UPDATE: The POCOPHONE F1 goes on sale in Malaysia starting 30 August from under RM1,300.
Just a few days ago, Xiaomi had announced POCO, a new sub-brand that focuses on delivering high-spec smartphones at a significantly lower price point. If you thought the Xiaomi Mi 8 at RM1,599 was affordable, the POCO F1 is a Snapdragon 845 powered smartphone that’s priced from as low as 20,999INR, which is about RM1,233. Now it looks like the new flagship killer is arriving in Malaysia very soon and you can probably get it before the new SST kicks in.
According to retailer DirectD, the POCO F1 is coming soon to their authorised Mi store at 1Utama. This isn’t surprising since the device was already spotted on SIRIM earlier this month.
Meanwhile, retailer Mobile 2 Go has also posted on their Facebook page that you can get a POCO F1 in Malaysia before the SST is implemented. It isn’t mentioned if this is an official Xiaomi Malaysia unit or an import set from India.
What we do know is that Mobile 2 Go will be offering the base 6GB RAM and 64GB storage model with stocks expected to arrive on 28 August 2018. They even set up a registration of interest page for the POCO F1 as well.
To recap on the device, the POCO F1 has a 6.18″ Full HD+ display and it runs on a Snapdragon 845 processor. To keep things cool, the F1 has a LiquidCool feature that’s designed to ensure peak performance while gaming. It comes with 6GB or 8GB of RAM with UFS 2.1 storage options of 64GB, 128GB and 256GB.
In the imaging department, the F1 gets a 12MP f/1.9 main camera and a secondary 5MP f/2.0 unit that offers bokeh portrait effects. Over at the front, it comes with a 20MP selfie camera.
Powering this affordable flagship is a generous 4,000mAh battery which charges via USB-C. It supports Quick Charge 3.0 and the F1 still retains a headphone jack. Storage is still expandable via its hybrid dual-SIM tray. Out of the box it runs on Android 8.1 Oreo with a customised MIUI skin for POCO. You can learn more in our POCO F1 announcement post.
POCO will be having a launch event in Jakarta this coming Monday, 27 August 2018. Stay tuned to us for the latest updates and availability of the POCO F1 in Malaysia.
