Pocophone X3 and some other great semi-flagship smartphones under $500

The first "Pokophone" Xiaomi has become a thing of historical proportions, which was sold out in minutes. The second "Pokophone" turned out to be expensive and did not excite the audience. But the third one can break the space-time continuum: when will you still see an almost top-end smartphone with a powerful filling and a bunch of bells and whistles at the price of a regular handset below average? It is not surprising that the first batch was sold out on Aliexpress in 30 minutes, and more than 100K units were sold in three days from the start of sales.

And what, you ask? Such drummer tubes are released once a month, Xiaomi alone released a couple of curious semi-flagships in the summer of 2020: Mi Note 10 Lite and Xiaomi Mi 10 Lite. And the fact that the Chinese have returned to the original policy of "dumping like the last time", removing all competitors with one blow: the new Poco X3 will arrive in Europe with a price tag of $249. And even with the traditional mark-up of our sellers, it will be some kind of attraction of unprecedented generosity.

And now we consider the coolness of the "Pokophone" on the fingers. There is a large 6.67-inch IPS screen with a resolution of 2400 x 1080 and a refresh rate of 120 Hz. A capacious 5160 mAh battery with a fast 33-watt charge is available. A quad camera with a Sony IMX682 main sensor is available (although without a TV speaker and optical stabilization). Fast and modern hardware is also there. In the case of the third "Pokophone", we are talking about a Snapdragon 732G gaming processor with a LiquidCool Technology 1.0 Plus cooling system and Game Turbo 3.0 game mode, 6 gigabytes of RAM and built-in 128 GB storage with support for memory cards. Also on the base there are stereo speakers, NFC, current wireless communication modules, a fingerprint scanner mounted in the side button and a proprietary infrared port.

Interestingly, unlike the latest Xiaomi smartphones, the new Poco X3 has become a completely new device assembled from scratch, and not a renamed Xiaomi or Redmi model. It remains to wait for his appearance in our region to draw more thorough conclusions.

Smartphone designers are now frankly bored at work ― the screen takes up all the space on the front panel, you can't really walk around on the back either, but you need to stand out somehow. So a year and a half ago, bright mother-of-pearl paint came into fashion, which was used literally everywhere. Now the trend has turned in the opposite direction and more and more smartphones with monochrome back covers are coming to store shelves. These include the Oppo Reno2 Z with a stylish and minimalistic monochrome backdrop. Such a device will look equally good in a teenager's pocket, and in a strict suit, and in a woman's purse. And for once, the manufacturer put a beautiful and neat leather-trimmed case in the box, in which it is not a shame to put a smartphone.

The entire front panel is occupied by a 6.53-inch AMOLED screen. The front camera was made extendable to free up more usable space. In the past, we didn't really like smartphones with such front-facing devices, since the camera left for a second or two and physically didn't have time to hide in the case if you dropped the smartphone out of your hands. OPPO has done everything right for the first time in our memory ― the camera unit looks reliable, it leaves the case in a fraction of a second, and its appearance is accompanied by light and sound effects that can be customized. As for the display, it is a typical AMOLED of the middle class with a mottled, slightly unnatural colour reproduction and a large depth of black. Unless the colour palette is initially not warm and acidic, but blue and cold.

Oppo again seduces customers with a camera from a whole scattering of diverse modules: on the back panel there is a main and wide-angle camera, as well as a monochrome sensor, a depth sensor and an additional TOF sensor. Unfortunately, there is no TV channel. The quality of the camera roughly corresponds to its price: the smartphone shoots and photographs perfectly, but still it is not a first-class camera phone. For example, he behaves strangely at dusk, when the lighting has deteriorated, but it's too early for night mode. A digital zoom blurs the detail of objects in the frame.

There are also compromises in the iron part. On the one hand, the OPPO Reno2 Z has flagship 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of internal storage. On the other hand, the heart of the device was Mediatek Helio P90 ― not the most powerful chip at the price we pay for Reno2 Z. Instagram Facebook, Instagram or TikTok feeds loaded with content are scrolled by the smartphone despite this, it handles PUBG-caliber toys well and scrolls without suspensions. The rest of the fronts are also in order: there is fast charging, the case is made of premium materials, plus there are NFC and modern communication modules, and the fingerprint scanner mounted in the display works quickly and clearly. Taking into account the price tag, which has already dropped below $ 400, we get a very interesting and combat-ready device.

In November 2019, Xiaomi introduced an interesting almost flagship Xiaomi Mi Note 10 with a top quad camera, which topped the DxOMark rating, beating numerous competitors represented by Samsung, Huawei and Apple. He worked on a mid-level Snapdragon 730G chipset and it was decidedly unusual. In the spring of 2020, Xiaomi surprised everyone again by releasing a lite version of the Mi Note 10 with an identical filling, a simpler camera and a price tag $100 lower. And this is again a strange decision that goes against the traditional principles of marketing.

As a result, it turned out not quite "top for your money", as last time. The most important charm in the form of a camera with 5 modules has disappeared. Instead, the Note 10 Lite received a block of 4 modules, where the main role is played by the already familiar 64-MP Sony IMX686 medium-level sensor, and it is complemented by a 12-MP "shirik", macro-objective and an auxiliary depth sensor. As a result, the quality of shooting Xiaomi Mi Note 10 Lite has become much more modest, the autofocus has deteriorated and the quality of night photos has decreased. The logic of the company is that it makes no sense to overpay for a powerful camera if you don't need it. But isn't the main highlight of a smartphone lost without it?

The display features are similar to the older model: the same 6.47", the same AMOLED matrix with Full HD+ resolution and HDR support. At one time, we remembered it for its good colour rendering, slightly acidic factory settings and a good supply of brightness. The edges of the display are rounded, so there is a similarity with the flagships, do not forget about the oleophobic coating. The fingerprint scanner remained under the screen and in terms of response speed, it is still inferior to conventional sensors on the back panel.

For the rest of the parameters, we received an almost identical copy of the Mi Note 10 in a similar case and with the same hardware. Its heart was the same Snapdragon 730G gaming processor, the same Adreno 618 graphics and the same 8 GB of LPDDR4x memory. The company's battery life has also been preserved: the 5260 mAh battery lasts for 7-8 hours of sticking in demanding toys of The Elder Scrolls Blades caliber, then a fast 30-watt charging comes into play. Of the additional features, only NFC and the traditional infrared port for Xiaomi stand out. The conclusion from all of the above is this: this is a good device without any bugs for those who need battery life and performance in games, and the camera is needed more for Instagram. And adherents of mobile photography will like the usual Mi Note 10 more.

Simplified versions of top smartphones are like a new Star Wars trilogy: you go to the cinema for an epic space blockbuster, and you get a fat-free story with poorly written characters, slurred action and a zilch in the finale. Fortunately, this is not the case of the Galaxy Note10 Lite, which has retained and not lost the best features of the founding father.

To begin with, Samsung did not trim the support for the S Pen stylus, as it used to be. Do you want to scribble notes by hand, draw a little or mark key points in a PDF file? Please, here's a stylus for you, here's a big screen. No cheating. Unless the stylus itself is not as fancy and does not support gesture control as the older Galaxy Note10. But it has retained excellent responsiveness and admirably recognizes the degree of pressing force. The similarity with the older brother can also be traced in the filling: the high response of the smartphone is set by a combination of a top-end Exynos 9810 chip, 6 GB of RAM (there is an 8 GB option) and 128 GB of storage.

The display here is also Super AMOLED, but the quality of the matrix has become lower, the pixel density has decreased and support for HDR10+ has disappeared. There was a branded cutout for the front right in the screen. And the diagonal of the screen itself has grown from 6.3 to 6.7". So much for the younger brother. No, this is an ordinary, flat matrix with a good oleophobic coating. The camera also remained triple, and, you won't believe it, but it almost didn't lose in quality. After a couple of days of photo hunting, I got the impression that this is really a full-fledged camera phone at a modest price, which shoots at the level of the flagships of the last generation.

As a gift to audiophiles and opponents of wireless headphones Samsung unexpectedly returned the audio jack. In payment for this, stereo speakers and fashionable, but not particularly practical wireless charging were cut off. The case has lost its protection from moisture, and the back cover is now plastic, not premium glass. The fingerprint scanner remained right in the display. A gentleman's set of a good smartphone is in place: there is fast charging, NFC, a capacious battery with fast charging and a good front camera.

In recent years, Chinese smartphone manufacturers have raised the bar to some exorbitant level. In everyday life, the profile press even had a strange expression "low-cost flagship", which means a 500-dollar stuffed with a thousand evergreens. This is exactly the philosophy that the young Realme brand, which came out from under the wing of OPPO, adheres to. First they released a full―fledged flagship for $500 – X2 Pro, and now they are trying to consolidate success with the new Realme X3 SuperZoom.

The first thing that makes a smartphone stand out, and what the manufacturer focuses on, is a long―range camera. It consists of four modules and uses the so-called periscope zoom with optical stabilization, 5x optical zoom and 60x digital zoom. We don't know who will need such a strong approximation and why, but in fact it is impressive. The camera also stands out due to the special night mode Nighscape 4.0, which handles well in low light conditions. Professional mode with manual settings is also available. The camera software itself has become clearer and more responsive, it looks like Realme has seriously worked on it over the past year.

The second step on the way to national love is the filling of a smartphone. There is a complete order with it: top-end Snapdragon 855+, 8 GB of fast LPDDR4x RAM and internal storage of UFS 3.0 class with a volume of 128 GB. Minus for the fact that there is no slot for a memory card. In general, this is the level of the brand new Galaxy S20 Plus or Huawei P30 Pro with price tags one and a half to two times higher. If you are a fan of playing something heavy like a new Call Of Duty on your smartphone, then the filling alone is a serious reason to think about buying a Realme X3.

The third final step to success is a fashionable FullHD+ display with a refresh rate of 120 Hz. It looks great, especially pleased with the colour reproduction. But the brightness margin could be more. Instead of an AMOLED matrix, a regular IPS is used so that you don't have to raise the price tag. Instead of a sub-screen fingerprint scanner, a "normal" sensor mounted in the side power button is used. In our opinion, this is the most convenient way to unlock. Otherwise, everything is familiar: a 4200 mAh battery with 30W fast charging charges in less than an hour, a glass back panel, NFC-based. But the audio capabilities have been simplified compared to the Realme X2 Pro: there are no stereo speakers and a headphone jack in the smartphone.