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00:00All right, hey what's up, MKBHD here. So what if I told you this new 2020 smartphone is
00:11just $129? Sometimes. For some people, maybe. Also, it kind of does look like an Among
00:21Us character. But this new POCO M3 is popping up on a lot of radars right now. It's a really
00:32interesting phone from a really interesting company. So this POCO company just went independent
00:38from the brand Xiaomi. It was originally the Xiaomi POCO phone, now POCO's independent
00:44by themselves. But I wouldn't put as much stock in this new independence as they probably
00:49want us to. I feel like they're about as independent as the Mustang is from Ford. There's
00:56no Ford logos on any Mustangs, but we all know that they're getting some of the expertise
01:01and manufacturing and financial support from that bigger company still. So POCO by themselves
01:06is not a small company, but they definitely want to look like and act like one. But that
01:11being said, this POCO M3 is insane value as a full-fledged smartphone. I've talked about
01:18this in the past, how budget phones are getting better around $400, $300, even $200. But to
01:24get something like this and not even crack $150 shipped, landed, arrived at your door,
01:32in certain regions anyway, is incredibly impressive. The design, if you start there, is actually
01:37quite nice, I would say. We already know every premium phone tries to go shiny glass or at
01:42least look like glass, but this is more of a faux leather made of plastic. And I always
01:47say if you're going to go plastic, embrace the plastic. Don't pull a Samsung, for example,
01:52and look me dead in the eyes and call it glass stick. But no, plastic can be good. Lean into
02:00it. This, I already know, will never show fingerprints the same way glass does. It's
02:04less likely to shatter. You can do whatever you want with color. It's nice. Plastic is
02:08fine on cheap phones. Then there is, of course, that cutout at the top with the bold POCO
02:14branding on it that kind of looks like it glows sometimes, even though it's not. They're
02:17really leaning into this. It looks kind of like that cyberpunk OnePlus phone window
02:21now. And there's a triple camera system up here, 48 megapixel main sensor, 2 megapixel
02:27macro, and 2 megapixel depth sensor. So I feel like you already know where I'm going
02:33with this one. The best budget smartphone cameras are single camera systems. Pixel 4a, iPhone
02:42SE, maybe two cameras at best if they toss an ultra wide in there. But this doesn't
02:47have an ultra wide yet adds two more 2 megapixel sensors for macro and depth. Not what I would
02:54have done. I will say the POCO's main camera is acceptable in pretty much average and normal
02:59shooting conditions. It does, of course, struggle in low light or in difficult shooting conditions,
03:04but we just came off the heels of the blind smartphone camera test where we realized that
03:07it's really a matter of taste in a lot of these cases. And what I can say is this phone,
03:11despite its poor dynamic range, can spit out some pretty decent looking photos. The
03:15macro camera, maybe you could argue is useful because it has a much shorter minimum focus
03:20distance than the main camera, but you can't convince me this 2 megapixel depth sensor
03:25is useful. Sorry, I still would have much preferred over both of these to seen an ultra
03:30wide. Then around the front, there's a very average 1080p 6.53 inch display with a teardrop
03:36notch at the top. Perfectly acceptable bezels, you know, a little bit of chin and sure there's
03:41not great viewing angles or maximum brightness, but again, it is totally fine for this price
03:48point we're talking about here. And then the best part, easily the best part, the best
03:52spec of them all. This phone has a 6,000 milliamp hour battery, 6,000 milliamp hours, and it's
04:02not even that thick or massive. The only other phone I've tested with a battery that's actually
04:06this big is the ROG Phone 3 and look at the size of that phone. So this is a gigantic
04:11battery packed in here that should last anybody all day. And then some, honestly, I wouldn't
04:16be surprised if some people saw two days of use at 60 Hertz here on the regular. Plus
04:21there is 18 watt fast charging. This one has a headphone jack up here too. You love to
04:25see it. It also has a large front facing earpiece speaker, and it has a fingerprint reader in
04:31the power button. Another great combo for a budget phone right now, in my opinion, and
04:35it comes with a clear case and a screen protector in case you want to protect that precious
04:40plastic and they even built in reverse wired charging. So there's no wireless charging,
04:47but you can top up and use this phone's huge battery as a battery bank. So you can charge
04:51other things like your headphones or even another phone if you're into that. The one
04:55thing I'd tell you to be aware of though, this phone is not fast. So if you're coming
05:02from a higher speed, higher performance phone, or if you just have a need for high speed
05:06or performance, you're not going to find it here. This phone's rocking a Snapdragon 662
05:12and four gigs of Ram. And with that spec, I found myself waiting for everything, waiting
05:18for the camera to open, waiting to snap the picture, waiting for all the apps really
05:23to open, waiting for apps to close, waiting for multitasking, waiting for animations
05:29to finish. It's just a slow phone and it's impossible not to notice that. Now I know
05:33you can't be overly picky about performance for less than 200 bucks, but I kind of worry
05:38on a phone like this just about how it will age over time, because of course it's not
05:42getting faster. But overall, if I'm just evaluating this, what you get for the money, especially
05:47with the hardware package, this is a really complete, impressive phone for 129 bucks.
05:53So seems like that's it. That's what you should print as the headline, right? Amazing
05:59$129 phone. Well, let's talk about that. I've wanted to talk about this concept for a while.
06:05There's a lot of different versions of ways to talk about price in phones, especially
06:11in this ultra low budget category. Never really put them all in one place. So this particular
06:15phone has made a lot of headlines as a $129 phone, which is impressive. Like in this race
06:23to the bottom where we're trying to make the best like ultra low budget thing you
06:26possibly can and undercut everyone. That is a nice headline to grab. But that $129 price,
06:34as you may have heard, is what's called their early bird pricing, which means that for a
06:39limited time or a limited volume, you can get the base version of this at the lower
06:44price and there's lower early bird prices. Then once that volume is up, once that time
06:49is up, the price goes back up to the regular prices permanently forever. But all those
06:55articles and all those headlines about the $129 phone stay up. So, okay, you might be
07:01thinking, well, how long does this early bird thing last? A couple of months, a couple of
07:06weeks, a couple of days? Well, they'll never say, they don't want you to know, but there's
07:12plenty of science and studies behind this whole early bird pricing model. The idea is
07:18it's very brief. They want you to not think too hard and they just want you to buy fast.
07:23And then as soon as that's all over, it'll just rise back up to the normal price. And
07:27that's how they get you. The early bird version tends to be sold out very, very quickly, but
07:32with this phone returning to its normal price shortly after and all those headlines remain.
07:36So now if you get this phone, if you're a YouTuber or if you're writing an article,
07:41do you write as your headline that this is technically a $129 phone? Even though most
07:48people reading the article or watching the video will not be able to get it at that price?
07:53Tough to say. But then the other version of this, uh, this little price trick that they
07:59like to play is basically the concept of a base version that is cheapest and has a number
08:05that's really appealing, but that you probably shouldn't buy probably because there's some
08:09obvious upgrades. Kind of the same thing again, like you see in cars where they'll
08:13all say starting at $19,999, which is great, but that version doesn't have air conditioners
08:19or radio or something like that. You obviously don't get many people paying that price for
08:24the car. There's a higher end version most people should get. You see that with, with
08:30storage on the iPhone. You see that with phones like this all the time. I remember not that
08:35long ago, the first Pocophone came out and they made a lot of headlines as a $300 phone,
08:40but they sent reviewers, including myself, they sent almost everyone, the $400 carbon
08:46fiber back version of the phone that had double the storage and more RAM. So we're all reviewing
08:52this $400 version of this amazing new $300 phone. And it's weird. We're like trying to
08:59give it the benefit of the doubt that it's probably about the same experience. But then
09:04again, you have to assume it's probably not the same experience if they made the choice
09:08to send us all the more expensive version. So with this Poco M3, it's actually not all
09:13that bad. Honestly, at 129 or 149 bucks, this phone is still a hell of a deal. And it's
09:20an achievement that phones are getting this good at this price. Like I said, you got to
09:24know what you're getting into here. This phone obviously runs Poco's MyUI over Android 10,
09:29and it doesn't have 5G, doesn't have wireless charging or water resistance. You're of course
09:33limiting yourself in some ways as far as future proofing. But again, anytime I see
09:38a full fledged smartphone get this low in price, I got to hand it to him. I got to applaud
09:43that level of accessibility. So just a word to those who keep loving to say, oh, smartphones
09:48have gotten so boring now. They're all the same thing now. That is one of the benefits
09:55of the commoditization of the smartphone is now you can mass produce something pretty
10:01decent at an amazingly low price, and then leave the innovation and crazy fun stuff
10:07to the high end with all the flipping and twisting and folding and rolling. But yeah,
10:11my take on the Poco M3 is it is a net positive. It's good to see this kind of stuff exist.
10:16And let me know what you think. Could you rock a phone daily that is this cheap?
10:21And also for my enthusiasts out there, what are your feelings on what feels like Poco filling
10:27in the shoes that OnePlus is leaving? Let me know if you have thoughts on that. It might be worth
10:32an entire separate video. Anyway, that's it for now. Thanks for watching. Shout out to Honey
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