[Smartphones] | Poco F1 impressions | Is it really a flagship?

The Poco F1 has been officially available in the market for some time now, and I am sure you are well aware of it. So, in this article, I am not gonna eat your head with the same old spec sheet and other classic details which you have already seen hundreds of times in other websites and videos.

Let's instead try to focus on the real world values that the phone offers, and see if you can decide if it should be your next phone.

The first thing that surprised me about the Poco F1 when I pick it up the first time was the display quality. It was stunningly sharp, easily exceeding my expectations. It's a tall aspect ratio phone with the curvature at the bottom which is a little bit over done in my opinion. Its corners are curved way too much and looks kind of odd to my eyes. But that's personal preference anyway. Most of my friends didn't seem to care about it.

Another thing which no one else cared about was the notch this phone. It's a lot similar to the Mi 8, which is the say it's huge, just like the iPhone X. What surprisingly, once I started using it, it did not interfere with my actions or sight.

Just like 99% of the other notched phone out there, you can hide the notch by replacing it with a virtual black bar from within the settings. But since this phone uses an LCD panel and not OLED, you can still see the notch pretty clearly from some angles. Perhaps it's because I am too used to the Inky dark blacks of the AMOLED panel on my Galaxy S7.

Overall, the display is very good. I just wish it was it was a bit brighter.

On the same positive not come on let's talk general performance. Power bi powerful associate like this Snapdragon 845, the phone flies through almost everything you throw at it. But you already knew that!

What you may not have known as that the copper pipe cooling system that they seemingly have included in the phone actually seems to do it's job pretty well. Even while running Geekbench 4 on it, it barely even got warm to the touch, which is great to see.

Let's talk cameras, which I'm sure most of you are interested in. The Real shooter(s) is quite capable in daylight producing some very well balanced photos. But an artificial/indoor lighting, I noticed that it tends to exposed images a bit.

The selfie camera is too good too, but it also suffered from the ore exposing issue. Like the Vivo phones of old, it cranks up the ISO in order to produce a brighter selfie, which isn't exactly my cup of tea. The image quality is pretty good since there is plenty of pixels to work with on both the ends.

It is hands down better than its budget competitor, the redmi note 5 Pro because, the Poco F1 has the advantage in raw image processing power.

One thing I did not appreciate with this phone is that they have taken "the OnePlus route" and did not give us a dedicated mode to use the secondary sensor on the rear. It seems to exist only to serve the primary sensor in additional features, such as that portrait mode.

Dear smartphone manufacturers, if you are going to put a secondary camera sensor on your smartphone anyway, make sure you give the users an option to use ONLY that secondary lens for some dedicated purpose such as optical zoom, Wide Angle, or even monochrome shots.

I had criticized the OnePlus 6 for not giving us any standalone functionality for that secondary camera, and now the Poco F1 joins that group too.

But minor annoyances aside, the Poco F1 has a really good, reliable camera. It will definitely not beat any of the flagships that you see out there, but it will most likely satisfy you with almost every shot you take with it.

For authentication, the Poco F1 provides both Face Unlock as well as fingerprint unlock options. The face unlock feature is registered with an infrared LED which means you can unlock your phone with this locking mechanism in a dark room as well. That's great to see in a phone as affordable as this one.

It still retains the wonderful headphone jack and houses USB type-C port for fast charging as well. That's always good news, isn't it? The massive battery will last you a long while after a single charge, no doubt about that.

Now that all has been said and done, should you consider buying the Poco F1? Sure. But I strongly recommend you stick with the 64GB version, because anything higher than that may not be much of a bargain like the entry level one.

If you are okay with the relatively boring design, that stupid name, and a few minor rough edges here and there, the Poco F1 smartphone will be a great companion in your everyday routine. Just keep one thing in mind before and after purchase: THIS IS NOT A FLAGSHIP!

Yeah, I said it! This is not a flagship. A flagship is a device which is polished to the best of a company's ability in every way imaginable. There is no way I can say that the Poco F1 is a Xiaomi flagship just because it has a flagship grade processor.

Sure, it will be one of the highest selling and top performing devices in the mid-budget segment. But it will never replace a true flagship. One might argue that it costs significantly less than something like a Galaxy S9+, to which I agree.

But some people would rather pay more to get *that* much better refinement in a device which they will end up using every single day. It's the same reason why people buy luxury cars. It's the experience that appeals to them over the other regular options. And that is worth paying the premium, provided you have the bank balance for it!

These were my thoughts on the Poco F1 smartphone. What are yours? I am curious to hear your opinions on this phone. Feel free to drop a comment down below or hit me up on my social media handles at Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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