The new Poco phones have new Snapdragon processors

Xiaomi-owned Poco has returned with two new phones that have some notable processor options at low prices. Both the X3 Pro and the F3 use new Qualcomm chips that are essentially first-class processors updated and reused from the past few years, which makes them an interesting price-performance proposition.

The first is the Poco X3 Pro (pictured above and below), which is essentially identical to last year’s Poco X3 NFC, but with a new processor. This means that there is still a 6.67-inch 1080p 120 Hz LCD, a 5,160 mAh battery with 33 W fast charging, and a quad camera setup headed by a 48 megapixel primary sensor.

The novelty is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 860 SoC, which has not yet been announced. The processor appears to be a new version of Snapdragon 855, Qualcomm’s flagship from two years ago, found on phones like the Galaxy S10 and Pixel 4. It uses the same Kryo 485 core based on ARM’s Cortex-A76 CPU, but the clock speed was slightly increased to 2.96 GHz.

Poco describes the 860 as “the leading 4G processor in 2021”, which does not seem like a field with a lot of competition. Still, it will probably perform better than the latest mid-range 5G chips, like the 765.

The Poco F3, in turn, is a high-end device that was one of the first phones to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 870, announced a few months ago. The 870 is a similar idea to the 860, but based on the 865 a year later, which was Qualcomm’s most advanced chip in 2020. The CPU clock speed again received a slight increase to a maximum of 3.2 GHz. 870 won’t be as fast as 888, but another way to think about it is that it would have been the fastest Android phone chip in the world a few months ago.

The F3 itself is a redesigned version of Xiaomi’s Redmi K40, which was recently launched in China. It has a 6.67 inch 120 Hz and 1080p OLED screen, a 4,520 mAh battery with 33 W fast charge and a triple camera setup including a 48 megapixel main sensor, an 8 megapixel ultra wide and what it appears to be the same 5 megapixel “Telemacro” found on the Xiaomi Mi 11.

Poco hasn’t announced all the details of the global launch yet, but the X3 Pro costs € 199 for a model with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage (or € 249 for 8 GB / 256 GB), while the F3 costs € 299 for 6 GB / 128 GB and € 349 for 8GB / 256GB. These are starting prices – all models will be increased by € 50 after April 1st for the X3 Pro and April 6th for the F3. Even after that, they seem to be very good value for their segment. Both phones will go on sale later this week.