Pocophone F1 Review - Is It Really That Good?

Sheesh! Well, it's that time, it's about time. I've got to do it

I've been using this device for a while and it's time to switch to a new one

This is the Pocophone F1, the legend itself. You guys have demanded that I cover it, use it, make videos, tell you about it

and then ultimately have everything culminate in this video here, where I tell you the truth about it

The truth based on using it for a real extended period of time with my main SIM card in it

The truth is this thing is legit. It's everything you thought. There's no real reason to be worried about this thing

It's crazy that it costs $300. This thing blew up in India, right

And it is for that market specifically. But people in other parts of the world can't believe the deal

They want to try to import it. So to be clear, since this is designed for that market

Your mileage may vary depending on where you want to use it when it comes to getting a 4G LTE signal

I am in the Toronto area. I have a Roger SIM card in here. And there are times and places where I would normally have an LTE connection where this one reverts back to a slightly slower connection

So that just has to do with the radios that are inside of here in the market that they are developed for

It hasn't really hurt me at all or bothered me all that much. Reception otherwise has been good

Calls have been good and it's been functioning properly. Let's move on to the good stuff

This thing is fast. We expected that. Snapdragon 845, you can see I changed the layout a little bit here

This is Nova launcher. I would do this on many devices. And actually, this launcher brings me to maybe the one thing that kind of bugged me on this phone

And that is the fact that it has a skin on it. And that skin extends into the settings and it will slow you down a bit if you are used to a more stock experience For me the perfect phone here would be this the Pocophone F1 with the Android One program associated with it Just like the phone I featured here recently the Mi A2 from the same company Xiaomi of course in this case called Pocophone

If this device had that stock experience, this would be tough to switch away from, even at the $300 price point

I'll tell you why. Battery. I can't kill this thing. I use it extensively. At the end of the night, there's plenty of percentage left. 25% sometimes

Not a 4000mAh battery in it. And with the Snapdragon setup, that is a ton of battery to work with

To put this in perspective, it's the same battery size as the Note 9

That's a premium device. You know the price tag. It's got the same chipset as the Note 9

The display is probably not as nice as the Note 9. The camera is probably not as nice as the Note 9

But let's adjust our expectations for the price point and realize how crazy this thing is

Speaking about the camera, I have a few shots on here I can show you

I will say I had low expectations for this camera both front and back, but I was pleasantly surprised

This camera is pretty good and that goes for low light conditions as well

You can see the detail actually holds up. I mean look at the gradient in the sky on this particular image

So as I've mentioned in past videos regarding budget phones, usually the camera is gonna be the differentiating factor

That's gonna be the place where you're like, look that's a cheap phone and I know it

In fact in the recent video where I had that knockoff iPhone, the Android iPhone, the camera was terrible

It was a dead giveaway. Even when I had the most recent Blackberry on the show, the camera was terrible comparatively

This device here is crazy competitive. I should mention the fingerprint scanner has been rock solid

Never missed a scan. It's fast. It's in the right spot. Some people have criticized this device for being essentially plastic in most of its formats

This is the armored edition so this one has this Aramid Kevlar kind of feel to it which I like a little bit better That said it does get some fingerprints on it and it mostly feels kind of like plastic

It might not feel as premium, let's say, as glass. I don't see this as a drawback

I was never a huge fan of glass. It's a fingerprint magnet. It's fragile

So in a way, from a utilitarian perspective, this might even be a step better

Let's not forget the fact that it keeps the headphone jack. It's also got expandable storage, so it's a versatile package

And I feel like I need to keep saying it, it's all happening for $300

The starting price point. Now one thing I wasn't able to test due to region specific things is the facial unlock

Though I do know that they're using infrared, so it is a step better than strictly optical face unlock

And again, that's kind of a feature that we're just not seeing in lower end, lower price point phones

The speaker sort of falls into the average realm but it was never an issue for me

It felt comparable to some of the stuff that I had been using previously

It was sort of in the same realm as the P20 Pro that I was using before this

Okay, so I said a lot of nice things about this. I don't know, it could be the hit all around smartphone of 2018

I don't really know how anything can touch this right now. When you put together the combination of what's inside of it and the price that goes along with it

Uh, but! There is a but, okay? This is the real but

This thing is kind of hard to get your hands on for a regular customer. In my

particular case, they reached out to me and sent it out, so that's how I got

my hands on it. But for everyone else, it's kind of this flash sale

situation where some become available and then they sell out. So there's this question

that started to arise amongst community members, tech savvy people like yourself. Is this thing being sold

at a loss? Do they really want to move a lot of units or is this really a marketing campaign

to build hype around the device and then maybe on the next version it comes with a higher price point so they can earn some of that revenue back That might be possible I not familiar enough with the specifics of the Indian market and how sales happen there

But as I understand it, this flash sales scenario is pretty common

And the question that exists now is just how many of these devices can they fulfill

Now, I should say one more thing. I made a video talking about a problem that this device had regarding streaming Netflix, Amazon Video, and various other services that use a particular type of encoding for DRM purposes

And the problem meant that this device couldn't stream those services in full 1080p resolution

Well, someone from Xiaomi reached out to me and actually told me that they may be able to patch this problem via software, which I didn't know and I didn't state in my original video

So apparently, this is something that may be fixed in the future

Take that for what it is. Don't count on it, but it may be patched if it's a big issue for you

So there you have it. Pocophone F1, maybe the most important phone released this year

It signals a change. It signals competition. As a customer you win. You're seriously winning right now

And it's because of more brands playing in the space and customers demanding more for less

That's how you get better stuff. So I hope you guys keep doing that and I'm going to keep talking about it

And hopefully more devices like this arise so more of you can get your hands on the latest tech for less

That's what's happening. Let me know as usual down in the comments which phone should I switch to next

coming up very shortly. I need to put my sim card in something, so where do you guys want to see that sim card go

Name any device that you want to see me move to after this one

I kind of have an idea of what you guys are going to select. Nonetheless, put your votes down in the comments, and I'll be picking a new phone immediately after this one