Poco F1 – Shocking price tag and everything else you need to know
In the era of 1000$ flagship mobiles, there comes a soldier in a kevlar armor, promising the same performance but in a much lower price tag. Xiaomi has announced a new sub-brand: Poco and Poco F1 is the mobile from this new stable. Poco F1 is priced at around INR 20k (280$) which is half the price of Oneplus 6 or one-third of Samsung S9 price tag. With this price tag, Poco F1 has thrown everyone off-guard and now the whole of mobile industry is forced to go back to their war rooms to come up with a new strategy. The Poco F1 is the cheapest Snapdragon 845 powered mobile and every other specification on this mobile is top-notch as well.
Top Notch Display
The Poco F1 mobile has an edge-to-edge Full HD+ display with a large notch. The display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass. The notch houses the camera, proximity sensors and also the IR sensor for face recognition. At this moment, there are many mobiles with a notch, but only a handful with Face ID sensor. It promises to unlock mobiles with face ID, even under dim lit conditions.
Liquid Cooled Performance
Poco F1 is all about speed and performance. It has the latest Snapdragon 845 with Adreno 630 GPU. It comes with a combination of 6 GB or 8 GB RAM and 64 GB or 128 or 256 GB of UFS 2.1 internal memory configurations. To manage the heat in the mobile, it has a liquid cooling mechanism running internally.
Large Battery
It has a massive 4000 mAh battery which supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0. In the box, the mobile comes with a 9v 2A charger for fast charging. We are yet to test out the charging speed and battery life, but on papers, this looks really promising.
Promising Camera
Xiaomi has a very strong camera department and Poco inherits this from Xiaomi. It uses the MIUI camera app which is now enhanced with Artificial intelligence capabilities for scene recognition and portrait photos. It has a 12 MP 1.4µm Sony sensor with a lens of f/1.8 aperture. The secondary depth sensor is a 5 MP Samsung sensor. Front camera is a 20 MP front camera which has Pixel binning technology on its 1.8µm size sensor.
It is capable of 4K videos and it supports EIS. It does not have Optical image stabilization.
MIUI at its heart
Though it is a sub-brand of Xiaomi, Poco smartly gets all the MIUI goodness. I am happy that it did not go on the Stock Android route. It runs on Android 8.1 out of the box and Android P is coming soon (Q4 2018). It has all the features of MIUI like second space, scrolling screenshot, quick-ball, themes and customization, dual apps, etc…
Tit bits
- FM Radio – Yes
- NFC – No
- Water Resistant – No
- IR Remote – No
- OTG – Yes
- Dual VoLTE – Yes
- 4G+ – Yes
- Dual Band WiFi – Yes
- BT 5.0 – Yes
- aptX – Yes
- 3.5 mm Audio – Yes
- USB – C Port – Yes
- Dedicated SD Card – No
- SD Card support – Yes, Hybrid
- OIS – No
- EIS – Yes
Specifications Round up
- Snapdragon 845
- liquid cooling design
- 4000 mAh QC 3.0
- 9v 2A charger
- 4G+ Dual VoLTE
- 6/8 GB DDR4 RAM
- 64/128/256 GB UFS 2.1
- SD card max 256
- 12 MP Sony 1.4µm, F1.8
- 5 MP Samsung depth sensor
- 20 MP front camera Pixel binning 1.8µm
Pricing
- 6 GB | 64 GB ₹ 20999
- 6 GB | 128 GB ₹ 23999
- 8 GB | 256 GB ₹ 28999
- 8 GB | 256 GB ₹ 29999 – Armored Edition
Availability and Offers
Poco F1 will be available only on online channels. It will be available on mi.com and Flipkart from 29 August 2018. Here are the launch offers.
- Flat Rs 1000 instant discount on HDFC Bank Debit and Credit cards. Also applicable on EMI transactions.
- Buy with Mi Exchange
- Avail free 3-month subscription of Hungama Music.
- Secure your phone against accidental & liquid damages with Mi Protect. Starting at ₹1099.
- Reliance Jio is offering Rs 8,000 instant benefits, up to 6TB high-speed data.
Official Accessories
Poco F1 will also be launched along with a bunch of official accessories. There will be an ultra slim hard case for Poco F1 at Rs 399. A Kevlar finish case will cost Rs 799. Poco official skins will cost Rs 299.
