Can a Budget 2020 Smartphone Beat a 2019 Flagship? - Xiaomi POCO X3 NFC vs Huawei P30 Pro
Xiaomi’s POCO X3 NFC is a perfect example showing the recent trend that cheap smartphones are ‘getting good’. With some incredible specs for such a low price of just £199, we thought it’d be great to see how it compares with a flagship smartphone from last year. eFones’ most popular flagship smartphone from 2019 was the Huawei P30 Pro, still on sale from £479.99. This article puts these two devices head-to-head, seeing how close the sub-£200 POCO X3 NFC can get to the high-end experience of the P30 Pro.
Displays & Design
Looking at the new POCO X3 NFC, you get a large 6.67-inch 1080p HD LCD display. With its minimal bezels, just like many recent smartphones, the screen is pretty immersive, perfect for any content you may consume on your mobile device. The standout feature of the POCO X3 NFC’s display is definitely its 120Hz refresh rate. Only seen on very recent smartphones, and mostly on brand new flagship devices, this feature makes using the phone extremely nifty, with scrolling and all other on-screen controls for the device being twice as fast and ultrasmooth.
On the other hand, with the P30 Pro, you get an expansive curved 6.47-inch 1080p HD OLED panel with a 60Hz refresh rate. With its use of OLED technology and curved form factor, the P30 Pro displays great vibrant colours and provides very immersive viewing, especially for watching video and mobile gaming. Being slightly smaller than the display of the POCO X3 NFC, the P30 Pro obtains a slightly more compact and lighter design overall, making it slightly more manageable to use with one hand.
Picking a winner of the display category is; therefore, quite tricky. While the P30 Pro has a sleek curved display with higher quality colour reproduction, some users may prefer the smoother and slightly larger display of the POCO X3 NFC.
Cameras
Talking about the cameras of these two smartphones, the higher-priced Huawei P30 Pro seems to have the edge over the POCO X3 NFC. Although having a slightly less sharp 40MP primary rear camera compared to 64MP on the POCO X3 NFC, the P30 Pro’s sensor has a larger f/1.6 aperture, allowing more light to enter the sensor, and OIS (optical image stabilisation) for more stable video recording and less blurry photo taking.
The P30 Pro also features a better ultrawide camera on the rear of the phone, with a sharper 20MP sensor compared to the POCO X3 NFC’s 13MP ultrawide snapper.
Both featuring depth sensors to help take portrait photos, the POCO X3 NFC also comes with a fairly underwhelming 2MP macro camera allowing for decent close up pictures of small objects. On the other hand, the P30 Pro features an advanced 8MP periscope telephoto lens, allowing for 5x optical zoom, enabling users to take pictures of objects far away without much impact on picture quality.
For selfie photos, the P30 Pro also wins, with a superior 32MP camera with a large aperture size compared to the 20MP sensor on the POCO X3 NFC, providing sharp selfie photos in most light situations.
Battery, Power, & Storage
One advantage the POCO X3 NFC has over the P30 Pro is its huge 5160mAh battery. With the P30 Pro having a smaller 4200mAh battery, you can expect a noticeably longer battery life on the cheaper device.
In terms of power, the P30 Pro impresses with its 7nm Kirin 980 processor, a high-end chipset achieving a score of over 40,000 on AnTuTu benchmarks tests. The POCO X3 NFC features a more mid-range processor of the Snapdragon 732G, being around 40% slower than the Kirin 980.
For storage options, the POCO X3 NFC comes in at £199.99 for the 64GB with 6GB RAM variant and a limited time offer (until 11th November 2020) of £229.00 for the 128GB with 6GB RAM variant. The entry-level Huawei P30 Pro comes with 128GB and 8GB RAM, priced at £479.99; whereas, if you really need a lot of local storage then the 512GB Huawei P30 Pro is perfect for you, coming in at a £599.99 price tag.
Cost-Saving Features
With the next features to be mentioned, it becomes clearer how Xiaomi have managed to cut a lot of its costs with the POCO X3 NFC, having some certain aspects of the phone that many users won’t be too fussed about being of lower quality specs.
Firstly, Xiaomi haven’t included an advanced under-display fingerprint sensor in the POCO X3 NFC like the P30 Pro, instead utilising a side-mounted fingerprint sensor for fast and secure unlock of the device via the power button.
Secondly, in terms of charging, the Huawei P30 Pro features much better performance. The P30 Pro features 40W fast charging, allowing you to charge the phone from zero to 70% in just 30 minutes. This compares to the POCO X3 NFC which allows for fast charging up to 33W, getting to a slightly lower 62% battery in the same 30 minutes. More notably, the Huawei P30 Pro also features wireless charging capabilities up to 15W, and even reverse wireless charging up to 2.5W, perfect for charging smaller wireless mobile products such as wireless earbuds directly from your phone.
Thirdly and finally, the P30 Pro features much better water resistance, with an IP68 dust and water resistance rating, meaning that it has been tested to withstand submersion in water to a depth of up to 1.5 metres for 30 minutes without any issues. On the other hand, the POCO X3 NFC has a rating of IP53, meaning that the phone is splash-proof. Because of this, any submersion in water or any high pressure of water against this phone is likely to cause technical damage to the device.
Overview & Pricing
By comparing one of the best 2020 budget smartphones against a 2019 flagship, it is clear to see that the gap between the quality of features for such devices has shrunk massively. With the POCO X3 NFC, you can see that in 2020, when purchasing a low-cost device, you don’t have to sacrifice much from the most important smartphone features, such as display, cameras, and battery.
Get the Xiaomi POCO X3 NFC from just £199.99 here https://www.efones.com/products/xiaomi-poco-x3-nfc
Get the Huawei P30 Pro 128GB for only £479.99 here https://www.efones.com/products/huawei-p30-pro-128gb
Get the Huawei P30 Pro 128GB for only £599.99 here https://www.efones.com/products/huawei-p30-pro-512gb
Want to pay in smaller payments? By purchasing direct from eFones.com you can take advantage of the Klarna service, allowing you to split the cost of the device over your choice of 3, 6, 12 months interest free or 24 months at just 18.9% APR.