Why I love my Poco X3 pro - Review after 1 year usage

I have had the Poco X3 pro for more than a year now and while it did gave me some problem (battery dying on me), I must say I still love it a lot. I can even say that I love it much more than my iPhone 7 plus. 

Of course, many would say that it's not a fair comparison. Which is true but only to a certain extend.

Well, you see, I use my Poco phone mainly for my Grab deliveries and gaming, retro gaming to be exact.

Retro-Gaming Beast

I have PPSSPP (PSP emulator), DraStic (NDS emulator), Citra 3DS emulator) and Skyline (Switch Emulator) installed on the Poco phone and almost all of them run without any problem. Well, except for Skyline because Switch games are just so demanding and it being relatively new, many games aren't fully compatible yet.

I can run Persona Q and Q2 at normal speed with at least 20ish fps (90ish% speed) - which is enough as there is no obvious lag or stutters. And over 50fps at 400ish% speed.

It does however lags a little with long hours of gaming, say more than 3 hours. Sometimes, it freezes the emulator. Clearing the cache helps but you have better save as often as possible.

On PPSSPP, I have run Bomberman, Persona 3 Portable, Teken 6 and Gungnir with no problem at all. There is also no obvious input lag with my iPega 9167 controller.

Skyline is kinda disappointing as the games I wanted to play (Fatal Frame and Bomberman), cannot work on Skyline yet. I managed to play Bombing Busters though and it worked well. However, you need to get Turnip Adreno driver for it to work correctly.

The phone have no sweat running DraStic. Completed, Nanashi no Game, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin and a few other games on the phone with long hours of gameplay.

Battery Life

The 5160 mAh did last quite a long time, at about 3-5 hours of gameplay with Bluetooth controllers connected, depending on how demanding the game is. For daily usage with light gaming and video streaming, it could easily last a whole day without problem.

However do take note that the battery is prone to swelling when not charged correctly. 

Do not charge your phone overnight, especially on a Fast charge charger. Most importantly, DO NOT play game on your phone while charging. And for this reason, I got myself a fast charger so I don't have to wait hours for the phone to charge. (The original power brick, I gave it to my sister to use in her office) 

Anyways, my battery died about 1 year of usage, or maybe slightly more than 1 year. The battery swelled so badly, my back cover was pushed out, leaving a visible gap between the back cover and the phone body. It was also completely dead that my phone couldn't power on.

It fortunately happened in Malaysia and I managed to find a repair shop with Xiaomi's (Poco was under Xiaomi) parts (including original battery). And the best part is, it's cheaper when compared to getting an original battery in Singapore due to the exchange rate. I got a battery replacement for RM110 (with some negotiating). I have asked around in Singapore and it seems like not all phone repair shop repairs Xiaomi phones, some only repair those popular brands like Apple and Samsung and even if they do, it cost more than what I paid in Malaysia.

I am still monitoring how long this battery can last, now that I am doing whatever I can to prolong its life.

Firmware Updates and Ads

While one common complain of mid-range phones is that there won't be much security and firmware updates, I think I have received at least 2 updates in just this 1+ year of usage.

An unofficial website predicts that Xiaomi/Poco will try to provide security patches for up to 3 years and at least 2 Android versions or 3 MIUI versions. But this is all prediction based on past updates patterns and doesn't promises anything.

I do feel that MIUI seems to be slow at times and sometimes my phone boots to a blank screen (not icons or anything) for a good second before the everything start getting loaded. But after that, the phone will usually run quite smooth. 

And yes, there are some useful preinstalled apps that do have annoying Ads, like the Cleaner app which I use to clear my cache. There is a medium chance of encountering an Ad after clearing the cache. No doubt you can close the Ad (there is no countdown timer), but it does gets annoying over time.

Overall, I really love this phone a lot. It is smooth and runs my games really well. There are occasional bugs and stutters here and there - like if I gamed for long hours but they're easily fix by killing the app or clearing the caches. 

The only 'real problem' is the battery swelling problem which, you'll have no choice but to get a replacement!