The Pro edition of Xiaomi’s Poco M3 budget phone launched on schedule yesterday, featuring a 5G chip, responsive screen, and long battery life. Even with the new upgrades, POCO M3 Pro maintains the pocket-friendly price of the M-series.
We start with the chip at the heart of the Xiaomi POCO M3 Pro — the Dimensity 700. It’s an entry-level 7nm platform from MediaTek, clocked at 2.2GHz with a baked-in modem that supports dual SIM 5G. The 6000 mAh battery inside the POCO M3 has been trimmed down to 5000 mAh in the Pro version.
At the same time, the refresh rate on the screen has been bumped up to 90Hz. The ‘DynamicSwitch’ technology can intelligently adjust the refresh settings between 30Hz and 90Hz depending on the content displayed.
The rest of the display specifications are shared with the POCO M3. We’re looking at a 6.5” IPS LCD with a hole punched right in its center. The pane, toughened with Gorilla Glass 3, delivers a full HD resolution at 400 nits of peak brightness.
POCO ships the M3 Pro with a 22.5 charging brick but the phone’s charging support is capped at 18W. Despite the new power-hungry chip and screen, the New Xiaomi mobile is advertised to last two days of average use.
The design has also been revisited. Instead of a black cutout that runs across the width of the phone’s back, POCO M3 Pro’s accent is flipped vertically. The shell surrounding it comes in Power Black, Cool Blue, and POCO Yellow colors. You also get the features typical to new budget phones from Xiaomi: NFC support, IR blaster, side-facing thumbprint reader, and a slot for storage expansion.
M3 Pro’s camera island contains three lenses. This array is carried over from the M3 as well. We’re looking at the same 48MP wide camera and two 2MP macro and portrait sensors.
The new MIUI 12 built on Android 11 runs on the POCO M3 Pro 5G right out of the box. Multitasking is handled by 4GB or 6GB of memory based on the variant. Plus, the storage (available in 64GB and 128GB alternatives) uses a faster UFS 2.2 standard. The base edition starts from €180 (~ Rs. 33,000.)