When the OnePlus One came out a few years ago, traditional Android device makers were put on notice. Flagship phones no longer had to have sky-high prices, and Chinese smartphone vendors continued to release better and better devices that were priced a lot lower than comparable handsets from Samsung, LG, or Google. But there’s a new device in town that could prove to be an even bigger nightmare than the OnePlus phones Android fans love.
We talked about the Poco F1 phone last week when Xiaomi’s spinoff brand launched the phone in India. The phone offers the exact same key specs as any 2018 Android flagship, whether it’s the Galaxy Note 9, the OnePlus 6, or the Pixel 3. We’re looking at the same Snapdragon 845 platform paired with 6GB or 8GB of RAM. That means the Poco phone will deliver the same kind of performance as any of the phones above, but a fraction of the cost — you can buy almost two Poco F1 phones for the price of a OnePlus 6T.
Fast forward to Tuesday, and the Poco F1 is launching in 65 more countries in addition to India.
After all, we do come from Xiaomi! #GoPOCO @GlobalPocophone pic.twitter.com/gKkyawsFrm
— POCO (@POCOGlobal) August 27, 2018
As you can see in the image above, the Poco F1 will cost just €329 in Europe, or around $380.
But is the Poco F1 any good? After all, the OnePlus 6 is pretty fast and was able to outperform the iPhone X in real-life tests, which is impressive considering the A11 Bionic chip in the iPhone outclasses the Snapdragon 845 in benchmarks. Well, a similar real-life speed test comparing the Poco F1 phone to the OnePlus 6 is embedded below, and it shows that the new Xiaomi phone is just as fast as the OnePlus 6.
The Poco F1 may not be as premium as the OnePlus 6 when it comes to build quality, and it may not pack some features that you might seek in a high-end handset, like an OLED display, wireless charging, NFC, or OIS cameras. But if you’re only interested in performance and price, the F1 is a phone to check out.
