The looks

First things first, the M3 features a drastic different look and build. It features an impressive polycarbonate back and bright colours with a large slab at the back to house the camera and the POCO logo.

Despite the bold new look, the phone fails to impress in the design department. The thick bezel with dewdrop notch and a sturdy look makes for a decent looking smartphone altogether.

The performance

Under the hood, the POCO M3 packs a Snapdragon 662 chipset. It's no Qualcomm but the chipset supplies enough power for smoothness for day-to-day use. On animation-heavy websites, we found a few frame drops, but other than that, we found it pretty impressive for rough use.

With 6GB RAM, we could easily multitask between multiple apps before killing them in the background.

Performance wise, we found no issues with the M3 and the phone was pleasant to use.

The camera

With a 48-megapixel main camera, a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor, the POCO M3 features a triple camera setup on the rear. It has an 8-megapixel shooter in the dewdrop notch to make selfies.

The images taken on the POCO M3 turned out to be fine. The phone managed decent shots during daytime. In brighter areas, objects at a distance had good detail, but the shadows lacked definition. Close-up shots were average, and often we had to wait for the phone to lock up the focus.

The performance of the low-light camera was below average and images were grainy. There was better detail in Night Mode, but looked oversharpened.

Overall, the camera department is good but could have been better.

The battery

The POCO M3 has a big 6,000mAh battery and this makes it easy for you to use over a day. To destroy this phone in under two days, you'd have to be a moderate-to-heavy user. The phone can easily be charged three or four times per week for light use.

The 18W fast charging was a big plus.

The verdict

The POCO M3, for the price you pay, is a great budget unit. Poco M3 gets several main elements right and is a perfect phone for those looking for a decent budget smartphone with unique looks and a large battery.

Words and photos: Zarif Faiaz