It’s over two years since the Pocophone F1 was released and scooped up a Recommend award in our review. Since then, we’ve seen other releases from the Xiaomi brand, including the excellent Poco X3 NFC that won our budget phone of the year award in 2020, but the long rumoured Poco F2 never materialised.
We did see the Poco F2 Pro, but that also cost more and had flagship specs. Now, it looks like the successor to the F1 could be arriving very soon in the form of the Poco F3.
When will the Poco F3 be released?
There’s no official release date as of yet, although we do know that the Poco X3 Pro is expected to be announced on 30 March 2021, with Xiaomi also teasing another Poco phone event on 22 March 2011.
Get ready to unleash MAD #PROformance
30.03 pic.twitter.com/lsc0pmZoqJ
— Anuj Sharma (@s_anuj)
March 15, 2021
Could it be that the latter is when the company plans to peel back the covers from the Poco F3?
Watch out! The new beast is in town!#KingPOCO is coming.#PowerMeetSpeed pic.twitter.com/FNtOaLwpAl
— POCO (@POCOGlobal)
March 15, 2021
The teaser states ‘Watch out! The new beast is in town!’ and labels it the King Poco. So, either the F3 will make its debut on that date or the company has a different phone up its sleeves.
How much will the Poco F3 cost?
Pricing remains a mystery at the time of writing, as the existence of the Poco F3 hasn’t even been confirmed. For some ballpark figures we can look at previous models and the state of the current catalogue.
The original Pocophone F1 would have set you back around £329/$450 when it was first released in 2018. The model has since been discontinued, but the other Poco phones line up like this:
- Poco X3 NFC – £169 (approx. $235)
- Poco F2 Pro – £499 (approx. $599)
With this in mind, it’s possible that the Poco F3 could be a straight replacement for the F2 Pro, as that handset was released back in June 2020, making it fast approaching a year old. Recent rumours, outlined below, suggest that the F3 will be a flagship device, so the pricing is likely to be similar or even slightly higher.
What features will we see in the Poco F3?
It’s all been a bit hush hush in regards to the new Poco phone for a long time now, but we’ve recently seen rumours from TechRadar stating that the Poco F3 will be based on the recently announced K40 from Redmi, another Xiaomi brand.
If this turns out to be true, then you can expect a configuration that includes the following:
- 6.67in Super AMOLED 2400 x 1080 display with 20:9 aspect ratio
- 120Hz refresh rate
- HDR10+
- Corning Gorilla Glass 5
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 870
- 6GB/128GB, 8GB/128GB, 8GB/256GB, 12GB/256GB combinations
- 48MP f/1.8 wide camera
- 8MP F/2.2 ultrawide camera
- 5MP macro camera
- 20MP wide angle selfie camera
- Wi-Fi 6
- Bluetooth 5.1
- 5G LTE
- USB-C charging
- 4520mAh battery
- Dual-SIM
- 163.7 x 76.4 x 7.8 mm
- 196g
Whether it’s an exact spec-for-spec version remains to be seen. But with Xiaomi owning both brands, it could be that the company wants to keep productions costs down by tooling up for a single device that boasts different branding and chassis colours. Hopefully all will be revealed at the event on 22 March.
Until then, be sure to read our roundups of the best Xiaomi phones and best Chinese phones to see what the Poco F3 will have to compete with for your affections.
