POCO C3 Long Term Review

I have been using POCO C3 for almost two months and now it’s the right time to give a Long-Term review. This phone sells on Flipkart for ₹7,499 (3GB) and ₹8,499 (4GB). But you can easily get it for ₹500 less in any Flipkart Sale. I have been using the 4GB RAM model with 64GB storage.

UPDATE - New Pricing on 15/09/2021 :- 3GB - ₹7,349 and 4GB - ₹8,349

UNBOXING

Box Contents

The box contents are very basic with the phone, some paperwork, a 10W charger and a Micro-USB cable. There is no back cover or even a pre-applied screen protector. But that’s not unexpected at the price point. Yeah, Micro-USB in 2021 is a bummer but definitely not a deal-breaker. So that was for the unboxing experience.

DESIGN & BUILD

The design is very impressive for the price of 7k. There is a square camera module in the corner. The branding is present below it and it doesn’t look odd. The phone has a Dual-Tone pattern which is a typical POCO design.

The volume and power keys are on the right with the SIM tray on the left. The buttons feel tactile and I had no issues. The tray can hold 2 SIM cards and an SD Card. There’s the Micro-USB port, Single Speaker and the Mic on the bottom. And the Headphone Jack is on the top. There’s no IR Blaster here but it’s okay.

For a price where most OEMs go with a generic design, POCO still managed to give an impressive design. But there’s one thing I didn’t like. There is no fingerprint scanner which many phones at this price have. And there could have been a Type-C port.

The phone has a unibody plastic back which is of good quality. It doesn’t feel cheap and I had no issues with the back panel. The phone’s weight is 194g and doesn’t feel bulky. The phone is quite big and some might not like that. But then that’s the same with most phones out in the market. So overall on the build and design front, this phone is impressive.

DISPLAY

There’s a 6.5" HD+ display on this phone. There’s a tiny teardrop notch that holds the front camera. And I found the panel to be decent for the price you pay. The colours are fine and I didn’t even notice too much pixelation. I do watch a lot of YouTube videos on this screen and it is even big enough for taking online classes.

The maximum brightness also seems to be decent for outdoor use. And the minimum brightness for using it at night is also good. Other competitors at the same price also offer somewhat similar screens. Also the viewing angles seem to be good.

Outdoor Brightness

There’s also Panda Glass on the front and in my usage, I didn’t see any scratches on the glass. But as I said, there’s no pre-applied screen protector. So I recommend getting a Tempered Glass. So for the price, the display also seems to be good.

PERFORMANCE

There’s a MediaTek Helio G35 under the hood. The CPU has eight cores running at 2.3 GHz each. And the GPU tasks are handled by the PowerVR GE8320. And I was testing the 4GB model but you even have the option for a 3GB model.
NORMAL USAGE

The day to day performance was surprisingly good with MIUI 12. I have almost 100 apps on my phone and the phone performed really well. Apps did take a little extra time to load and I noticed a few jitters here and there. But then, this is just a budget phone.

I used the 4GB RAM model and it is fairly decent for multitasking. I saw that the apps didn’t shut in the background and I can even work with 2–3 apps simultaneously. I had around 2 GB available out of the 4GB RAM after clearing all the apps.

Even if you buy the 3GB RAM model, it still should perform fine in day-to-day tasks. If you just use social media and do some casual browsing, the 3GB model makes sense. Especially if you are looking for a device for your parents or grandparents. 32GB might not be enough, but you can add a memory card.

GAMING & BENCHMARKS

I played light games like Among Us, Mini Militia and the phone had no issues running those games. I tried some moderate titles like Free Fire and the phone performed well on Standard Graphics. Heavy games like COD Mobile and PUBG are playable. But if you play these games regularly, I’d recommend spending some extra cash.

I even didn’t notice that much heating even while playing Free Fire. But for gaming, I recommend getting the 4GB model. It will also give 64GB storage and games do take up a lot of space.

I even ran some benchmarks and these are the scores. The phone didn’t heat up that much during the process. 

(L-R) Antutu Benchmark, Geekbecnh, Antutu Storage Test

SOFTWARE

So let’s see the most controversial part of a Xiaomi device. That’s the software. This device is running on MIUI 12.0.9 based on Android 10 and April Security Patch. It will also get MIUI 12.5 and probably MIUI 13. And there are chances it will get Android 11 too.

When I set the phone up, the device asked me to install some apps which I skipped. It still had a few pre-installed apps and games which I could uninstall. POCO devices don’t have ads so that wasn’t an issue. GetApps, Mi Music and Theme Store send some unnecessary notifications but you can disable them easily.

After all this, I didn’t face any issues. The UI had some minor bugs but nothing that would affect the user experience. And as I said before, the UI seemed responsive. All you can do is hope that this phone doesn’t become slow and buggy after updates.

CAMERA

Along with the phone’s gaming capabilities, POCO also marketed the phone as a budget camera phone. So let’s talk about the camera. The back houses a 13MP (f/2.2) Main Camera along with 2MP Depth and Macro Sensors.

The rear camera performs quite well in daylight. The color contrast and white balance is on point and even the Dynamic Range is decent. The preserved details are also good and the noise levels are also in control. Note that all these shots are taken with HDR on Auto and AI Mode.

Daylight Shots

When it comes to macro shots, it has a 2MP macro camera. The main camera gives good macro shots and the bokeh effect also looks natural. The phone could easily focus on the subject. The colours are a bit boosted but they look good in the end. The Third Photo from Left has been taken from the 2MP Macro Camera. It looks okay but I still feel that using the main camera makes more sense.

Macro Shots 

The indoor and low-light shots are where the phone struggles. Nothing surprising considering how cheap this is. I used the Night Mode in all the shots. The indoor shots have a lot of noise but are still usable. The low-light shots have a lot of noise and they seem unusable.

Low-Light Shots

If you know how to use the manual mode and have a tripod or any place to keep your phone stable for 30 seconds, you can get such shots. But this is not a feasible solution.  this cannot be used on Human Subjects or even Macro Shots at night. And you can also see that the lights are overexposed.

ISO 100, Shutter 32s

The front has a 5MP camera. You get Portrait Mode and HDR on that. The quality is average. For casual selfies, video calls or online classes, it is good enough. But if you take a lot of selfies, don’t expect much.

The videos are just average as it can shoot only upto 1080p30 and there’s no EIS. There’s no slow-motion either. So you can take some videos casually but nothing more than that.

I couldn’t even find a working GCam so you are out of luck. And GCam Go is actually worse than the main camera. So you’re out of luck there also. But still seeing the 7k price, I would call it a good camera phone. It is good enough for scanning documents and if you casually take photos in daylight, it should be fine.

BATTERY

Another strong point for this phone is its battery life. The 5000 mAh battery along with an efficient 12nm chipset and MIUI optimization, it rocks with the battery life.

I am a heavy user. I watch videos on this, sometimes attend online classes and even do heavy gaming on this phone. Still it easily manages to stretch throughout the day with 25–30% juice left. If you are a moderate user and don’t do gaming, it will last anywhere around 1.5 days. And if are a casual user, it may even last two days.

For charging, it uses a basic 10W charger with no support for faster charging. It takes almost 3 hours for 0–100%. Even for 30–100%, it still takes over 2 hours. So I mostly charge it overnight and I also recommend the same.

SUNDRIES

• The network reception of the phone seems to be good enough. I didn’t travel much due to lockdown but I think you wouldn’t face issues if your area has good network strength.
• The speakers were decently loud and the ringtone volume is decent. The output from the headphone jack is also decent. The microphone quality is also decent. I tried Bluetooth Headsets and the sound quality was good.
• I tried Auto-Brightness and it doesn't work that efficiently but the Brightness Boost is good. And it also lacks a Gyroscope and Compass Sensor.
• The haptic feedback is enabled on this phone and the implementation is good. The vibration feedback is moderate.
• The face unlock takes a second to unlock and mostly doesn’t work in low-light.
• The SAR Value is Head- 0.506 W/Kg and Body — 0.833 W/Kg.

VERDICT

So that’s it for the review of POCO C3. So now let’s sum it up with the pros and cons.

PROS

• Good Design and Strong Build
• Excellent Battery Life
• Capable Performance and Decent Gaming
• Good Display for the Price
• Good Daylight Camera Performance

CONS

• No Fingerprint Reader
• Slow Charging
• Camera Struggles in Low Light

This phone is really good for most people looking for a phone within a budget price of ₹7,499. It is good for gamers on a budget, people buying their first phone and even those who want a phone for online classes.

• Micromax In 1B could be a head-to-head competitor f it was properly available. From the last few months, it has mostly been out of stock.
  
  
• There is Realme C20 as a direct competitor. It offers very similar specs and even the same Helio G35. But that just has 2GB RAM while POCO offers 3GB RAM. There’s also Realme C21 for 8k but you get the same specs for 1k less in POCO.
  
  
• The Realme Narzo 30A at ₹8,999 offers better performance and battery but that gives only 3GB after paying ₹1,000 more.
  
  
• The POCO M2 (Reloaded) makes sense if you can go all the way to ₹10k. At that price, you can also get POCO M3 or Redmi 9 Power.
  
  
• Samsung offers M02 at ₹6,999. The display and battery are similar but the performance with the 28nm MT6739 is far behind POCO C3.
  
  
• Samsung also offers M02s/F02s for ₹8,999 offers very similar specs to POCO C3 but if you are spending that much, you have POCO M2 as an option.

So that’s it for today’s review. I hope you liked it. It took a lot of effort to write this. So make sure you share this with your friends. Goodbye for now.