POCO F3 GT review: The obvious alternative to OnePlus Nord 2
Source: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central
The middle-range section has seen a flurry of launches over the last half a dozen weeks, with the Realme X7 Max, Reno 6 Pro, and the OnePlus Nord 2 each making their first appearance. POCO has also thrown its lid in the ring with its latest gimmick, the F3 GT.
The F3 GT uses the standard POCO F3 Eastern Samoa a foundation, just you won't find very much of similarities between the cardinal phones. There's a good rationality for this: the POCO F3 GT is a rebranded translation of the Redmi K40 Gaming Variant, and as a result you'll find a few unique features that come through stand out from the respite of the phones in POCO's portfolio.
POCO's playbook over the last 18 months has been to rebrand existent Redmi devices and pinch a few things around conception and computer software, and it has largely worked. With the F3 GT, POCO is aiming to crack one of the best middle-lay out phones available now. India's budget segment is obviously the driver for a bulk of phone gross sales, and POCO says that the premium segment (phones o'er ₹40,000 ($540)) witnessed a huge 35% uptick all over the last 12 months.
But the middle-range segment (₹20,000 ($270) to ₹40,000 ($540)) hasn't seen as very much momentum, only because of inherent potential in this family, brands are now turning their focus here. Of course, that means there's an teemingness of choice if you'ray looking to buy a phone for under ₹40,000. With so numerous great options already available, does the POCO F3 GT manage to jump in this increasingly crowded segment? Let's find out.
POCO F3 GT
Bottom line: The F3 GT has a reverberant 120Hz AMOLED screen, marvellous inner hardware that ensures fall back-free gaming, stereophony sound, electric battery that lasts over a twenty-four hours, and a 67W instantaneous charging. Supply maglev gaming triggers and LED lighting at the back, and you get ace of the best values in the mid-reach segment.
The Good
- Beautiful 120Hz AMOLED screen
- Amazing assault and battery life with 67W smooth charging
- Side-mounted mechanical triggers are great for gaming
- Powerful ironware
- IP53 military rating
- Stereophonic system wakeless
The Bad
- Bloatware out of the box
- Average cameras
- None wireless charging
POCO F3 GT: Price and global availability
Source: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Mechanical man Midmost
The POCO F3 GT is now on sale in Republic of India, and should constitute making its right smart to other global markets in the coming weeks. The phone is sold in three configurations in Republic of India — 6GB/128GB, 8GB/128GB, and 8GB/256GB. There's also a 12GB/256GB modeling, but that variant hasn't debuted in India. Here's the dislocation of the POCO F3 GT pricing in India:
- POCO F3 GT (6GB/128GB): ₹26,999 ($362)
- POCO F3 GT (8GB/128GB): ₹28,999 ($390)
- POCO F3 GT (8GB/256GB): ₹30,999 ($415)
POCO is incentivizing the launch by discounting wholly variants of F3 GT aside ₹1,000 until Honourable 2, and by ₹500 from August 2 to August 9. The retail pricing traded above kicks in after August 9, so if you'rhenium distinct on the F3 GT and want to save a lilliputian bit more cash, you can make out so by pick up the phone right now.
POCO F3 GT: Design and display
Germ: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Mechanical man Central
The POCO F3 GT is based on the Redmi K40 Play Edition, but unlike gaming phones from ASUS or RedMagic, you won't find out an aggressive design here. Sure, there are a few carven lines at the back that try to give the phone a bolder posture, but it is lacking in terms of presence.
The F3 GT has mechanical triggers, and they make a Brobdingnagian divergence while gaming.
The oblong prat camera mental faculty doesn't face very modern, but you do suffer Light-emitting diode lighting close to the caparison, and the flash module is enclosed within a lightning cutout. The F3 GT is missing some flair, but IT isn't a boring phone by whatever standard. The phone has a Gorilla Glass 5 noncurrent with a mat up finish that feels great to custody, and the mid-frame is made out of aluminum. IT's exonerate that POCO made a dole out of travail in nailing the in-hand feeling, with the phone featuring a radial bevel where the back meets the mid-physique and squarish bevels around the sides.
The result is that the F3 GT feels extremely well-situated to hold and use. The phone is on the heavier side at 205g, but the weight distribution is ideal, and in the week I used information technology, I didn't notice the heftiness at every last. The matte finish makes a big dispute in day-to-day habit, ensuring you get a good handle and minimizing smudges at the assonant time. As an added incentive, the phone has IP53 dust and piss resistance, so information technology has the ability to hold out dust ingress and sprays of water.
The left side of the ring is in particular busy, because this is where the mechanical triggers are housed. They sit out flush with the body when non in use, and you can activate them by toggling the two sliders that sit to a higher place and below the power button. It feels corking to use mechanical triggers for gambling; I like the ultrasonic triggers that ASUS uses on its gaming phones, but they miss the tactile feedback that you get here. So if you routinely play Federal Protective Service shooters on your phone and want to gravel an edge, the F3 GT may just be the twist for you.
Other usability-centered changes include a optical lens that doesn't protrude from the chassis, so you North Korean won't notice any wobble when victimisation the phone on a multidimensional surface. POCO went with a side-mounted fingerprint sensor baked into the power push button in lieu of an in-screen option to save costs, and it is fast to authenticate.
Because this is a play phone, the F3 GT has LED lighting around the butt camera housing. By default, it kicks in while the headphone is charging, going from red to yellow to green as the battery gets occupied up. You can also custom-make it to glow when receiving calls and notifications, and while gambling. Like the rest of the design, the lighting isn't as flashy as former play phones, merely it is a nice pinch nevertheless. Elsewhere, you'll find the usual POCO mainstays: there's an IR blaster, twofold-SIM connectivity, and USB-C port at the bottom.
Source: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central
The F3 GT has the distinction of being the first POCO phone in India with an AMOLED panel. While the post has released several devices with 120Hz refresh rate, they were all founded on LCD panels. The 6.67-inch FHD+ screen itself is identical to the standard POCO F3, thereupon device sold in India as the Mi 11X.
The 8-bit panel connected the F3 GT has standout colors and gets sufficiently bright, but I did notice issues with the close gentle sensor. There were times when it didn't crank the brightness adequately, and so I had to manually adjust it with the Pseudemys scripta in the notification pane. I didn't see this issue on the POCO F3, sol I'm chalking it adequate a package glitch that should suffer resolute with an OTA update.
Another bring out is that the screen is set to 60Hz out of the box, so you'll have to go into settings to change IT to 120Hz. POCO really needs to either set aside users to prime between the two brush up rates while mount up the phone or receive the 120Hz mode set by default.
Other than that, the screen is a delight to use. The phone has one of the loudest stereo speakers I've ill-used in this category, and they're great for playing videos or gambling. Like the back, the screen is covered by a layer of Gorilla Glass 5.
Overall, the POCO F3 GT doesn't have the same level of flamboyance as other gaming phones, simply it's evident that POCO is positioning the gimmick as non just a gaming phone but a mess-commercialise option. In short, information technology is a well-crafted earphone with a matte finish, multipurpose additions like mechanical triggers, and a large 120Hz panel with stereo voice that gets incredibly loud.
POCO F3 GT: Performance and battery
Beginning: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central
Like other recent middle-range phones, the POCO F3 GT is powered away the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 chipset. OnePlus customized its variant of the Dimensity 1200 on the Nord 2 to leverage a few AI features, but POCO ISN't doing that here.
| Specs | POCO F3 GT |
|---|---|
| Software program | MIUI 12.5, Android 11 |
| Showing | 6.67-edge in (2400x1080) 120Hz AMOLED |
| Chipset | 3.0GHz MediaTek Dimensity 1200 |
| Crash | 6GB/8GB |
| Storage | 128GB/256GB |
| Hindquarters Camera 1 | 64MP ƒ/1.8 (underived) |
| Rear Camera 2 | 8MP ƒ/2.2 (wide-angle) |
| Rear Camera 3 | 2MP ƒ/2.4 (macro) |
| Front Tv camera | 16MP ƒ/2.5 |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 6, BT5.2, NFC |
| Battery | 5060mAh | 67W |
| Security | Side-mounted fingermark |
| Colours | Black, Silver |
| Dimensions | 161.9 x 76.9 x 8.3mm |
| Weight | 205g |
I'm not going away to spend too much time talking about the ironware side of things because the Dimensity 1200 is a known quantity at this point. The chipset has a one-person Cortex A78 core that goes up to 3.0GHz, three A78 cores at 2.6GHz, and iv A55 cores at 2.0GHz.
In day-to-Day employ, the F3 GT is on par with devices that price double every bit much. There's no interim or stutter in the least, and the phone blazes through needy tasks without break a sweat. The nine-substance Mali G77 GPU delivers leading gaming performance, and even in intensive titles I managed to get consistent framerates.
MediaTek is onto a historical success with the Dimensity 1200, with the chipset on equivalence with the Snapdragon 870. And so information technology's nary wonder that most manufacturers have opted to go with the many cheap MediaTek chipset in lieu of Qualcomm.
Because the F3 GT is billed atomic number 3 a play-focussed phone, there's customised cooling to ensure it commode redeem sustained performance without strangling. POCO notes that the cooling result should save between a 5 to 7 degree decrease in temperatures, but in my use I found that the phone wasn't noticeably ice chest than the Nord 2.
In terms of connectivity, you'll find Wisconsin-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, and NFC. There's no AptX HD audio codec here, and steady when it comes to connectivity, you're limited to bands N77 and N78 for the Indian variant. It's clear that this is an country where POCO sought to cut costs; with 5G not going away to be mainstream for at to the lowest degree some other year OR so, brands are hedging their bets on the standard.
Source: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central
Xiaomi phones possess forever delivered outstanding battery life, and that's no different with POCO's portfolio. The F3 GT has a massive 5060mAh battery that lasts all over a day with ease. I played games, streamed videos, and went direct my feed for a couple of hours and still managed to get the phone to penultimate a day and a half.
I habitually averaged over six hours of screen-on-time, but what's interesting is that I always had at least 30% or more charge left terminated away the time I inside-out in. With most mid-roam devices touting a day's worth of battery life-time, the F3 GT has a considerable edge therein area.
POCO also nailed the brief in terms of charging. The F3 GT features 67W bound charging, and information technology takes the bundled 67W fence unit righteous 15 minutes to charge the battery from zero to 50%, with a full commit taking scarcely over 50 minutes. Like most phones in this category, the F3 GT has two 2530mAh cells that electric charge simultaneously. You will have to use the bundled electric outlet and cable to hit 67W on the F3 GT, and the cable itself is angled, ensuring information technology isn't inconvenient when you're playing while charging the phone.
POCO F3 GT: Cameras
Source: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Mechanical man Middlemost
If there's one shortcoming in POCO's portfolio, it has to do with the cameras. While the brand has managed to deliver swell hardware on a value, it is yet to deliver a device that takes rightfully standout photos. The F2 Pro came close finally yr, but that phone was limited to a few global markets.
The F3 GT has a 64MP elementary lens along with an 8MP opened-angle and 2MP macro modules. There's a 16MP camera at the strawma, and the camera user interface itself hasn't changed from in the first place this year. Arsenic for video, you'ray limited to 4K at 30fps — the likes of most phones in this segment.
The standard F3 didn't really fling draft in this area, only the F3 GT does a better showing. The elemental lens holds up just fine in day scenarios, producing shots with plenty of detail, full dynamic range, and true colors. POCO relies on Xiaomi's camera tuning, and the resultant shots put on't run to be oversaturated. Of course, if you're after that Samsung-esque look, there are plenty of alternatives, including the Galaxy A52.
I'm pleasantly astonished by the quality of the photos in low-light situations. The F3 GT was fast to focus on happening a subject and took photos with accurate colors while preserving highlights and minimizing noise levels. The phone's 8MP fisheye lens also does a decent plenty job in daylight situations, just waterfall short at nighttime.
The F3 GT has great cameras in its own right, but with much intemperate rivalry in this category, you'll notic devices that do a better job therein area. If you're looking to buy a telephone primarily for shooting photos and videos, the Nord 2 or Reno 6 Pro outmatch the F3 GT. Of course, these devices make their own foibles, but they take better photos.
POCO F3 GT: Software
Root: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Median
There isn't overmuch to mouth about on the software movement. The POCO F3 GT runs MIUI 12.5.2 supported Android 11 out of the box. POCO devices in the past have come with outdated versions of MIUI (and Android), so it is good to see the post fixing this primary issue.
Course, the main speaking point in MIUI 12.5 is the fact that you can instantly uninstall system apps. Xiaomi notes that aside from 7 apps, all stock apps can be uninstalled, and that is a big motion forward for the brand. The F3 GT still comes with a lot of bloatware out of the box, but the fact that you crapper uninstall every of it As well as fresh MIUI apps is a huge deal.
MIUI 12.5 brings much-needed fixes, but Xiaomi needs to sort out software updates.
MIUI 12.5 also makes the interface feel that much more fluid. I've used IT on the Mi 11 Ultra and now the F3 GT for over three weeks, and information technology's acquit that Xiaomi centred on under-the-hood changes to optimise the UI.
Thither's also a new Game Turbo mode that gives you floury-keyed control over the hardware and lets you handicap notifications and calls when you'ray gaming. This being MIUI, you'll also find a few shortcomings. Control Focus on is in real time enabled by default for notifications, and piece IT houses the power menu smartness domestic device controls, I do non like the looking and feel of the pane.
You can easily switch to the older MIUI notification pane, but in doing so, you miss out on smart device controls. Xiaomi should have switched these over to the power menu button like every other maker, but as it International Relations and Security Network't the case, you bequeath have to choose between one surgery the other. Likewise, Xiaomi Keyboard is enabled out of the box instead of Gboard, and while you can go into the settings and switch to Google's keyboard, information technology's puzzling that this is not already done by default.
But the biggest issue along the software side of things is updates. The POCO F3 GT will get two major Android updates and two years of security patches, and that is just non enough in 2021. With Samsung, Google, and OnePlus offering long software updates, it's time for Xiaomi to set about doing the same.
POCO F3 GT: The contender
Source: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central
The middle-range category is current with tasty honourable now, and if you'Ra looking to pick up a phone, you cannot ignore the OnePlus Nord 2. The earpiece has a more modern design, 90Hz AMOLED jury, Dimensity 1200 chipset, standout camera at the back, and a 4500mAh battery and 65W fast charging. The Nord 2 also has cleaner software (at the moment, anyway), and less bloatware out of the loge.
The Realme X7 Max is also a contender to the POCO F3 GT, offering nearly very hardware — including a 120Hz AMOLED screen, Dimensity 1200 chipset, and 64MP lens at the back — and a 4500mAh bombardment with 50W fast charging. Realme UI has a modern reckon and feel likewise, and with the device already on sale, you nates cotton on for little than the F3 GT.
POCO F3 GT: Should you buy IT?
Source: Apoorva Bhardwaj / Android Central
You should buy this if ...
- You want a regent gaming earpiece
- You pauperism a phone that lasts Thomas More than a day
- You want a 120Hz AMOLED screen
- You're looking unusual features like gaming triggers
- You need fast bound charging
You should non buy this if ...
- You want fast software updates
- You need a great camera
- You want wireless charging
The POCO F3 GT gives you everything you're looking for in a mid-range phone. The 120Hz AMOLED instrument panel is sublime, the Dimensity 1200 ensures there's enough power for the most demanding of games, the maglev play triggers are a delight to use, the 5060mAh electric battery lasts over a day without neglect, and the 67W charger negates the penury for leaving the phone plugged in overnight.
You'll find the familiar trade-offs here: there's no wireless charging, and POCO's update history is far from ideal. But when you reckon what you're stipendiary and the hardware on offer, the F3 GT is a standout choice. Sure, the camera ISN't as good as the Nord 2, but if that isn't a priority and you're or else in the commercialise for a gaming-focused phone, the F3 GT is the unblemished favorite.
POCO F3 GT
Bottom stemma: The POCO F3 GT has totally the hardware features you're looking for, and the add-on of the play triggers makes it base out fair-minded that microscopic second much from its rivals. If you want a gaming-focused phone that likewise takes decent photos, this is a nary-brainer.
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POCO F3 GT review: The obvious alternative to OnePlus Nord 2
Source: https://www.androidcentral.com/poco-f3-gt-review