Before the year is out, Poco is set to introduce another budget smartphone which will be known as the Poco M3. This is the first global M series phone from the Xiaomi-backed smartphone brand and it is expected to be a new sub-RM1,000 contender.
Ahead of its launch which is happening on Tuesday, 24th of November, Poco has dropped more clues for the new budget device. The Poco M3 will definitely feature a 6.53″ display and it appears to come with a tiny notch at the top.
At 6.53″, this could be good news for those that want a smaller screen. As a comparison, the Poco X3 NFC and the Redmi Note 9S or Pro series all come with a larger 6.67″ display. We reckon that the display should be pushing at least Full HD+ resolution but it isn’t clear if there would be any high 90Hz or 120Hz refresh rate.
Under the hood, the earlier speculated Snapdragon 662 processor for the device appears to be confirmed by Poco. This is a mid-range 11nm processor that was announced earlier this year which is positioned below the Snapdragon 665 and 675 processors. Definitely, it won’t be as powerful as the Poco X3 NFC which runs on an 8nm Snapdragon 732G.
In terms of battery, Poco hasn’t confirmed the details yet and it is rumoured to come with a larger 6,000mAh battery with 22.5W fast charging support. At the moment, Poco is having a giveaway contest on AliExpress which might provide clues of its actual battery capacity.
Users are urged to “add 1mAh” to unlock the giveaway and Poco will unlock a phone if it reaches 5,000mAh. A second phone will be unlocked at 10,000mAh while the third unit will be unlocked at 15,000mAh.
From the giveaway mechanics, it appears that the new phone might come with just 5,000mAh capacity instead of 6,000mAh. Like the tagline, “more than you expect”, it is possible that the M3 might actually come with a larger battery and they opt for 5,000mAh for the contest mechanics for easier calculation.
[ UPDATE 22/11/2020 18:00 ]: Poco’s latest tweet seems to confirm that the M3’s battery has a large 6,000mAh capacity.
The question is how much will the Poco M3 will retail for? As a comparison, the base model Poco X3 NFC with 6GB RAM + 64GB storage is officially listed for RM899 but it is offered for as low as RM799 during the mega online sales. Depending on the specs, we reckon that the M3 could be priced well under RM800. With 12.12 sales happening soon, we expect Xiaomi to offer special deals for the new budget phone.
