Poco has been very selective about its smartphone portfolio. It was once spun off from Xiaomi and launched the Poco X2, more than a 12 months after the Poco F1. Rather than releasing ‘flagship killers' such as the F1, the corporation is now focusing more on the finances segment. With the new Poco M2 Pro, it targets to take on the mid-price segment. Poco says it has seen splendid success with the X2 and hopes to replicate that formula.

Poco M2 Pro costs  Starting at a very reasonable price and looking at the specs, it could be a strong contender for two excellent products at a similar price: Redmi Note 9 Pro and Realme 6. However, the numbers displayed on paper do not always accurately reflect the actual performance. It's time to check if the Poco M2 Pro is as good as it is made.

HIGHLIGHTS-
* It features the Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G SoC
* A 33W charger is there in the box
* Overall app and gaming performance is good

Poco M2 Pro Design:
Poco wants to drive home the fact that the M2 Pro is made in India and has unique labels on the front and back of the box. You can be sure of that, but the charger has a “Mi” logo on it and MIUI greets you when you turn on your phone. So do what you want. The Poco M2 Pro has an attractive and durable design, but it looks a lot like the Redmi Note 9 Pro. If you look at both phones side by side, they both have the same body.

Everything is perfectly organized, including buttons, connectors, screen holes and rear cameras. Poco uses a new angled strip on the bottom 3/4 of the phone. The appearance of the camera module has also changed several times. The M2 Pro features a waterproof P2i anti-splash coating. The Poco M2 Pro differs from the Redmi Note 9 Pro from every angle.

The Poco M2 Pro feels a little heavy and bulky in the hand, but after a few days I got used to the weight. Fingerprint sensors are attached to the right and right of the power button to notify you with one simple touch. I wanted the volume rocker to be on the other side because it was a little difficult to access. The SIM tray on the left supports 2 nano SIM cards and 1 microSD card. The headphone jack, USB Type-C port, and speaker are at the bottom, while the secondary microphone and infrared heater are at the top.

Overall, the Poco M2 Pro feels very well built and looks good in blue. It's also available in black and green. In the box, you can expect a silicone case, charger, cable, and SIM eject tool.

Poco M2 Pro Display-
Poco uses a 6.67-inch Full HD LCD screen with cutouts for selfie cameras. Gorilla Glass 5 can also be used for front, rear and rear camera modules. I usually find the pre-installed screensavers as distracting, but the M2 Pro is not. The screen is bright, colors are perfect, and you can optimize your color profile using the Settings app.

There is one feature missing & that is a high refresh rate. A 120Hz panel is one of the defining features of the Poco X2, but the lower-cost M2 Pro gets a standard 60Hz display. The reason for this, as I was told by Poco, was that a choice had to be made between fast charging and a high refresh rate, in order to keep the price down.

Poco M2 Pro Software: The similarity to MIUI-
Redmi Note 9 Pro with Poco Starter persists with software. The Poco M2 Pro runs MIUI 11 based on Android 10 and my module received a security patch in June. Apart from being installed by default, Poco Launcher has very similar features and capabilities to Redmi devices. You can use various Mi Apps like Mi Music, Mi Video and Mi Browser and most of them cannot be uninstalled.There are also a number of third-party apps like Helo, Facebook, and some native games, all of which can be uninstalled.

In addition to all the MIUI apps available, what struck me was that there was no spam in the nuances of the notifications. Some apps still stream randomly promoted content, but you can usually turn it off.

Poco M2 Pro Performance: stable-
MIUI performance and great apps during testing. This is primarily due to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G SoC. This also applies to Redmi Note 9 Pro and Realme 6 Pro.I am testing the mid-range Poco M2 Pro, which has 6GB LPDDR4X RAM and 64GB UFS 2.1 storage.There is a lower Rs version with the same storage capacity as 4 GB of RAm.. It's a top-notch variant with price. Navigating the MIUI interface is flexible, multitasking works well, and apps tend to load quickly. Its appearance is also very good.

I played hits regularly and everything went smoothly with nice graphics. Even after a long game, there were no problems with the warm-up. Game Turbo is a handy utility that lets you create shortcuts for screen recording and more during the game. Videos looked good on the Poco M2 Pro's display. However, the single speaker isn't very impressive. You can enable software enhancements for audio if you use wired headphones, but there's nothing to boost the volume of the speaker.

Poco M2 Pro Camera: Good, but not that much good-
The Poco M2 Pro has 4 rear cameras including a 48MP main sensor, an 8MP wide-angle sensor, 5MP macro photography and a 2MP depth camera. It has a 16MP selfie camera. The M2 Pro has the same MIUI camera app version as the Redmi Note 9 Pro. As far as I know, the only difference between the two phones in terms of functionality is that you can use Night Mode on the M2 Pro's selfie camera. There are some interesting features, like the ability to record Full HD videos using macro photography, and the results are very good. The Pro mode also supports video recording, so you can not only manually adjust the exposure of your shots, but also record them in LOG format, which you can color later. Essentially, the Redmi Note 9 Pro now has the same features.

During the day, the main camera of the Poco M2 Pro takes excellent pictures. Details in landscape photography are usually sharp and vibrant. Color Switching Pro lets you capture richer colors when you need them. Close-ups look great too, but with the camera the colors are slightly brighter than they actually are. Wide angle cameras produce much weaker colors and details than the main sensor. Portrait mode works fine and you can adjust the background blur.

Both conventional and wide-angle cameras have exposure and detail issues. The camera application effectively suppresses noise, but overall the image appears unexposed and increases the visibility of faint details. Night mode is also not very effective and improves the image very little. Selfies shot under bright light looked good. Details and skin textures were generally well represented. Shots were decent, as long as there was enough ambient light around.

Video Performance-
The M2 Pro supports video recording at up to 4K 30fps. Videos recorded at this resolution have very warm colors and colors appear slightly exaggerated. With this resolution, there is no stabilization. With 1080p downscaling, video looks better and colors appear more natural thanks to stabilization. Poor low light performance, video looks a little underexposed and grainy. Overall, the Poco M2 Pro performs well in good lighting, but satisfying low-light performance is difficult.

Poco M2 Pro Battery:
Poco M2 Pro battery life is very long. The 5000mAh capacity is enough for the whole day without problems, even with a lot of games and cameras. The workload was light, so I could use the phone normally even on the second day. Even in the HD video loop test, the phone lasted over 17 hours. Built-in 33W fast charger quickly charges your battery. I was able to charge this phone to about 95% in an hour.

Pros-
* Good build quality
* Sharp display
* Powerful processor
* Solid battery life
* Decent daylight camera performance

Cons-
* A little bulky
* Weak low-light photo quality

The verdict: is it worth buying the Poco M2 Pro?
I think the Poco M2 Pro is a great addition to the Sub-R. With a segment of mid-budget smartphones, you can recommend it without any problem. In many ways, this can be considered a faster boot for Redmi Note 9 Pro for the same price. Also, the purchase is much easier compared to the Xiaomi flash sales system. The M2 Pro offers great build quality, crisp display, long battery life and great performance. If you shoot during the day, the camera is not bad either. Unlike Poco X2, it won't hurt this price segment as the M2 Pro is very similar to the Redmi Note 9 Pro that has been on sale here for a long time. The Realme 6  is still the only phone with a 90Hz screen so it's a solid alternative.