POCO F1 does not only kill all phones in the segment but also kills Xiaomi’s own Mi A2.
Shomik Sen Bhattacharjee 29 August, 2018 11:25 IST
22 August was quite an extraordinary day for the Indian smartphone market. At one, seemingly more interesting end, we had Samsung launching the Galaxy Note 9. And on the other end, we had Xiaomi launching a new smartphone under a new odd sounding sub-brand named POCO. Surprisingly, ever since, the smartphone everyone wants to know about is the POCO F1. Not because it’s the best smartphone you can get your hands on but simply because of how it manages to redefine an entire smartphone segment by offering a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset at an unheard of price of Rs 20,999.
So who is the POCO F1 for and why are the likes of Honor, Motorola, Nokia and Samsung shaking in their boots?
The POCO F1 trumps every other smartphone there is under Rs 25,000 in terms of performance, speed and even battery life to an extent that it seems like a no-brainer for any buyer. But unlike what a number of people believe it to be, it just isn’t comparable to a budget flagship like the OnePlus 6 or the Asus ZenFone 5Z. Here’s why!
Build and Design: 7/10
Xiaomi and POCO had to cut cost wherever they could to price the F1 as low as they did and though you will not really be able to gauge that by simply looking at a unit (and kudos to POCO for making it appear that way), pick up and hold one and you surely will.
We had the Kevlar (Armoured) edition of the phone for review which is the highest end version of the phone, priced at Rs 29,999. While this is the most expensive variant you can get your hands on, the entire front of the display has chunky and ugly looking bezels, even if you completely ignore the fact that the phone has a huge notch and a thick chin below the display.
The entire display unit also sits onto the body with a plastic lipping which in 2018, you would likely notice only in budget and entry-level devices. What this means is that Xiaomi left out on throwing in a 2.5D glass layer which would make the display appear like it is moulding onto the body of the display.
Another question that you would ask here is why is the notch so big? In fact, with the number of budget Android smartphones opting for the notch as a forced design choice, this is by far one of the biggest notches we’ve seen on any smartphone till date. Now, Xiaomi claims that the notch here is larger because it houses the front camera, earpiece and a dedicated camera sensor along with an IR blaster for the face unlock feature to work. But it still does take away from the overall appeal of the device.
The entire frame of the phone here is also made of polycarbonate which again is a choice that would help POCO cut costs over opting for metal. Turn the phone over and the apart from the lovely kevlar textured back, the POCO F1 is as dull as it gets when it comes to design. To remind you, this is the most premium variant of the phone and a single coloured back would appear to look only worse.
With a chunky battery in there, the POCO F1 despite its plastic build isn’t very heavy at 187 grams. But given the way the phone feels when you pick it up, it does feel dense, unlike other Xiaomi’s smartphones we’ve seen in this price range.
The funny bit here is though there are a number of issues with the build and design of the phone, they’re all quite insignificant when you think in terms of user experience.
Apart from that, the finish on the device overall isn’t bad at all. The buttons are well made and clicky, there’s a type-C port and a 3.5 mm headphone jack which are always welcome and the soft-touch kevlar material is also quite resistant to scratches. The camera unit of the back is also completely recessed, which certainly deserves credit.
Overall, the F1 will certainly not win any design awards but the areas where they did skimp to cut cost are visible and if you are looking for a gorgeous, trendy smartphone that’s going to grab all the eyeballs, you probably know you’re looking at the wrong place already.
Features: 9/10
The POCO F1 gets you all the major features that you would also get on a device priced at Rs 25,000 or even much more. You get a 6.18-inch IPS LCD display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC, 6 GB RAM for the base model (there’s also an 8 GB RAM option) paired with 64 GB of internal storage (128 and 256 GB configurations are also available).
We received the Armoured Edition for review which comes with the top of the line 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage configuration. There’s a dual camera setup with 12 MP (f/1.9) + 5 MP (f/2.0) sensors at the back and a 20 MP sensor on the front.
The internal storage on all the variants can also be expanded up to 256 GB using the second SIM card slot. The POCO also offers a dual speaker setup which even the OnePlus 6 fails to offer.
On top of all this, Xiaomi also added a liquid cooling system to help the CPU hum along without overheating. It’s called LiquidCool and it works by transferring heat from the processor to the other parts of the phone, theoretically, letting gamers stress the device for longer.
And finally, there is 4,000 mAh battery which is more than what we get on most budget flagship or even budget offerings for that matter. Xiaomi has also added Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0 support along with a 12V 2A charger which is supplied in the box.
Display — 8.5/10
The POCO F1 features a 6.18-inch IPS LCD display, featuring a resolution of 1080 x 2246 pixels (18.7:9 aspect ratio). Colours are nice and punchy and are also quite accurate.
The phone came to us at a time when we had the Galaxy Note 9 around, which arguably has the best display on any smartphone. We just couldn’t help but compare the colours on either display by opening the same full-res image on both devices. Add to the mix a OnePlus 6, which also has an OLED display but at almost half the price of the Galaxy and we were pretty happy with what we saw. The contrast and saturation levels on the POCO F1 were close to identical when compared to Note 9 while colours on the OLED panel on the OnePlus 6 were off in terms of saturation.
An issue worth noting here is that the POCO F1 has unusually large, curved edges which do eat into space while playing games or while watching Netflix.
Another minor issue is the phone’s outdoor legibility. At full brightness, text can be a little difficult to read, even when Xiaomi’s sunlight display technology is supposedly at work. That said, it still should not be much trouble viewing the screen in most bright situations.
Xiaomi also lets you tinker around with the white balance a fair bit in the display settings and also throws in a Reading Mode if you like. If you do watch a ton of videos on your phone or play games, you will have an enjoyable experience. What you won’t enjoy though is cleaning the display time and again because of the lacklustre oleophobic coating.
The Poco F1 does not have always-on display functionality. You can, however, double tap the screen to wake it up or use the raise-to-wake option which is always welcome.
OS and Software — 8/10
POCO being a sub-brand of Xiaomi, does run on its proprietary MIUI 9.6 skin on top of Android Oreo 8.1. But launching a sub-brand also gives Xiaomi the leeway to introduce a new launcher here and so it did and it’s quite unimaginatively called — POCO launcher.
This may sound confusing but POCO launcher is essentially a skin over Xiaomi’s own skin called MIUI. The basic idea behind the new Poco Launcher is to make it look more like stock Android, something that a lot of Xiaomi fans have been missing out on. The new launcher is somewhat similar to what OxygenOS on OnePlus attempts but not really the same way. This allows Xiaomi to attract fans of the stock Android experience while adding its usual set of features and capabilities.
That said, if you have used any Xiaomi phone over the past year, the new launcher does really introduce a ton of new stuff just yet. For one, MIUI for the first time has an app launcher which works with the same swipe up gesture as it does on stock Android. What’s more? POCO throws in its own optimisations to an otherwise dull app drawer.
Instead of having an App Search drawer at the top of the drawer, the drawer here has it at the bottom. This makes it much more easier to reach while hunting for an app. The launcher also automatically categorises apps into subcategories which could be quite useful for accessing apps quicker.
The head of POCO India, Jai Mani, during the product presentation also spoke about a number of features which haven’t yet made it yet to the launcher. This includes grouping app by colour and also being able to hide apps which are not accessed often. He also mentioned the ability to install third party icon packs which I was very excited about, but that too was nowhere to be seen.
Apart from cosmetic changes, Xiaomi has also worked on system animations and optimisations which ensure faster app load times (Xiaomi claims up to 28% faster in some instances) which was certainly visible during my time with the phone. Having spent a considerable amount of time with MIUI on other Xiaomi devices, I can quite confidently say that this is by fast the most fluid performances I’ve seen.
Xiaomi also talked about a feature called dynamic resource allocation also improves the performance of background apps. This was claimed to improve the performance of apps in the background while multitasking and the phone did handle that without a sweat.
That’s not all. Jai Mani also made a promise that Android Pie will be rolling out to the POCO F1 before the end of the year with many new features. I really hope POCO is able to live up to all this, as it is a huge step forward for the brand to try and merge the best of stock Android and MIUI and come up with frequent updates.
