With today’s technology constantly improving at a breakneck pace, the existence of a device such as the Pocophone F1 is both surprising and overwhelmingly convenient. Most phones today follow a simple paradigm: if you want high-quality specs, you need to pay high too. Today we’re listing down our complete observations on the Pocophone F1–the good, the bad, and the almost unbelievable.
Design & Construction
As we’ve said numerous times before, the Pocophone F1’s exterior is pretty straightforward. No unnecessary bells and whistles. It has a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, a USB Type-C charging port, and speakers at the bottom, and a 3.5mm earphone jack on top. The power and volume control buttons are all situated on the right-hand side of the phone, and on the left is the sim card tray.
The Pocophone F1 is currently available in three color variants: Steel Blue, Graphite Black, and Rosso Red. Its back panel is smudge-proof and the phone’s shape and size feel just about right when you grip it horizontally when gaming. Though its exterior is just made from plastic, this helped in minimizing the phone’s overall weight (which is already pretty heavy at 180g). If you are hesitant about its durability, there’s also the special Armored Edition with the back panel made from Kevlar which of course, costs more. 
Display & Multimedia
The 6.18-inch notched display has a screen resolution of 1080 x 2246 pixels and a pixel density of 403ppi. This means that the Pocophone F1’s display can produce vivid images with amazing clarity, even the text appears sharp and crisp. Since the F1 only has an IPS LCD touchscreen, the glare can get pretty straining to the eyes after prolonged use especially when you turn the brightness all the way up. Unlike most LCD screens with visible color biases, the Pocophone F1’s display has a neutral color temperature: not too warm, not too cool.
Sound quality is pretty good too–not great, but decent enough to offer an immersive gaming experience. The speakers can be heard well throughout a crowded room when the volume is turned all the way up.
Camera
As for its camera, the Pocophone F1 has a modest set of 12MP+5MP lenses for its main shooters and a powerful 20MP front camera. Not to worry though, as the Pocophone F1 can still take amazingly detailed photos because the high-end processor is doing the heavy lifting when it comes to image processing. Both the rear and front cameras carry AI enhancements that can be toggled on and off, depending on your preference. The AI enhancements provide automatic adjustment of exposure value, white balance, and color correction. With the Pocophone F1, taking dynamic photos is easy.
The AI enhancements also help improve low-light performance, allowing you to take great pictures indoors, even at night. Though we noticed one minor flaw common in AI-powered smartphone cameras: the Pocophone F1’s shooters have a tendency to oversaturate red shades when the AI enhancements are turned on. This can easily be fixed by fiddling with white balance settings or adjusting the focus on your subject.
Pocophone F1 Sample Photos:
Performance
Thanks to its Snapdragon 845 chipset with an Adreno 630 GPU, the Pocophone F1 can deliver unparalleled performance. Whether it be for gaming or heavy use, the Pocophone F1 can definitely keep up with its 8GB RAM. We tried running the heaviest online mobile games we can think of: Injustice 2, Mortal Kombat X, Identity V, and Tacticool–all of which ran smoothly on F1 even when already on the highest graphics settings. Game assets loaded quickly, and there are no lags during online matches.
As for benchmarks, the Pocophone F1 was initially able to rank among the top 10 in Antutu’s list but was bumped down to a #12 spot once the Huawei Mate 20 series rolled in. The Pocophone F1 earned a total score of 283861 on Antutu with a Single Core score of 2046 and Multi-Core score of 7520 on Geekbench.
Finally, the battery capacity on this phone is unbelievable. While most high-end phones are only equipped with batteries that are only around 3,000mAh, the Pocophone F1 takes it up a notch with 4,000mAh. You can enjoy hours of heavy gaming on this phone without worrying about running out of charge in the middle of a match. The Pocophone also has support for fast charging, enabling you to stay connected.
In conclusion, given its competitive specs and flagship quality in terms of performance, it’s almost hard to believe that the Pocophone F1 exists. It sounds too sweet of a deal for its affordable price. Dare we say it, but it can even go toe-to-toe with some of the most powerful gaming phones out there in the market. For its local price of just Php 17,990, you are definitely getting amazing value for your money with the Pocophone F1.
