The long-awaited Poco F2 Pro has finally landed, as expected this is just a rebadged Redmi K30 Pro, but this represents the cheapest flagship spec phone to launch officially in Europe, comfortable undercutting the Realme X50 Pro and Black Shark 3.
The phone is available to order now from GearBest for just $499.99 for the 6GB/128GB model. It will then launch soon on Amazon for €499 or €599 for the 8GB/256GB.
For UK pricing that would work out as £439 and £539. If you bought it from GearBest at $499 that would be £403.39.
In comparison, the Realme X50 Pro with 8GB/128GB is €599. The Black Shark 3 is then £539 which works out as €631.
Like many companies nowadays, Xiaomi/Poco did some shameless phone comparisons comparing their phone to the Samsung S20+ and the OnePlus 8 Pro. Interesting that they left out the Realme.
The phone has an impressive specification for the price. It is powered by the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 which is the most powerful chipset available at the moment, and according to Poco it scores higher than Samsung and OnePlus in benchmarks.
The main camera has a 1/1.72” sensor with 64MP resolution, with pixel binning that works out to 16MP photos with 1.6µm effective pixels. There is a telephoto macro lens at 5MP which I have never heard of before, but this acts as a 2x zoom and macro camera. Then an ultra-wide 13MP camera with 2MP depth sensor.
The selfie camera is a 20MP shooter on a motorized pop-up mechanism. This leaves the 6.67” screen completely unblemished. This year it’s a Super AMOLED panel with HDR+ support, so you can expect a boost in image quality, even if the resolution remains at 1080p+. The switch to AMOLED also allowed the fingerprint reader to move below the screen.
Sadly there is no 90Hz refresh rate, something that both the Realme and Black Shark have, but the touch sampling rate has been amped up to 180Hz. The phone has Widevine L1 certification, so it can play HD content from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and other services.
The battery is an impressive 4,700mAh with 30W charging.
The Redmi K30 Pro has received favourable reviews all around, so it is inevitable that the Poco F2 Pro will be superb. It seems to be a lot more refined than its predecessor the Poco F1 and should make an excellent choice for wanting a flagship phone on a budget.
