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Xiaomi Poco M3 Pro 5G: The review results in overview

The Xiaomi Poco M3 Pro 5G is currently one of the cheapest 5G smartphones.
The Xiaomi Poco M3 Pro 5G is currently one of the cheapest 5G smartphones.
With the Poco M3 Pro 5G, Xiaomi updates its low-budget Poco M3 smartphone and improves it in several aspects. Among other things, it now also features 5G, NFC, and a 90 Hz display. The price, however, has only increased negligibly.

Xiaomi introduced the Poco M3 at the beginning of 2021 and made a big splash with it. For an MSRP of 150 Euros (~$178), Xiaomi offered a low-budget smartphone with good features and a 6,000 mAh battery for extra-long runtimes.

Xiaomi is now looking to build on this success with the Poco M3 Pro 5G. The base variant with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage is already approaching the 150-Euro (~$178) starting price of the Poco M3 in online stores. Officially, the Poco M3 Pro 5G costs 199.90 Euros (~$238) (4/64 GB) and 229.90 Euros (~$273) (6/128 GB), respectively.

5G with good frequency coverage

As you can tell from the product name, one of the new features in the Poco M3 Pro 5G is a 5G module that should guarantee good reception with its frequency coverage, at least in the EU region (bands n1, n3, n7, n8, n20, n28, n38, n40, n41, n66, n77, n78). The low radiation values of 0.54 W/kg (head SAR) and 0.895 W/kg (body SAR) are another plus point. The Poco M3 Pro 5G is also capable of NFC and can therefore be used for mobile payments.

At 6.5-inches, Xiaomi's new budget smartphone is just as big as the Poco M3, and it has a resolution of 2400x1080, which is a tad higher (2350x1080 pixels), as well as a 90 Hz refresh rate. Unfortunately, the display's brightness hasn't improved, because the Poco M3 Pro 5G has rather low brightness levels with an average of 404 cd/m². Nevertheless, the smartphone can be used outdoors quite well, provided that direct sunlight on the IPS panel, which is protected by Gorilla Glass 3, is avoided.

Fast MediaTek Dimensity 700 SoC

While the Poco M3 with its Snapdragon 662 SoC was a rather slow device, the Poco M3 Pro 5G with its MediaTek Dimensity 700 octa-core processor is much faster. The smartphone responds quickly in everyday use, and it also runs modern games smoothly with minor compromises. However, the pretty aggressive energy management of MIUI 11, Xiaomi's proprietary user interface for Android 11, was a negative aspect in our test. During our GPS test, the GPS app that was running in the background was simply terminated on several occasions, so that the measurement didn't yield any useful results in the end.

You can read the full review of the Xiaomi Poco M3 Pro 5G here.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > Reviews > Xiaomi Poco M3 Pro 5G: The review results in overview
Manuel Masiero, 2021-07- 4 (Update: 2021-07- 4)