refresh rate. There are two settings available to you - Standard (60Hz) and High (120Hz). The latter is adaptive, and the Poco X3 GT supports 30Hz, 48Hz, 50Hz, 60Hz, 90Hz, and 120Hz steps.
So, when using the 120Hz adaptive mode you would be getting 120Hz refresh rate whenever you're touching the phone and across the UI. It will drop to 50Hz a couple of seconds after your last interaction with the screen, although not every time. This behavior varies across apps, system ones even, so we can't really identify a pattern.
There are exceptions, though, with most of them being video apps. In YouTube and Netflix, for example, the screen would always run at 60Hz. But when watching videos, it often switches to 48Hz or 50Hz depending on the video. It can even drop to 30Hz if it decides to. Speaking of 30Hz, the only time we were able to push the display this low was when playing 30fps videos captured with a smartphone camera.
Unlike the Realme GT, the Poco X3 GT unlocks its high refresh rate modes for all compatible games like Dead Trigger 2 and Ace Combat.
The Poco X3 GT display is truly one of the most adaptive we've met to this date. It switches to the promised refresh rates when the occasion arises - videos are played/streamed in 30Hz or 48Hz modes, HRR-capable games run at 90Hz and 120Hz, the task switcher uses 90Hz, static pictures are shown at 50Hz, and so on.
Finally, the screen does support HDR10 and is recognized as such by all hardware reading apps. It plays HDR10 videos on YouTube, too.
Our unit came with the basic Widevine L3 DRM support though, meaning the streaming apps cannot show Full HD and HDR10 media. But Xiaomi has so far pushed L1 updates shortly after launch on its previous phones, so we are hopeful this will happen for the Poco X3 GT, too.
Battery life
The Poco X3 GT, just like the Poco X3 NFC and Poco X3 Pro, is powered by a solid 5,000mAh cell. Fast wired charging is supported, and the 67W adapter is bundled with the phone.
So, this new Poco X3 GT model scored some impressive numbers on our battery test. It posted a 110h endurance rating - close to the Poco X3 Pro's 112h score. It can last north of 36 hours on 3G calls, do more than 17 hours of web browsing, or play videos for nearly 16 hours. The X3 GT also demonstrated some good standby performance.
Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating denotes how long the battery charge will last you if you use the device for an hour of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. More details can be found here.
All test results shown are achieved under the highest screen refresh rate mode. You can adjust the endurance rating formula manually so it matches better your own usage in our all-time battery test results chart where you can also find all phones we've tested.
Charging speed
The Poco X3 GT supports 67W Mi Fast Charging and comes with a 67W adapter and a 6A-rated USB-C cable inside the box. Poco's official statement says the 67W charger fully recharge the X3 GT for 42 minutes.
We put that to the test, of course, and here are the numbers we got. The supplied charger refills 75% of the GT's dead battery in 30 minutes.
30min charging test (from 0%)
Higher is better
- Realme 7 Pro
94% - Realme 8 Pro
88% - Realme GT 5G (65W)
87% - Poco X3 GT
75% - Poco F3
67% - Realme X7 Max 5G
60% - Realme 8
56% - Poco X3 NFC
55% - Samsung Galaxy A52 (25W)
52% - Poco X3 Pro
50% - Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
50% - Samsung Galaxy A52
34% - Realme 8 5G
29%
A full charge required 48 minutes, not that far from what the maker promises.
Time to full charge (from 0%)
Lower is better
- Realme 7 Pro
0:37h - Realme 8 Pro
0:38h - Realme GT 5G (65W)
0:39h - Poco X3 GT
0:48h - Poco F3
0:56h - Realme X7 Max 5G
1:00h - Poco X3 Pro
1:08h - Realme 8
1:09h - Poco X3 NFC
1:15h - Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
1:21h - Samsung Galaxy A52 (25W)
1:30h - Samsung Galaxy A52
2:03h - Realme 8 5G
2:20h
There is something we want to mention and it's not exclusive to the Poco X3 GT. The charging speed depends on the temperature of the phone when you plug it and the ambient temperature. First, we did our test at 30C room temperature (it's one hot summer we are having here), and we achieved full charge in 54 minutes. Then we repeated the test at 24C room temperature and got the 48-minute result. We guess 42 minutes is very much achievable under certain conditions although they might involve uncomftrtably cold temperatures. And this, of course, applies in various degrees to any charging test and any smartphone.
The Poco X3 GT doesn't appear to support reverse wired charging. There is no wireless charging option either.
Speakers
Just like the Poco X3 Pro, the Poco X3 GT offers two full-blown speakers on its top and bottom sides behind two dedicated grilles. The top speaker also doubles as an earpiece and that's why sound is coming from both the earpiece and the top grilles.
The two speakers seem loud enough with nicely balanced output.
The Poco X3 GT scored an Average loudness on our test. But the setup offers impressively rich and deep audio and sounds better than any of its competitors, so kudos for that.
Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.
The speakers support Dolby Atmos and you can turn that on in certain apps, such as the default Mi Video player (via a swipe-able menu). The effects surely sound nice, although we imagine a handful of people will be playing movies via the speakers of the phone.
MIUI 12.5 for Poco on top of Android 11 core
The Poco X3 GT employs the latest Poco-spiced MIUI 12.5 version. MIUI 12 has been around for a while, and even if it uses an Android 11 base, you can't really tell that as it skins everything thoroughly. The Poco launcher uses a slightly different system theme compared to Xiaomi's own-branded phones, icons included, but you can change it to your liking.
You unlock the screen via the side-mounted fingerprint scanner. The reader is easy to set up, blazing-fast, and the accuracy is superb. We also liked the haptic feedback the X3 GT provides upon successful unlocking.
Depending on how you carry the phone you might want to set the unlock method to 'Press' as the always-on reader will often attempt reading your palm and/or other fingers and eventually disable the fingerprint unlock until you input your PIN. A 2D Face Unlock is available, too, but it is far less secure than the fingerprint option.
Security options
The homescreens are business as usual - they are populated with shortcuts, folders, and widgets. The leftmost pane, if enabled, is Google's Discover.
The Poco X3 GT does not support Always-on screen, there are no Super Wallpapers either.
Homescreen
MIUI 12 for Poco offers an app drawer, but unlike on the Redmi phones, you cannot disable it on the Poco X3 GT.
It automatically organizes your apps into categories. The first is All, meaning it contains all apps. Then follow Communication, Entertainment, Photography, Tools, New, and Business. You can edit these categories or even disable them altogether.
App drawer
MIUI 12 has its notification shade split into Notification Center and Control Center. Indeed, this is precisely what the iPhones do, and you even summon them in the same fashion - pull down from the left part of the screen for the Notification Center, pull down from the right for the Control Center.
If you are not fond of this new split - you can disable the Control Center, and the shade will revert to its more traditional Android looks and operation.
Notification Center • Control Center • Options • The old Notification Shade
The task switcher is business as usual. It shows all your recent apps in two columns. Tap and hold on a card for the split-screen shortcut, or just swipe it left or right to close it.
Split-screen multi-tasking is supported. There is no Floating Window shortcut, but the Calculator app does support Floating options once launched.
Task Switcher • Split screen • Split screen • Floating calculator
Themes are a huge part of MIUI, and they are available on MIUI 12, too. You can download new ones from the Themes store, and they can change wallpapers, ringtones, system icons, and even the always-on display style.
Themes
Xiaomi enhanced MIUI 12 with a couple of additional privacy options. Now, when sharing stuff, like photos and videos, you can opt to remove location info and/or other metadata (incl. device info) and thus protect your privacy better. Neat.
Gallery • Privacy Settings
MIUI also offers a Security app. It can scan your phone for malware, manage your blacklist, manage or restrict your data usage, configure battery behavior, and free up some RAM. It can also manage your installed apps' permissions and allow you to define the battery behavior of selected apps and apply restrictions only to the apps you choose.
MIUI 12 packs proprietary Gallery, Music, and Video player. In some regions, the music and video apps include paid streaming options. There is also Mi Remote app for the IR blaster. There is no FM radio on the Poco X3 GT.
Security • Security • Music • Video • Mi Remote
MIUI 12 supports Dark Mode, too, and you can even force it on wallpapers or restrict its application on incompatible individual apps.
Dark Mode
MIUI 12 is fully optimized to work on HRR displays, and it looks great on the Poco X3 GT. Everything is smooth and fast; animations are unobtrusive yet impressive, the attention to detail is excellent. We did enjoy working with MIUI on the Poco X3 GT's 120Hz screen for sure.
Some MIUI ROMs include ads in the default apps; it is a well-known thing.
How to disable ads
The international ROM version of this Poco X3 GT does come with baked-in "recommendations" or ads, but even if they were enabled by default - nothing appeared through the UI. Still, if your phone does show ads - you can disable those even if it's a bit tedious to do it. For example, if you are annoyed by the app scanner's ads, just hit the settings gear and disable recommendations. Ads in the File Manager - Settings->About should do it. Themes - go to Settings and disable Recommendations. It's not ideal, sure, but at least you can get rid of them all.
Performance and benchmarks
The Poco X3 GT is the first phone we meet that's based on the MediaTek's Dimensity 1100 chipset. The hardware platform is similar to the top Dimensity 1200 chip - it has the same CPU cores, graphics and connectivity suite, but differs mostly in the clock speeds.
So, the Dimensity 1100 chip offers an octa-core processor with a 4+4 configuration - meaning it doesn't have a dedicated 'prime' core. There are four Cortex-A78 clocked at 2.6GHz and four Cortex-A55 clocked at 2.0GHz.
For graphics, the chipset has a total of nine Mali-G77 computing cores. We cannot confirm if the GPU clocks are the same as on Dimensity 1200 though as MediaTek doesn't advertise those.
The Dimensity 1100 chip package also includes a 5G NR Sub-6 GHz and LTE, built-in modem. It is noteworthy that the Poco X3 GT and its Dimensity 1100 are capable of Dual SIM 5G standby (SA/NSA supported), which is not a given.
Speaking of connectivity features, the chipset also has Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6, NFC and Bluetooth 5.2. And everything is crammed into the chip package using a current and efficient, though not industry-leading 6nm manufacturing process.
The Poco X3 GT is available with 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and you can choose between 128GB and 256GB UFS3.1 storage options.
So, the synthetic performance of the Dimensity 1100's CPU is on par with the Poco X3 Pro's Snapdragon 860 and not that far from the Nord 2's Dimensity 1200.
GeekBench 5 (multi-core)
Higher is better
- Realme X7 Pro
2997 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
2909 - OnePlus Nord 2
2792 - Poco X3 Pro
2574 - Poco X3 GT
2310 - OnePlus Nord CE 5G
1812 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
1780 - Poco X3 NFC
1777 - Realme 8 Pro
1678 - Samsung Galaxy A52
1577 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S
1576
GeekBench 5 (single-core)
Higher is better
- OnePlus Nord 2
814 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
803 - Realme X7 Pro
756 - Poco X3 Pro
735 - Poco X3 GT
693 - OnePlus Nord CE 5G
641 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
569 - Poco X3 NFC
568 - Realme 8 Pro
566 - Samsung Galaxy A52
525 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S
502
The 9-core Mali-G77 GPU is in a similar boat. It scored on par with Snapdragon 860's Adreno 640 (Poco X3 Pro), and the Dimensity 1200's GPU (Nord 2).
GFX Manhattan ES 3.0 (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Poco X3 GT
97 - Poco X3 Pro
93 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
78 - Realme X7 Pro
64 - OnePlus Nord 2
59 - OnePlus Nord CE 5G
40 - Realme 8 Pro
38 - Samsung Galaxy A52
35 - Poco X3 NFC
33
GFX Car Chase ES 3.1 (onscreen)
Higher is better
- Realme X7 Pro
40 - Poco X3 Pro
38 - Poco X3 GT
38 - OnePlus Nord 2
38 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
35 - OnePlus Nord CE 5G
17 - Poco X3 NFC
16 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
16 - Realme 8 Pro
16 - Samsung Galaxy A52
15
The AnTuTu compound benchmark rates the Poco X3 GT among the best in its price bracket.
AnTuTu 8
Higher is better
- OnePlus Nord 2
512164 - Realme X7 Pro
510317 - Poco X3 GT
506800 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
465534 - Poco X3 Pro
453223 - OnePlus Nord CE 5G
318672 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
295442 - Realme 8 Pro
286666 - Poco X3 NFC
283750 - Samsung Galaxy A52
261282
AnTuTu 9
Higher is better
- OnePlus Nord 2
598022 - Poco X3 GT
578505 - Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G
522490 - OnePlus Nord CE 5G
391770 - Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S
330909
The performance of the Dimensity 1100 turned out to be excellent - the chipset behaving as well as its specifications made us to expect. This means the Poco X3 GT will surely perform admirably for the next couple of years. It has the raw power to handle whatever you throw at it, including HRR-enabled games.
The MIUI for Poco runs smoothly and hiccup-free, too, and we did not observe any stutter or freezes working at either 60Hz or 120Hz smoothness.
Stability and sustained performance are always important, and we often include such tests in our reviews. The Poco X3 GT has a plastic frame and back. The chip heat dissipation is done via layers of graphite, copper coil, some thermal gel and a vapor chamber. While at 100% load the phone gets noticeably warm around the camera and on the same spot on the screen side. But this hot part is tolerable to touch and nothing to really worry about.
The Poco X3 GT scored a 99.5% stability score on the 3D Mark Wild Life Stress Test, but there is a catch. It did that on the fifth try and only when we put the phone in the fridge for the 19th and 20th loops. The phone always overheated on the 18th loop and the reason is that it applied no throttling at all upon reaching critical temperature. We suspect this might have been programmed for better benchmark results.
Then we ran the CPU Throttling test for a whole hour and things became much clearer. The Poco X3 GT CPU dropped its performance down to 60% mere minutes after launch and spend the next hour locked at these scores. This means the cooling solution allowed the CPU to keep only 61% of its maximum performance.
Overheating message • 3D Mark Stress Test • 3D Mark Stress Test • CPU Throttling Test
The Poco X3 GT is equipped for top-notch performance, but its cooling system isn't that good enough to deliver peak performance for prolonged periods of time. Then again, no game or app uses 100% of the available resources and we did not notice throttling or unusual heating under normal use.
Your typical mid-range triple camera
The Poco X3 GT features a triple-camera that's placed on a rather large island on the back. There is a 64MP primary camera, an 8MP ultrawide shooter, and a 2MP macro camera. A dual-LED dual-tone flash is around, too.
The Poco X3 GT relies on a 64MP 1/2" OmniVision OV64B sensor with a Quad-Bayer filter. The sensor has 0.7µm pixels, and after the 4-in-1 binning, you'd be getting a 16MP photo with 1.4µm equivalent performance. This sensor sits behind a 26mm f/1.79 lens, it supports PDAF, but there is no OIS. A high-res 64MP mode, Pro Mode, as well as Night mode are available for this camera.
Second is an 8MP 1/4" Sony IMX355 sensor with an ultrawide-angle 16mm f/2.2 lens. The focus is fixed at infinity.
The macro camera has a 2MP GalaxyCore GC02M1 sensor with f/2.4 aperture lens and the focus is fixed at about 4cm distance.
The Poco X3 GT has a 16MP selfie camera that uses a 1/3.06" OmniVision OV16A1 sensor with 1.0µm pixels and a Quad-Bayer filter. The sensor is behind an f/2.45 aperture lens that has a fixed focus.
The default camera app is a typical MIUI affair - switching between modes is done by swiping left and right, and all available modes but Macro are on this rolodex. There are no zoom shortcuts here.
On the opposite end of the viewfinder, you have a flash mode switch, an HDR switch, an AI toggle, and a magic wand with beauty effects and filters. You'll find some more options behind a hamburger menu, including the Macro mode, plus the shortcut to the settings. What you won't find is an option to set the output resolution.
There is a Pro mode for all rear cameras. Manual 64MP pictures and RAW are available for the main camera from here. You can use up to 30s shutter speed (0.4s for macro) and ISO up to 6400.
Camera app
Photo quality
The default 16MP photos from the main camera are great for this class. The resolved detail is plenty, the colors accurate and the processing while a bit agressive causes very few issues.
The rendition is balanced and natural looking, and we liked the foliage presentation. The applied sharpening is somewhat on the high side, but not too drastic.
Overall, these are some of the better photos from a smartphone's primary camera we've seen lately, and not only within the mid-range bracket.
Main camera, 16MP
There is an AI button, but, as usual, it mostly boosts the contrast and colors depending on the scene - whether its Skies, Grass, Buildings or else. But if you like the more saturated colors and the occasional over-the-board contrast, you should probably keep that on.
Main camera with AI, 16MP
The 2x toggle on the viewfinder uses digital zoom by cropping and upscaling. The photos are okay on the phone's screen, but not good when viewed in full resolution.
Main camera 2x zoom, 16MP
There is a dedicated 64MP mode, and it produces excellent high-res photos. This is one of the few cases we can wholeheartedly recommend the high-res mode for two reasons - more resolved detail and better 2x zoom.
First, the 64MP images exhibit good levels of detail and capture otherwise invisible or lost to the processing intricate details. Sure, these images aren't impressively sharp on a per-pixel level, but they have more total detail than the 16MP snaps. And they still have great colors and contrast.
Main camera, 64MP
To illustrate our point we downsized one of these images to 16MP and compared the two side by side below.
The 64MP photos also do better with the 2x zoom due to their higher initial detail. See, you can crop the 16MP center of any 64MP photo and get much better 2x zoomed picture than the default digital zoom you get from the viewfinder.
So, if you need more detail or better 2x zoom and you are willing to spare some 20MB for each photo, then we can suggest using the 64MP mode. Note that these benefits are available only in good lighting conditions.
The main camera can shoot commendable portrait shots, once again proving that dedicated depth sensors (which the Poco X3 GT lacks) barely contribute anything to the shooting prowess of a phone. The subjects are incredibly detailed with excellent colors, the separation seems proficient and dependable, and the simulated blur looks good, too.
Main camera portraits, 16MP
The Poco X3 GT shoots some decent 8MP ultrawide photos. The resolved detail is fine considering the tiny sensor, the contrast is good, the noise is lower than we expected low, and the dynamic range is wide even if no HDR was used.
The colors are not that accurate though - the photos are a bit warmer than they should be and the colors are somewhat duller. That's hardly an issue per se, but the color difference between the main and ultrawide camera is noticeable.
Ultrawide camera, 8MP
The 2MP macro camera is as basic as they come. Its focus is fixed at 4cm, which means there is a learning curve for taking a sharp photo. Once you get the gist of it, you can capture some good closeup shots like the ones we did.
The 2MP images below are detailed, with accurate colors and high contrast. Because of their small size, we'd guess they will be used mostly on Instagram or similar services, and they will surely do for a bunch of likes.
Macro camera, 2MP
The Poco X3 GT supports Auto Night Mode - a feature that premiered with the Mi 11 flagship. It was not turned on by default on our unit, but we still gave it a shot. It is rather similar to what Apple does with its Night Mode - the camera app decides when and where to use Night Mode and its exposure time. You have no say in any of this (you don't even get a say about the exposure time even in the Manual Night Mode though).
Only the main camera uses Auto Night Mode even if the option suggests it's available for all snappers. When shooting with the main camera, it doesn't look like it is using Night Mode at all. When Auto Night mode is activated the image processing is instantaneous. In contrast Manual Night Mode takes about 3-4 seconds per shot, so clearly they are not applying the same processing.
When comparing photos between Auto and Manual, we discovered that the main camera uses Night Mode rarely and relies mostly on its standard capabilities.
Now, it's time to look through some low-light photos.
The 16MP photos (no Night Mode) are exemplary. There is a ton of resolved detail, top-notch sharpness and yet low noise levels. The color saturation is kept true to life and the contrast is good, too.
The dynamic range is nothing impressive and blown highlights are frequent, but still - these are some solid night photos.
And we want to praise one more thing about this camera - even if it doesn't offer OIS, we still had zero blurred photos, which is surely part luck, but also part good selection of shooting settings by the X3 GT.
Main camera, 16MP
The manual Night Mode takes about three seconds and restores the blown highlights and provides better development in some shadows. The color saturation is noticeably improved, too.
But these improvements will cost you some fine detail and sharpness. You can notice smeared grass, building decorations, blinds, among other things.
Still, if you need a bit better exposed picture with good highlights, this is the way.
Main camera with Night Mode
The Auto Night Mode triggers on the first, fourth and the last scene. These Night Mode images look a bit sharper than the manual Night Mode ones, but this could be due to less handshake - these Night Modes aren't that reliable after all.
The rest of the photos are identical with the default (no Night Mode) images we've shown you first.
Main camera Auto Night Mode
The default 8MP ultrawide images are only okay - they may be noisy, but you can clearly see what's on them. The colors are preserved well, too.
Ultrawide camera, 8MP
The Night Mode is recommendable for the ultrawide camera as it drastically improves the quality. As usual - it restores the blown highlights and may reveal some more detail in the shadows. Here, it also cleans noise, but instead of smearing detail, it actually extracts more.
So, if you need to snap an ultrawide photo at night, do that with the Night Mode.
Ultrawide Night Mode
And here are photos of our usual posters taken with the Poco X3 GT. Here's how it stacks up against the competition. Feel free to browse around and pit it against other phones from our extensive database.
Poco X3 GT against the Poco X3 Pro and the Realme X7 Max 5G in our Photo compare tool
The Poco X3 GT has a 16MP front camera. It snaps natural-looking and balanced selfies, when there is enough light. The subjects details are only averrage but the contrast and colors are very good, while the dynamic range was above average.
Since this is a Quad-Bayer shooter, the photos should have been 4MP, but they seem to be proficiently upscaled back to 16MP. That's the reason the samples aren't the sharpest around, but few people zoom in on selfies, so we'd say these are excellent for most occasions. And you can also always resize these down to 4MP and get some sharp images.
If the light isn't ideal, the photos will come out rather soft, the tiny sensor showing its limitations.
Selfies, 16MP
The selfie camera can do portraits, too, but the subject separation is far from ideal. We can only imagine how this would look for a person with more complex hairstyle. We suggest using the portrait mode only in extreme cases.
Portrait selfies, 16MP
Video recording
The main camera of the Poco X3 GT can do 4K recording at 30fps, as well as 1080p at 30fps and 60fps. The ultrawide snapper maxes out at 1080p at 30fps, while the macro shooter - at 720p at 30fps.
Note that switching to any of the non-primary cameras will lower the resolution of the main camera and you will need to manually adjust it every single time.
There is optional electronic stabilization available for all resolution, frame rates across all cameras but the macro. It comes at the expense of minor FoV loss and a tiny bit of added softness.
Then there's the Super steady Mode shot with the main camera - it focuses more on stabilization rather than quality, as an action camera would do.
The video bitrate is 50Mbps for 4K and 20Mbps for 1080p clips, while audio is always recorded in stereo at high 256kbps bitrate.
The 4K videos from the main camera look amazing - the resolved detail is plenty and the sharpness is great considering this rather budget class. There is no noise in these 4K videos, the white balance is good and the colors are accurate, the contrast is great, too.
The dynamic range is praiseworthy, too. Overall, we really liked the Poco X3 GT 4K videos.
The 1080p footage from the ultrawide camera is good, too. The clips are sharp and detailed, the noise levels are low, and the colors seem accurate enough. The dynamic range is above average, too. The contrast and isn't that great, but that's to be expected from this type of camera.
Finally, here is the Poco X3 GT in our video comparison database.
2160p: Poco X3 GT against the Poco X3 Pro and the Realme X7 Max 5G in our Video compare tool
Alternatives
The Poco X3 GT may be the international version of the Chinese Redmi Note 10 Pro, but its official availability is still rather limited. Poco will bring it across Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. It will not launch in India, nor there are plans for EU launch (for now).
That being said, the Poco X3 GT has all the qualities to be an attractive offer, one that some may consider as a flagship killer. It has the premium 120Hz screen, the powerful Dimensity 1100 5G chipset, some excellent battery life, and a solid main camera across the board.
The second issue (after availablity) is pricing - X3 GT is nearly 30% more expensive than the Poco X3 Pro model(RM 1,299 vs. RM 999 in Malaysia). The two phones offer the same performance, battery life and similar screens. We are not sure if the faster charging, more camera pixels and the Gorilla Glass Victus upgrade are worth that much.
The Poco F3 is priced around the same as the X3 GT. It offers a 120Hz AMOLED screen, a bit faster Snapdragon 870 5G chipset, and a dual Gorilla Glass design, but its camera is inferior. Some would find that a worthy trade-off, others won't be as pleased.
The Realme X7 Max 5G, known in some places as the Realme GT Neo, costs the same as the Poco X3 GT and it's a worthy alternative. The X7 Max/GT Neo beats the Poco X3 GT with a 120Hz AMOLED screen and a faster Dimensity 1200 chip. The rest is a perfect match to the X3 GT - stereo speakers, identical cameras, connectivity options, battery life, and even similar charging times.
Finally, the Galaxy A52 is an interesting offer to consider - its 4G version costs the same as the Poco X3 GT. Sure, the performance is nowhere near Poco's (still good though), but the A52 has one impressive 90Hz Super AMOLED, an excellent quad-camera on the back waterproofing (IP67-rated). If water resistance, OLED screen and photography are your trifecta, maybe give the A52 a try.
Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro • Xiaomi Poco F3 • Realme X7 Max 5G • Samsung Galaxy A52
Our verdict
The Poco X3 GT is a phone of many flagship traits. The GT's 120Hz LCD screen is truly one of the most adaptive we've experienced, the performance is excellent even if the cooling isn't ideal, the battery endurance is impressive, and the charging is incredibly fast.
The Poco X3 GT also impressed us with its speaker quality and photography skills - the main 64MP camera shoots amazing photos and videos. The selfie camera could have been better, though.
So, the Poco X3 GT is another exemplary offer from Poco and Xiaomi. Putting the confusing marketing, rebranding and availability aside, it is one of the best phones you can buy around the €280/RM1,400/$300/Rs.58,000 mark. It is an excellent smartphone with a thoughtful pick of premium features and sold on a relativity bargain price. What's not to like?
Pros
- Good looking design, GG Victus, IP53-rated.
- 6.6" LCD screen, 120Hz refresh, HDR10, tiny cutout.
- One of the most adaptive HRR modes we've tested.
- Outstanding battery life.
- Impressively fast charging.
- Flagship-grade performance on the cheap.
- Commendable speaker audio quality and balance.
- Excellent daylight and low-light photo quality.
- Impressive 4K videos from the main camera, EIS.
- 5G with dual 5G standby, Wi-Fi 6, NFC, IR, MIUI 12.
Cons
- No microSD.
- The cooling system can't handle sustained load well.
- Uninspiring selfie camera.
- Spotty availability.
0 Response to "Poco X3 GT review"
Post a Comment