The Realme X3 SuperZoom is the first phone to launch with a 5x optical periscope zoom at an affordable price point. It is the best Realme camera specification to date, and I found the phone easily outperformed last years Realme X2 Pro with the overall camera performance being better than the flagship X50 Pro.

However, the SuperZoom camera means the phone costs more, with initial rumours suggesting that this will be 499-Euros, the same price as the just-launched Poco F2 Pro.

So this gives you an interesting choice of opting for improved camera performance over a superior 5G chipset.

[Update] UK price has been confirmed at £469

Chipset, Ram and Storage

The Realme X3 SuperZoom has a Snapdragon 855+ chipset which is superb but not as good as the SD865 on the Poco. It is also 4G only, personally, I am fine with this, I doubt 5G is going to be a big thing where I live for a couple of years yet.

Display

Both phones have similar display dimensions, resolution and overall dimensions. The Realme is fractionally taller thanks to it having slightly thicker bezels.

The Realme X3 SuperZoom is 6.6 inches running at 2400 x 1080, and the Poco F2 Pro is 6.67 inches running at the same resolution.

Where things differentiate is the display technology. Realme uses an IPS display running at 120Hz while Poco has an AMOLED running at 60Hz. The increased responsiveness of the 120Hz panel is amazing, and gamers will certainly appreciate it, however, I found this comes at the cost of overall brightness and less colour accuracy than AMOLED counterparts.

The Poco also has the befit of no cut-outs or notches which gives the overall appearance of the phone a nicer look.

Camera

I have not reviewed the Poco F2 Pro yet, but it seems to get favourable reviews for its camera performance. However the Realme certainly has a more versatile hardware arrangement, and during my review, I was surprised how well that periscope zoom performed as well as the overall improvement with camera quality since the launch of the X2 Pro.

The Realme also has the benefit of a dual selfie, but this comes at the cost of a massive pill shaped cut-out on display.

Realme X3 SuperZoom

• Rear:
  • 64 MP, f/1.8, 26mm (wide), 1/1.76″, 1.8µm, PDAF
  • 8 MP, f/3.4, 122mm (periscope telephoto), PDAF, OIS, 5x optical zoom
  • 8 MP, f/2.3, 119˚ (ultrawide), 1/4.0″, 1.12µm
  • 2 MP, f/2.4, (macro)
• Front
  • 32 MP, f/2.2, (wide), 1/2.8″, 0.8µm, PDAF
  • 8 MP, f/2.4, (ultrawide)

Poco F2 Pro

• Rear:
  • 64 MP, f/1.9, 26mm (wide), 1/1.72″, 0.8µm, PDAF
  • 5 MP, f/2.2, 50mm (telephoto macro), AF
  • 13 MP, f/2.4, 123˚ (ultrawide), 1.12µm
  • 2 MP, f/2.4, (depth)
• Front:
  • Motorized pop-up 20 MP, (wide), 1/3.4″, 0.8µm

Battery

The Poco has a massive 4700 mAh battery while the Realme has a smaller, but still large 4200 mAh battery.

The Realme easily lasts over a day, pushing two days. I can get an 11h screen on time when running the PC Mark battery test-taking the phone down from 100% to 20%

Benchmarks

While I have no benchmarked the Poco, I have benchmarked the Realme X50 Pro which has the same chipset. As you would expect, there SD865 offers a significant boost in performance with me being about to achieve 591514 in Antutu vs 491567 on the Realme X3 Superzoom which represents a 20% difference in performance.

Price

Current rumours indicate the phones will be priced the same, but this will need confirming when the price is announced at 10 AM BST today (26^th of May)

UK pricing has been confirmed as £469 which is a bit more expensive than the base model of the Poco F2 Pro but you get much larger RAM and storage with this.

Overall

Both phones are superb. Initially, I would say the Poco F2 Pro seems like the sensible choice with its superior 5G chipset and impressive design with its pop up selfie camera.

However, in reality, depending on how you use your phone, the X3 SuperZoom may be a superior alternative. I take far more photos than I do play games, and I can’t get 5G where I live, so the benefits of the Poco F2 Pro are possibly wasted on someone like myself.

Specification Comparison Table