POCO M2 Pro Review: BEST PHONE UNDER ₹15K (Privacy Issue Fixed)

INTRODUCTION

Xiaomi re-launched the Redmi Note 9 Pro last week under the name of POCO M2 Pro. Now I posted a review a week later because I was busy the whole week finding out the difference between Note 9 Pro and POCO M2 Pro. And my efforts didn’t go in vain as I found a couple of differences. So let’s get onto the review.

You must know that this is a rebranded Note 9 Pro. Now I would say that re-branding wouldn’t be a good business strategy but when I look at it from a customer point of view, it isn’t that bad. You get a better phone at the same price. I am not supporting the rebranding strategy of POCO at all. With the POCO X2, it was a rebranded Redmi K30 but it wasn’t that bad as the latter wasn’t available in India. But in this case, both the M2 Pro and Note 9 Pro are available in India.

Before starting the review, I would say that there are two differences between Note 9 Pro and POCO M2 Pro. First one is that the M2 Pro gets faster 33W charging instead of 18W in the older Note 9 Pro. The other change is the OS. POCO comes with MIUI for POCO and guess what, it doesn’t have as many ads in the UI as the Redmi Note 9 Pro.

UNBOXING

Let’s see what we get in the box. You are getting a mini-box at the top which has some User Manuals then a Silicone Case which is of very basic quality. There is the SIM Ejection Tool and then comes the Handset. Finally comes the 33W Charger and a Type-C Cable.

DESIGN & BUILD

POCO M2 Pro 

As you can see in the image, the design is same as the Note 9 Pro. The design isn’t bad by any means. I mean it uses a Glass Sandwich Design with Gorilla Glass 5 on both sides. The phone even looks very good. The camera bump is large but that’s not a big deal. The phone looks really nice. Many people might like the flashy look of the Realme 6 but the POCO M2 Pro gets the clear advantage because it has a glass back. But mind it, the phone is really fragile and so I suggest investing in a good case at the first place.

The phone comes in three colours namely – Green and Greener, Two Shades of Black and Out of the Blue. Please go for shorter names the next time. The phone’s weight is 209g which makes it quite heavy. But I can forgive POCO for it as they gave a 5000 mAh battery and a glass back. The phone is thick but the edges are rounded so you won’t feel it.  The phone is also a little slippery but that’s universal with glass back. This makes One-Hand Usage difficult and the big size of the phone doesn’t help either.

If I talk about the ports and buttons, the phone has a Type-C Port, Single Speaker, a Primary Mic and a Headphone Jack. On the top, you get the Secondary Mic and an IR Blaster. I think Xiaomi is the only brand that gives IR Blasters in 2020. The left side has a SIM Tray which is a triple slot. The right side has a Side-Mounted Fingerprint Scanner that has a power button in it and Volume Rockers. 

DISPLAY

Front Side

Though the design is great, I just can’t say the same the display. It is a 6.67” FHD+ Panel with a punch-hole in the center. The first thing is that the display is neither AMOLED nor has a High-Refresh Rate. I wish Xiaomi upgraded the display on the POCO M2 Pro. That said, the phone supports Widewine L1 and so you can easily watch DRM Protected Content at 1080p.

But there is another major flaw with the display. The brightness is too low. I mean you won’t have any issues indoor but as you go outdoors, you would find the brightness low. Even the Redmi Note 7 Pro and Note 8 Pro from last year had better brightness. Another issue that was there with the Note 9 Series was Screen Bleeding. I am not sure if its present here or not. But if it is, it’s really a bad thing that Xiaomi launched a re-branded phone but still didn’t fix the issues. So I would call the display to be overall flawed.  

PERFORMANCE

Just like the Note 9 Pro, it has a Snapdragon 720G that has 2 Kryo 465 Gold Cluster clocked at 2.3 GHz and 6 Kryo 465 Silver cluster clocked at 1.8 GHz. It is based on 8nm Process which is good. SD 720G is a capable chipset and I won’t complain that Xiaomi used it again. Not only the CPU Performance is powerful, but the GPU performance is also really good with the Adereno 618 GPU. The phone comes in three variants - 4GB 64GB, 6GB 64GB and 6GB 128GB.  You get LPDDR4X RAM and UFS 2.1 Storage.

The phone scored 254,000 in AnTuTu. The Geekbench score is 570 Single-Core and 1785 Multi-Core. The phone gave 26 fps in GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen), 15fps in GFX 3.1 Car Screen (onscreen) and 9.9 fps in Aztek Vulkan High (onscreen)\

SOFTWARE

MIUI 11 on Android 10

The phone comes with Android 10 based on MIUI 11. As I said in the starting, POCO uses a cleaner version of MIUI with POCO Launcher as the default. MIUI 11 is feature rich and since POCO has lesser ads, I liked MIUI in this phone. But mind it that the ads aren't totally gone and you might see some ads here and there. Also, you can replace Xiaomi’s App Vault with Google Now. The phone doesn’t have 90Hz Screen but the animations are fluid.

The phone used to have Helo App pre-installed which is now banned. But the newer units don't have the Helo app. Also, the people with the older units can now remove Helo. And if you factory reset it, the Helo App won't be there. The Cleaner App had Clean Master that took all the permissions and that issue is fixed too. Thumbs up to POCO for reacting so quickly. 

CAMERAS

CAMERA FEATURES

So let’s now talk about cameras. It is a quad camera setup just like the Note 9 Pro. So you are getting a 48 MP Primary Camera with f/1.8 aperture and 1.6µm Pixel Size. Apart from that, we have an 8MP Ultra Wide-Angle camera, 5MP Macro and a useless 2MP Depth Sensor.  On the front, we have a Single 16MP Shooter.

The camera app is typical MIUI with plenty of features. You have Auto-HDR. You can easily shift between the main cam and the wide cam. There is a dedicated Macro Mode. You get a dedicated 48MP mode also. There is a manual mode with all the features and you can even choose the wide-angle camera or the macro camera from there. Pro Mode can be used in 48MP resolution also. There’s panorama and night mode. And the night mode is there for the front camera too. There is video recording upto 4K and you can even record videos with the macro camera. There is pro video mode too. So let’s get into photo quality. 

REAR CAMERA

The photos came out to be really sharp and detailed. Redmi did a good job with camera here. The dynamic range was really good and the colours were also really vivid. When the lighting drops, the camera performance remains good and here’s where the night mode comes into play. Turning it on boosts the dynamic range, the images look brighter and the noise is reduced in the photo. But mind that you would need to keep your hands steady for a few seconds or else the photos would be blurry.

FRONT CAMERA

The front camera has decent dynamic range and details. But the skin tones are a little odd. Somewhere it is whitish and somewhere it is yellowish. But that’s mostly when you are indoors. Night selfies are impressive due to the presence of night mode. There’s Camera2API in this phone and when GCAM 7 is used, the images look even better. The dynamic range improves and even the textures look real. The Nigh Sight and Astrophotography also work really well. Night Sight produced better results that the Stock Camera Night Mode.

VIDEOS

With videos, you can go upto 4K on the main cam but there is no stabilization available. Even 1080p 60fps has no EIS. You can shoot 1080p 30fps with EIS and the video footage looks good.  The auto focus is really fast and the exposure is also good. You can even shoot videos with the wide cam and macro cam. With those, the quality isn’t that good. You have Slow Motion at 960 fps also. So I was overall impressed with the cameras.

BATTERY

When it comes to battery, the phone performed well and you can easily get 1.5 days of backup or even 2 days. The idle drain was also low. The charging is 33W and the charger is given in the box. It can charge the phone from 0-100% in a little more than an hour.

CONCLUSION

So the phone is good in most aspects. And that security issue is also fixed. So if you are looking for the best phone under ₹15,000 and don't mind POCO being Chinese, just get this phone. You would have a great experience. But if you want Non-Chinese, I'll even tell that. But let's first see the pros and cons of the phone. 

PROS

•   Decent Build and Design
• Great Performance
• Nice Cameras
• Great Battery Life 
• 33W Fast Charging

CONS

• You still get ads here and there
• The display isn't that bright

ALTERNATIVES

Galaxy M21

If you want a Non-Chinese Phone, wait for some time. But if you want a phone right now, get the Galaxy M21. It’s my recommendation if you don't want to buy POCO. Not because of the Samsung Branding but due to the awesome display, really good camera, One UI, and a huge battery. It is definitely not the best for gaming but it isn’t bad. You can surely play demanding titles like PUBG, COD or Asphalt 9 but at medium settings. The build is plastic which is of cheap quality but you can put a cover on it or even apply a skin on the phone. But avoid M21 if you live in the low-network area due to network issues.  So that’s it for today. Goodbye.