On Christmas Eve, Xiaomi's subsidiary Poco India announced to launch a new Poco phone in India on 25 December and as promised the company unveiled the Poco F1 Armoured Edition with 6GB RAM and 128GB storage.
Previously, the Armoured Edition was only available in 8GB RAM and 256GB storage and costs Rs 29,999 and now, the new model can be grabbed for just Rs 23,999 on Flipkart and mi.com.
I have reviewed the original Xiaomi Poco F1 Armoured Edition for more than a month and have to say, it has one of the best visually appealing textured shell for a flagship phone in the market.
For the uninitiated, Poco F1 Armoured Edition's back panel is made of DuPont Kevlar. It is said to super-tough, heat-resistant material and is widely used in the aviation industry, the military, and high-end cycling. Its textured surface gives Poco F1 a unique appearance and provides a comfortable grip. Rest of the internal hardware is the same as the standard model.
Having used the Poco F1 (review) for a considerable time, I believe it is one of the best affordable premium phones in the market. No rival brand offers this much beefed up smartphone for such low price.
Under-the-hood, it houses Snapdragon 845 octa-core, Qualcomm's most powerful and fastest processor to date and it is backed by the Liquid Cool technology and the newly introduced DSP architecture with AI performance that's three times higher than the previous generation. It recently received Android Pie-based MIUI 10 update.
As said before, the Poco F1 flaunts a sturdy shell on the back with a dual camera and a fingerprint sensor below it. On the front, it flaunts a 6.18-inch full HD+ display with iPhone X-like notch on the top housing an advanced 20MP camera with an IR sensor for face unlock capability. It can even work in a dark environment.
Supported by up to 8GB LPDDR4x DRAM, Poco F1 can render the most demanding games at high FPS for an unparalleled gaming experience, the company claims.
As far as the camera is concerned, it comes with feature-rich 12MP (Sony IMX363, F1.9, 1.4μm) + 5MP AI dual camera, Dual Pixel Autofocus, HDR, Multi-frame Noise Reduction, more than 200 AI scene detection, AI Beautify and AI portrait mode.
On the front, it features equally impressive 20MP sensor with 1.8μm pixel size, 4-in-1 Super Pixel, F2.0 aperture, HDR, AI scene detection, AI Beautify, AI portrait mode and Infrared illuminator + infrared camera for the Face Unlock feature.
Poco F1 comes with big 4,000mAh battery, which is enough to last a whole day if not more under mixed usage. It also supports Quick Charge 3.0 technology.
