After a bunch of comprehensive leaks and all-revealing YouTube videos, POCO finally launched the POCO F1 in New Delhi today. This is the first offering of the brand and it looks pretty promising. In fact, the mid-range segment has never looked better in India, especially this year. First came the Asus ZenFone 5Z which was a huge aggressive push into OnePlus territory, then the Honor Play, and now the POCO F1. With the introduction of the F1, Indian consumers are being spoilt with yet another wannabe flagship killer. Now, whether the device will live up to its name is yet to be seen, but on face value, it is incredible value for money. See the spec-sheet for yourself. I attended the event on behalf of Gizchina and will get you fresh coverage of the device and photos of the device from the venue in New Delhi.
The POCO F1 boasts of a Snapdragon 845 SoC at a sub-Rs 30,000 price which is baffling. Moving forward, POCO has fitted in a 6.18-inch Full-HD+ display with a notch. The obvious trade-off with the device is obviously in build quality. POCO has swapped metal for polycarbonate and while most would not prefer metal, we actually like the polycarbonate feel mostly because it isn’t a smudge-fest like most glass-metal phones. That is a personal choice though.
The handset has a 12MP + 5MP rear camera setup and a 20MP front selfie that resides on the notch. With Xiaomi DNA flowing in its veins, we’ll be seeing the AI trickery usually seen on Xiaomi devices like face beautification and scene recognition and other similar stuff. Poco also said it’s face unlock comes with infrared scanning and works in the dark as well as in light. It has a 4,000mAh battery which is on the upper side of what you get on most flagships. But the real headline grabber is the price. The base variant starts at Rs 20,999 that translates to around $300. Need i say anything more? The 6GB + 128GB will retail for Rs 23,999 (around $343) and the top-end 8GB + 256GB will cost Rs 28,999 (around $414).
The POCO F1 comes with Android 8.1 Oreo pre-installed, but it is not stock. It has MIUI layered on top of it. The POCO F1 variants and pricing are as below. Stay tuned as we have a ton of more footage that will be uploaded as soon as possible. We will also upload a short hands-on clip of the device on the Gizchina YouTube channel. So check that out too. The Pocophone F1 goes on sale starting August 29 on Flipkart and Mi.com.
Below are the full specifications of the Pocophone F1
POCO F1 specifications
- 6.18-inch (2246 × 1080 pixels) Full HD+ 18.7:9 2.5D curved glass display, 1500:1 contrast ratio, 84% NTSC color gamut, Corning Gorilla Glass protection
- Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 CPU with Adreno 630 GPU
- 6GB/8GB LPDDR4x RAM, 64GB / 128GB/256GB (UFS 2.1) storage, expandable memory with up to 256GB with microSD
- Android 8.1 (Oreo) with MIUI 9, upgradable to Android 9.0 (Pie)
- Hybrid Dual SIM (nano + nano / microSD)
- 12MP rear camera with dual LED Flash, f/1.9 aperture, 1.4μm pixel size, Sony IMX363 sensor, Dual Pixel auto focus, secondary 5MP camera with Samsung sensor
- 20MP front-facing camera with ƒ/2.0 aperture
- Fingerprint sensor, IR face unlock
- 3.5mm audio jack, Dirac HD, Dual Smart PA
- Dimensions: 155.5x 75.3x 8.8; Weight: 180g
- Dual 4G+ VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5, GPS + GLONASS, USB Type-C
- 4000mAh battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 fast charging