With over 3 million units shipped, the Poco M3 is clearly a success. Now in front of us stands the Poco M3 Pro and it will convince us that we need more speed in our lives and that the € 30 prize is worth it.
Vanilla M3 was equipped with a nice screen for the price segment, the Pro model adds 90Hz refresh rate to the mix. This new panel also seems brighter, so this may be one of the better parts of the phone.
A 6.5 “IPS LCD with 90 Hz refresh rate and Gorilla Glass 3 • Hole hole instead of a notch
The battery life of the vanilla model was fantastic, our only complaint was that with charging limited to 18W it took three full hours for a 100% charge. The monkey paw has answered our wish – the Pro model charges faster, but only because the battery capacity dropped from 6,000 mAh to 5,000 mAh (charging is still limited to 18W). At least you get a charger in the box, a 22.5 W for that.
And it’s still a pretty big battery, so it should take a long time to drain, although there are a few things to consider. First, the 90Hz screen draws more power. Second, the chipset is fabbed on a newer node and needs to be more power efficient.
M3 Pro is still limited to 18W charging • Card tray for 2 SIMs and 1 microSD
The Dimensity 700 is a 7 nm chip compared to the older 11 nm Snapdragon 662 inside the vanilla phone. We already have the benchmark Dimensity (that’s the core of Realme 8 5G), so we know it has a much higher single-core CPU performance, and GPU computing power virtually doubles.
Not bad for € 30 more, even if you do not have access to a 5G network. Many already do, but the appeal of the fast connection with low latency is paired if you do not make much play or stream high quality video. And they are better experienced on a more premium device.
USB-C (2.0) • 3.5 mm headphone jack and IR blaster
The budget that went into the 5G modem could have bought an extra camera – the M3 Pro would have benefited from an ultra-wide module. The main camera was pretty good, although limiting 1080p 30 fps video was limiting. You’d think the faster chipset would raise it to 4K, but no.
48 MP main camera (limited to 1080p @ 30 fps video) plus a macro camera and depth sensor
By the way, the Poco M3 Pro is based on the Redmi Note 10 5G. And when we say “based on”, we mean that the two are almost exactly the same. The back is of course different, and the card tray has a dedicated slot for a microSD (Redmi has a hybrid slot). The price is also different – the Redmi-branded model sells for € 230 with the same memory configuration compared to € 200 for the Poco model.
We have completed our review of the Redmi Note 10 5G and now we are starting on the Poco M3 Pro one. We do not expect them to be significantly different, but something may surprise us.
