Another phone, another shot fired
by: Nimish Dubey - Last updated on: February 2nd, 2021
Key Takeaways
It was launched mainly as a OnePlus alternative, but in its second coming, Poco seems to be targeted at Redmi’s rival, Realme.
Poco’s communications seem to target Realme far more often than Redmi’s do.
Some might accuse Poco of just “rebranding” Redmi products and wince at some of the messaging, but there’s no arguing with numbers – Poco is today one of the most popular online phone brands in the country.
Almost a year ago, we had written about how Poco seemed to have taken over the role of confronting Realme from its parent brand, Xiaomi. Well, the now-independent brand’s first launch of 2021 only seems to further reinforce that impression. The Poco M3 seems to be a very compelling device and follows its predecessors’ template of “terrific specs at a terrific price.” But right through the presentation, what seemed clear was that the phone was targeted at the Realme 7i (a few other phones were mentioned too, but the bullseye came back to the 7i time and again). Before the launch livestream started, there was even a video about the product which had the words Real Killer in it. Coincidence? Perhaps. What of the yellow box in which the product comes, so similar to Realme products? Another coincidence? And what of the constant targeting of Realme by the brand in a lot of its messaging?