EDIT: Samsung is not strong. screen cracked without falling probably from tight pockets or whatever did that. POCO M3 was routinely restarted and has refused to come on.

VERDICT: Stay away from POCO M3 or even POCO as a brand


Last month I bought a Samsung galaxy A12. This month during jumia tech week, I bought poco m3.

One might wonder why
1. I thought the poco would have dual zone as per xiaomi
2. I bought it for 63k but the galaxy was 75 offline as at when I bought it so I felt the poco is a steal.

Since both are at same price now, I'm doing a review for anybody at cross roads between both

Camera.

The galaxy beats the poco m3 hands down. They're are not even in the same league.

Selfies from the galaxy under low light are great. They are grainy(noisy), but bright and looks very natural

Selfies on the poco in low light conditions suck. Faces look plastered, dark and can be compared to itel phones

Under low light the A12 performs flawlessly. It adds a skin glow that should only be possible under sunlight. You'll know the environment is dark but the image or subject will be very very clear


Under perfect lighting the poco m3 is comparable to the A12 but A12 still wins. The A12 produces iphone level pictures

Battery

Poco is advertised as 6k while the Samsung is 5k. Shocker: The samsung lasts longer. I use accubattery on both phones and on weekends, I press phone a lot outdoors and I always have to charge the poco but the galaxy when I had just it goes 2days without charging

Also accubattery reports the poco battery to be lower than advertised. This estimate is from use and the estimate keeps going down after every day of use

Connectivity

The poco m3 is visibly faster on wifi than the galaxy

The samsung performs better with mtn 4g than the poco

The poco performs better than the A12 on airtel 4g


The samsung shows more bars in both wifi and cellular network but it doesn't translate to speed

For Bluetooth connectivity, sometimes connection breaks when you wrap your hand around the camera part on the poco.
Also the poco gives more details and customization for Bluetooth

Display

The viewing experience on the Poco m3 is better than that of the Galaxy A12. I loved the galaxy's screen when I bought it but with the Poco M3 around, I've skipped watching anything on the Samsung.

Also in sunlight, the Poco is easier to use and brighter though sometimes it turns it brightness down itself without being on auto

I dey follow you. cos I'm at crossed roads btw the two. I have to decide

Thumbs up OP, gladly following your unbiased review!

Samsung A12 has gotten android 11 since june while Poco keeps having problem turning on after every new miui update still based on android 10