The POCO X3, POCO X3 NFC and POCO X3 Pro are Android-based smartphones developed by Xiaomi, announced on 7 and 22 September 2020.[1][2] The phone has a FHD+ IPS LCD 120 Hz 6.67-inch display, a 48 MP wide, 8 MP ultra-wide, 2 MP macro, and 2 MP depth camera, a 5160 mAh battery, up to 8 GB RAM and a side-mounted fingerprint sensor.[3][4][5][6]
There has been lot of criticism with the reliability around the devices mainly with caused by the PMIC.
Specifications
Hardware
The POCO X3 and X3 NFC run on Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G (8 nm) processor with Adreno 618 to handle graphics. It is equipped with Liquid Cool Technology 1.0 Plus for heat dissipation.
They have a 6.67" 1080 × 2400 pixels (20:9 aspect ratio) IPS LCD display which supports 120 Hz refresh rate and 240 Hz touch sampling rate. The display is certified by TÜV Rheinland.
They are protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 5, plastic frame and plastic back. The phones support IP53 splash-proof protection.
POCO X3 and X3 NFC come with 6 GB LPDDR4X RAM, 64 GB or 128 GB UFS 2.1 storage options which is expandable up to 512 GB with microSD card.
The POCO X3 and X3 NFC have quad rear camera set-up with 64-megapixels Sony Exmor IMX682 as the primary sensor, 13-megapixels ultrawide camera with 119° angle of view, 2-megapixel macro camera and 2-megapixels depth sensor. The phone can record 4K video at 30 FPS and 720p slow motion video at 960 FPS. The camera app by default outputs 16-megapixels photos while the PRO-mode in camera can capture in 64-megapixels.
The NFC model has a typical battery capacity of 5160 mAh while the non-NFC model has a typical battery capacity of 6000 mAh (lithium ion). On both models a battery can be charged over USB-C at up to 33 W. A 33 W charger is included in the box.[7]
The POCO X3 and X3 NFC come with MIUI 12 for POCO, based on Android 10 with POCO Launcher 2.0. The POCO X3 can be updated to MIUI 13 for POCO based on Android 12 and the POCO X3 NFC can be updated to MIUI 14 for POCO based on Android 12. It also supports third-party operating systems such as the Android 11-based LineageOS 18 along with Ubuntu Touch and postmarketOS.[8][9]
Price
In the European market, Poco X3 Pro was launched at €249 for 6 GB RAM/128 GB storage variant and €299 for 8 GB RAM/256 GB storage variant[10]
Criticism
The Poco X3 Pro and maybe the Poco X3 NFC had a faulty PMIC, which eventually caused the phone to not charge and the memory chip to corrupt, rendering the phone bricked, as you need an authorized Mi account to flash using EDL. Unlike popular belief it affected both the Indian and the EEA variants.[11][12][13] A temporary fix was rebooting the phone into fastboot, which caused a "recalibration" of the PMIC.[14] Xiaomi confirmed the issue and gave another 6 months of warranty to the Indian version.[15]
Lot of screens were defect, which caused ghost touch issues and random wake-ups. Sometimes it corresponded with a PMIC failure which caused some to believe that the PMIC caused these issues, although Xiaomi has not acknowledged it.[14]
