Gadgets
Poco F3 GT Review: Only Performance Focussed?
Poco F3 GT price in India
The Poco F3 GT starts at Rs. 26,999 for the base variant which has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Poco also offers an 8GB RAM and 128GB storage option at Rs. 28,999, while the 8GB RAM, 256GB storage variant is priced at Rs. 30,999.
Poco F3 GT design
The Poco F3 GT is big, and it sports a big 6.67-inch display with thin bezels on the sides. It has a metal frame that gives it a premium look and feel. The four corners are flattened, and the top and bottom sections of the frame are designed to make it comfortable to hold the F3 GT in landscape mode. On the right, the frame has two sliders that can be pushed inwards to engage two “maglev” trigger buttons. These can be used for gaming and they offer good clicky feedback. Poco has also positioned the power button on the right. It is easy to reach and houses the fingerprint scanner which makes it easy to unlock the smartphone. On the left side are volume buttons and the third microphone.
The top of the phone has a grille for the second speaker, plus a secondary microphone and an IR emitter, which is a common sight on Xiaomi smartphones. At the bottom of the frame is the USB Type-C port, bottom-firing speaker, primary microphone, and SIM tray with two Nano-SIM slots.
The Poco F3 GT has Corning Gorilla Glass 5 at the front and back
You get Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection at the front and the back, which should withstand daily use. The Poco F3 GT has a triple camera setup at the back with a lightning bolt-shaped LED flash right next to it. This camera module also has RGB lighting and protrudes slightly. There’s a metal trim around it which should help prevent the lenses from getting scratched. Poco does provide a case in the box.
The Poco F3 GT weighs 205g which is slightly on the heavier side. It is also IP53 rated which means it is splash resistant.
Poco F3 GT specifications
The Poco F3 GT boasts of powerful hardware. It is powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 SoC and is offered in 6GB and 8GB RAM options, both with 128GB of storage, and there’s also an 8GB RAM, 256GB storage option. I had the mid-spec variant with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for this review. The big 6.67-inch AMOLED display sports a full-HD+ resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. There is support for HDR10+ and the panel has a 240Hz touch sampling rate which gets bumped up to 480Hz when game mode is enabled.
There is support for 5G as well as 4G VoLTE, Bluetooth 5.1, and dual-band Wi-Fi. It also works with five satellite navigation systems. The Poco F3 GT packs in a huge 5,065mAh battery and comes with a 67W fast charger in the box. The charger is bigger than usual and has a bright yellow cable with an L-shaped Type-C connector. This makes it easy to play games or watch content while the phone is charging.
Physical trigger buttons make gaming engaging on the F3 GT
In terms of software, the Poco F3 GT runs MUI 12.5 on top of Android 11. My unit had the June Android security patch but got an update to the July patch during the review period. The Poco F3 GT comes with a fair number of preinstalled apps such as Amazon, Facebook, GetApps, LinkedIn, Netflix, Prime Video, and some Google apps. I found GetApps and Themes to be a bit spammy, pushing notifications regularly. Apart from this annoyance I had no issues with the UI and found it easy to use.
Poco F3 GT performance
The Dimensity 1200 SoC can handle anything you throw at it. I could multitask and load heavy apps on this smartphone without any issues. The 8GB RAM unit I had showed absolutely no slowdowns during the review period. The higher 120Hz refresh rate makes scrolling through menus and lists within apps very smooth. There is DC dimming as well, but it only works when the display refresh rate is set to 60Hz.
Poco’s side-mounted fingerprint scanner was quick, and needed only a single tap to unlock the device. Face recognition on the Poco F3 GT was quick as well. The big AMOLED display had good viewing angles and was bright enough to be visible outdoors. The stereo speakers on the device enhanced the video-watching experience. Poco’s RGB lighting around the camera module kicks in while the phone is charging and when game mode is enabled. It also pulses to show pending notifications and incoming calls.
I put this phone through benchmarks and it did well. In AnTuTu, the F3 GT scored 6,11,051 points. In Geekbench 5’s single-core and multi-core tests, it scored 855 and 2,709 points respectively. The Poco F3 GT also managed 38fps and 117fps in GFXBench’s Car Chase and T-Rex benchmarks respectively. These scores are higher than those of the similarly priced OnePlus Nord 2 , which I tested recently.
The 67W bundled charger has an L-shaped connector
Coming to gaming, I played Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) on the Poco F3 GT and it defaulted to the HD graphics preset and high frame rate. The game was playable at these settings without any lag or stutter. The Poco F3 GT’s physical trigger buttons made gaming more engaging, and so did the stereo speakers. I played the game for 20 minutes and noticed a 3 percent battery drop. The device also got slightly warm to the touch.
Battery life on the Poco F3 GT was quite good and the phone lasted me about a day and a half without needing to be plugged in. In our HD video loop test, the Poco F3 GT managed to run for 17 hours and 36 minutes. When it did run out of juice, the supplied 67W fast charger was capable of charging it up to 72 percent in 30 minutes, and it took about 47 minutes to charge fully.
Poco F3 GT cameras
The Poco F3 GT packs a triple camera setup at the back consisting of a 64-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera, and a 2-megapixel macro camera. For selfies it has a 16-megapixel shooter. The camera app is pretty straightforward and easy to use. It has a quick toggle for AI scene detection and HDR. Switching between different shooting modes is very easy and it also lets you activate filters before taking a shot.
Daylight shots had decent details but the F3 GT tends to sharpen them which makes them look artificial. The dynamic range was acceptable but not great. With the ultra-wide angle camera you can capture a much wider field of view but the image quality isn’t as good as with the primary camera. The output isn’t as crisp as with the primary camera, and it’s best used only when needed.
Poco F3 GT daylight camera sample (tap to see full size)
Poco F3 GT daylight ultra-wide angle camera sample (tap to see full size)
Close-up shots taken with the Poco F3 GT had good detail, and the phone applied a soft depth effect. Similarly for portraits, edge detection was quite good and the phone could separate the subject from the background correctly. It also let me set the level of background blur before taking the shot. The macro camera on the Poco F3 GT lets you get close to a subject but there is the possibility of blocking light with the smartphone if you get too close. Macro shots had good detail and even tiny text on a coin was visible, but the output is capped at 2 megapixels.
Poco F3 GT close-up camera sample (tap to see full size)
Poco F3 GT portrait camera sample (tap to see full size)
Poco F3 GT macro camera sample (tap to see full size)
Low-light camera performance was strictly average. The AI was quick to detect low light and set the camera up accordingly. It boosted brightness in the image artificially causing reflections to look weird. Photos shot with Night mode looked more natural.
Poco F3 GT low-light camera sample (tap to see full size)
Poco F3 GT Night mode camera sample (tap to see full size)
Selfies taken with the Poco F3 GT were crisp, although slightly sharpened. Selfie portraits had good edge detection and the smartphone could detect faces even with masks on.
Poco F3 GT low-light selfie portrait camera sample (tap to see full size)
Video recording tops out at 4K 30fps for the primary camera. Footage shot in daylight was stabilised at 4K as well as 1080p. Footage shot in low light had shimmer in the output.
Verdict
The Poco F3 GT is a fresh addition to the Poco F series after a long time. You get very good performance for the price, and the big battery coupled with fast charging sweetens the deal further. The Poco F1 did not have the best cameras and the new Poco F3 GT doesn’t either – in terms of photo quality, it came second in most scenarios when I compared it to the OnePlus Nord 2.
If you are looking to play games on your smartphone, the Poco F3 GT is a good companion. It has physical trigger buttons, stereo speakers, and an AMOLED display with 120Hz refresh rate. On the other hand if you want an all-rounder in this price segment, take a look at the OnePlus Nord 2.
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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