REDEFINING FLAGSHIP PARADIGMS WITH XIAOMI’S NEW POCOPHONE F1
Turns out, in case of Xiaomi’s new flagship phone, the oddly named Pocophone F1 (known as Poco F1 in certain regions), is pretty much all of the above. Including the ludicrous price tag. However, the price is ludicrous for all the opposite reasons – unlike every other flagship device on the market, the base model of the F1 is priced at a mere USD 300, equivalent to around BDT 25,000 at current exchange rates.
Sure, times are a-changing, and it’s possible to get a lot more phone for your buck currently than it was even a couple of years ago. What passed for flagship specifications back then is now barely mid-range (well, considering the overall gamut), and it can be had for a relatively paltry sum of money, while being formidable enough to fulfill much of your needs. That should not really come as a surprise, because that’s how technology works. With every new generation, processors keep getting faster, cameras keep getting better, new manufacturing techniques get developed that help cut down production costs, and so on.
However, with all that being said, the Pocophone F1 still manages to be a true-blue game-breaker. In a manner of speaking, it is repeating the feat that the OnePlus One pulled off in 2014 by creating an affordable phone with high-end specs. The F1 takes things up a notch by moving the price point even lower, and giving a lot more power to the people in exchange for their hard-earned money.
At first glance, the F1 doesn’t look particularly extraordinary. Instead of going with fancy materials, Xiaomi has gone with the more practical option of polycarbonate plastic for the chassis. Sure, it doesn’t look as dazzling as a glass-and-metal combination tends to do, but it doesn’t look particularly cheap either, and it definitely holds up better against the wear and tear of everyday use, up to and including bumps and drops. Interestingly, the higher-tier 256 GB version of the F1 comes with a kevlar-coated back, that not only offers extra protection, but also looks quite exotic. The back of the phone houses the dual-lens rear camera system, as well as the device’s super-responsive fingerprint sensor.
The 5.99-inch screen is encased in the much-lauded Corning Gorilla Glass, making it quite resistant to impacts and scratches. The 1080p display is an IPS LCD one, not an OLED-type, but its pixel density is crisp, its color reproduction is vivid and accurate, and it is quite legible even in brighter environments. The only downsides of the display are the clumps of lost pixels caused by the rounded corners and the big notch on top which houses the earpiece, the front camera and an infrared sensor (used for the device’s Face Unlock option). The notch has become a bit of a fashionable feature in modern times ever since Apple introduced one in the iPhone X, but it continues to remain ugly and ungainly-looking, not to mention an example of lazy design. Thankfully, the display has an 18:9 aspect ratio, which means it’s great for reading long stretches of content and watching regular widescreen 16:9 video without losing any pixels because of the notch.
The CPU is the real star of the Pocophone F1’s feature set. Rather than going with a mid-range CPU, the F1 boasts the latest and greatest Snapdragon 845 from Qualcomm, a very powerful chip that has not only received critical acclaim from users everywhere but has also managed to make its way to certain laptops. The 845 is a stellar performer when all its stops are pulled out, resulting in a smooth and lag-free user experience across the board, but it displays admirable levels of efficiency at other times, resulting in long battery life. Furthermore, it is also paired with an Adreno 630 GPU that can handle pretty much any Android game thrown at it, and an excellent LTE modem that ensures high speeds over 4G data networks.
Speaking of battery life, the F1 has a gigantic 4,000 mAh battery that can easily last over a day with regular use, and can even pull the device through two days if used a bit sparingly. The battery is charged via the USB-C port of the phone, and it also supports fast charging via Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 technology, gaining 75% of charge in only about an hour.
Even the entry-level model of the Pocophone F1 manages to amaze users and critics alike, with 6 GB of RAM (on par with high-end phones) and 64 GB of storage (which is the current market standard for mid-range devices nowadays). The higher-tier model of the F1 has a whopping 8 GB of RAM and a mind-blowing 256 GB of storage. In the case of both devices, the storage can be augmented further by up to 256 GB using a microSD card.
The device’s front and camera units are both brilliant performers, and while they are still handily outclassed by the cameras of ultra-premium flagship devices, considering the price of the phone, it’s shocking how good the pictures manage to look, especially under more favorable lighting conditions.
The F1 runs Xiaomi’s MIUI-flavored Android 8.1 Oreo, but it manages to deliver an experience fairly close to stock Android – at least in terms of looks – through the Poco Launcher environment. While stock Android would have been preferable, the device nonetheless manages to perform quite well, and numerous updates have been promised over the months to come, including Android 9 Pie.
With the law of diminishing returns in heavier effect than ever, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that the extra bells and whistles offered by a high-end flagship (such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 or the Apple iPhone XS Max), with subtle performance advantages, premium materials, and minor gimmicky additions, is not worth paying three or four times the amount one would pay for a phone like the Pocophone F1. Sure, for certain people, money is no object, and they would gladly shell out the extra coin for sheer bragging rights that can only come from owning a device that doubles as a fashion statement. However, for the masses who prefer function over form, and who value their money, there is the F1. And by having come to exist, it has issued a challenge to the market that Xiaomi’s competitors will scramble to meet. And as it happened after the launch of the OnePlus One four years ago, the winners would ultimately be the consumers.
