POCO X3 GT 5G Review

Whenever we hear the brand POCO, one of the first things that come to mind is value. Meaning you’re getting powerful specs and features that are mostly found in more expensive devices at a much lower price. The company wants to keep it up with the POCO X3 GT 5G starting at under PHP 16K. Is this the best value-packed smartphone you can get right now? Find out in our review.

Design and Construction

At first glance, the POCO X3 GT looks like any other premium Android smartphone. It’s got a large 6.6-inch display on the front with a hole punch at the top center for the 16MP selfie camera. Just above it is the earpiece.

The bezels are relatively thin, with the bottom part being thicker than the rest. For protection, it has Gorilla Glass Victus.

On the right side, we have the volume buttons and the power/lock button that also doubles as the fingerprint scanner. These buttons are clicky, firm, and easy to reach since they’re placed near the middle of the frame.

On the left side, we have the card tray for two nano-sized SIM cards. Unfortunately, there’s no support for microSD cards.

Up top, we have the secondary microphone, IR blaster, and a loudspeaker.

Down at the bottom, we have the main microphone, USB-C port, and another loudspeaker. Yes, this device has stereo speakers.

Flip it on its back, and you will see the large protruding camera module that houses the 64MP main, 8MP ultra-wide, and 2MP macro lenses, as well as the AF sensors and dual-LED flash.

The POCO X3 GT feels slim at 8.9mm. Despite the tall 163.3 mm frame, it’s narrow at 75.9 mm, so it’s easy to handle and grip. It feels premium with its metallic frame and glass back with curved edges. It has a decent heft at 193g. It’s top-heavy, though, given the placement of the cameras.

Our unit is the Stargaze Black model and has this silver gradient with a mirror-like finish at the top, then transitions into a darker shade at the bottom. That bottom has speckles that shimmer depending on the angle, like stars in a night sky.

It’s an attractive design easily marred by the glass panel’s ability to attract smudges and fingerprints. There’s a clear case included in the package to remedy that somehow. And if you’re worried about dust and splashes, you don’t have to as it is IP53-certified.

Display and Multimedia

The POCO X3 GT 5G is equipped with a 6.6-inch FHD+ screen with 399PPI. So, even with that screen size, it still looks sharp. It uses an IPS panel so colors look natural and bright. Viewing angles are decent. However, you will notice it dimming when tilted and viewed from that angle. It’s not a big downer but just feels weird.

One of the things that users will like about the POCO X3 GT 5G’s display is the 120Hz refresh rate, meaning you’ll get really smooth animations and transitions. Games and content that use high refresh rates will look smooth as well. POCO says that it has a DynamicSwitch feature that automatically adjusts the refresh rate (30Hz/48Hz/50Hz/60Hz/90Hz/120Hz) depending on the task. However, it looks like there’s no option to manually select any of those refresh rates and you’re only limited to selecting 60Hz or 120Hz.

When it comes to audio, the POCO X3 GT 5G uses a dual speaker setup. It’s loud with weak bass but crisp mids and highs. It’s great for gaming, watching videos or casually listening to music, and voice calls. Better use a Bluetooth speaker or wireless headphones to get a better experience. On the plus side, it supports Hi-Res audio and Dolby Atmos.

Cameras

The POCO X3 GT 5G is a versatile shooter with three rear cameras consisting of the 64MP main, 8MP ultra-wide, and 2MP macro. Although there’s no telephoto lens, you can digitally zoom up to 10X. As for features, it has HDR, AI, Pro mode, Portrait, Night, Slow motion, Dual video, Time-lapse, Clone, and Long Exposure to name a few. For selfies, we have a 16MP shooter.

Images produced with the rear and front cameras are good with accurate colors, natural skin tones, plenty of details, wide dynamic range. The Portrait mode also works well and can create this artificial bokeh that almost looks natural. It can also handle dim conditions indoors but not as crisp compared to shots taken in bright environments. Night mode is effective in illuminating dark scenes while preserving colors, although sharpness suffers greatly. Check out the samples below:

For videos, you can record at a maximum of 4K at 30fps. Video quality is similar to what we’re getting in photographs and has EIS to smoothen shaky videos. Watch the sample below:

https://youtu.be/ROWq0NbCSnE

OS, UI, and Apps

Running the software department is MIUI 12.5.2 based on Android 11. It’s a very clean UI that feels almost stock but with a bit more colorful icons. Dark Mode is available if you’re looking for that.

It’s got a lot of pre-installed apps outside the usual Google and POCO apps. Most of them are games that you probably haven’t seen before. There’s also Amazon, Booking.com, iQiYi, Lazada, LinkedIn, and WPS Office, to name a few. You can easily uninstall them, though, if you want.

As for the POCO features, there’s Cleaner, POCO Community, ShareMe, Screen Recorder, and Mi Remote. Dive inside Settings and you will see Privacy protection features and Special features like Video toolbox (special effects), Floating windows, Second space, and Game Turbo. The latter offers Performance mode and tweaks to make sure you’ll get a smooth uninterrupted gaming experience.

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the POCO X3 GT is a MediaTek Dimensity 1100 SoC, Mali-G77 GPU, 8GB LPDDR4X RAM, and up to 256GB UFS 3.1. The experience is great so far as it can handle all tasks we throw at it. Multitasking is smooth and didn’t suffer lags or random crashes during our time with it.

Graphics intensive titles such as Genshin Impact are playable in their highest settings in 60FPS. It’s not perfectly smooth, though, as we can experience some minor stutters from time to time. As for thermals, we can experience some warming at the back, but enough to be uncomfortable. You can even play on it for hours without the case on.

Check out the benchmark scores below:

• AnTuTu v8 – 531,227
• PC Mark – 10,455 (Work 3.0)
• Geekbench 5 – 746 (Single-Core), 2,751 (Multi-Core), 4,634 (OpenCL)
• AndroBench – 1,883.12 MB/s (Seq. Read), 1,204.27 MB/s (Seq. Write)
• 3D Mark – (not available)

Connectivity and Battery Life

The POCO X3 GT has all the basic connectivity features and then some. We have dual-SIM, 5G, WiFi 6, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS, NFC, and USB-C. No 3.5mm headphone jack, though, but we have an IR blaster, so you can use it as a remote.

For the battery, we have a large 5,000mAh capacity with 67W Turbo Charging. We can easily get a day and a half mostly on WiFi with heavy social media browsing and light gaming on the side. Our video loop test that involves playing a 1080p video on loop at in Airplane mode at 50% brightness and volume, and we got 17 hours and 46 minutes of playback, which is not bad but we were expecting more. Charging, on the other hand, takes an hour with the 67W charger included in the package.

Conclusion

The POCO X3 GT 5G checks out everything we need for a smartphone. It has a nice and smooth display, good performance for its class, good cameras, plenty of RAM and storage, has a big battery with fast charging, and is equipped with essential connectivity features including 5G.

Starting at PHP 15,990USD 272INR 23,099EUR 260CNY 1,984 for the 8GB + 128GB, it’s one of the most affordable smartphones out there with this kind of configuration. And you only have to spend a PHP 2K more for the 8GB + 256GB version for PHP 17,990USD 307INR 25,988EUR 292CNY 2,233. So, if you have a limited budget and want to get a phone with the features mentioned above, we highly recommend this phone.

POCO X3 GT specs:
6.6-inch FHD+ (2400 x 1080) IPS DotDisplay, 399PPI
120Hz refresh rate w/ (30Hz/48Hz/50Hz/60Hz/90Hz/120Hz)
240Hz touch sampling rate
360-degree ambient light sensors
Corning Gorilla Glass Victus
MediaTek Dimensity 1100 (6nm) SoC w/ 2.6GHz octa-core CPU
ARM Mali-G77 GPU
6GB, 8GB LPDDR4X RAM
128GB, 256GB UFS 3.1
Triple-rear cameras:
• 64MP F1.79 main
• 8MP F2.2 ultra-wide
• 2MP macro
16MP F2.45 front camera
Dual-SIM, Dual-Standby
5G, 4G LTE
WiFi 6
Bluetooth 5.2
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS
NFC
IR Blaster
USB-C
Fingerprint scanner (side)
Face Unlock
Dual-Speaker
Hi-Res Audio certification, Hi-Res Wireless Audio
Dolby Atmos
MIUI 12.5 (Android 11)
5,000mAh battery w/ 67W Turbo Charging (67W charger included)
163.3 x 75.9 x 8.9 mm
193 g
Stargaze Black, Wave Blue, Cloud White