The PocoPhone F2 Pro. You might remember 2 years ago that Poco came out swinging with
the super powerful budget phone priced at just $300. Pretty incredible. This year, with
the PocoPhone F2 Pro, Poco has turned down the incredibleness a bit by turning up the
price sitting right around $500. So it's less of a budget phone this time around, but still
worth taking a look at. The F2 Pro does include a case in the box. It's time to find out if
this neon blue F2 is durable enough for you. Let's get started.
[Intro]
Right off the bat we see the back panel has the fancy warped light rays centering around
the rather large camera cut out. This large circular hole cut out didn't end up working
very well for the OnePlus 7T, so hopefully this F2 Pro holds up better.
Now normally we start with the scratch test I can kind of tell whether or not the phone
includes a plastic screen protector on top. But this time around, seeing scratches at
a level 3 was surprising. Turns out it was indeed just a screen protector. Once that's
out of the way we can see what the screen is really made from. Remember, plastic starts
scratching at a level 2 or 3, while glass doesn't start scratching till a 5 or a 6.
And sapphire, of course, would be a level 8 or 9. We haven't seen a sapphire smartphone
in a really long time, so if you know of one that I should be testing, tell me down in
the comments.
This Poco F2 Pro scratches at a level 6 with deeper grooves at a level 7. No surprises
there. What is surprising however is that this $500 has no notch or camera cutout to
be found anywhere. It's a seamless wall-to-wall display and looks pretty fantastic. Even the
plastic speaker grill slot is super thin and won't be falling out on it's own. But where's
the camera? It's motorized. The little guy pops up right out of the top like a daisy.
Poco has even synchronized a little light show with the top edge of the screen and lines
it up with the LED bars on the side of the camera. The lens of the 20 megapixel sensor
is made from glass and doesn't like being scratched very much. Nice move, Poco. It's
rare when a phone fights back.
The glowy side bits are made from a transparent plastic. The pop-up camera is very secure
though. It doesn't jiggle around and I can't pull it up out of the top. The back side of
the camera unit is made from plastic. Now, normally when we see smartphones with pop-up
cameras like OnePlus or Vivo, they've been tested over 300,000 times. Stepper motors
are very consistent and durable little machines. Poco hasn't said exactly how many times they've
tested this one, but it does have the anti-drop protection where it'll retract like a turtle
into it's shell if it feels the phone falling...which we've seen most other motorized cameras do
as well.
The sides of the phone are made from aluminum. Pretty much the standard for every smartphone
these days. It's rare to see anything different. It's the most cost effective. There is a black
plastic buffer layer between the glass screen and the frame of the phone though and you
can make some fancy little curlicues with it. The other side is made from metal, along
with the red metal accented power button and the metal volume rocker right above that.
Very surprisingly though, as we've found to be the case with a lot of mid-range devices,
the Poco F2 Pro still has a headphone jack and an IR blaster. Sometimes when you spend
less money on a phone you actually end up getting more features. No complaints here.
Down at the bottom we get the normal USB-C port that can charge at 30 watts, and a dual
sided SIM card tray. There is no water resistance rating on this phone because of that pop-up
camera. And we'll get back to testing that in just a second.
The back of the phone is covered in glass. No wireless charging, but there are 4 cameras.
The top left is a 2 megapixel depth sensor. Then a 13 megapixel ultra-wide angle on the
other side. The bottom right is a 5 megapixel macro camera. And finally a 64 megapixel main
camera on the bottom left. Now, one perk of the pop-up camera is that the 6.6 inch screen
is totally unobstructed - no camera cut out or notch. It's an AMOLED display with a normal
refresh rate of 60 hertz. So definitely not a phone built specifically for gaming, even
though it supposedly has a heat pipe inside that does cover 28% of the body. We'll have
to check that out during the teardown. The screen lasts about 30 seconds before the pixels
go white, but they do eventually recover once the heat's removed.
Let's check the durability of this motorized camera some more. In the past we've knocked
it on tables and the camera still goes up and down just fine. The reason it has that
auto retract feature though is that if the camera does accidentally hit something hard
enough during a fall, it has the chance of dislodging from it's motorized mechanism and
breaking. On the third pile drive, that's exactly what happened to this Poco F2 Pro.
The camera is very much not moving anymore. Even with the calibration option, it seems
to be physically damaged or misaligned. And it's stuck in the raised position. If this
lasts longer than 4 hours we'll probably have to operate.
After enough times recalibrating the motor though, it does finally relearn it's limits
and seems to mostly be back functioning like normal.
Now it's time for the bend test. We haven't had a phone break in a long time so it was
surprising to hear a crack during the first bend. But after glancing over the front and
back of the phone, the sound wasn't the front or back glass...so let's keep going. After
a few more bends, there is still no structural damage, but this phone is definitely a fighter
attacking once again by pinching my finger. I kind of like the Poco F2 Pro. It survives
my durability test.
There is a massive international giveaway coming up on my channel with an absurd amount
of phones. Dbrand and I will be sponsoring this giveaway, which means it'll be simple
and very much available worldwide, just because you guys are awesome. So get ready for that.
I'll post a video here on my channel about it so you won't miss it. Also here's an inside
tease of the Poco F2 Pro. My Teardown Skin is linked down in the video description and
it's quite possibly one of my favorites so far. And finally, if for some reason you want
to see an electric Tesla off-roading across an Alaskan snow field, I'll leave a link for
that video as well down in the video description.
Come hang out with me on Instagram and Twitter...before Trump deletes it...and thanks a ton for watching.
I'll see you around.