Using a Xiaomi PocoPhone In The USA

zax rambles about his new phone
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#xiaomi #poco #f3 #snapdragon #870 #android #PocoPhone #MIUI #arrowOS #lineageOS

[@danielinciongtungol9338]

Just discovered channel I also use the Poco F3 same colours as yours sir and what I can say awesome content bro! I hope you review more phones from other brands like Realme or Oppo! 😍

[@CoilWhine]

The problem is that _I really like_ this phone, it'll be hard to replace it anytime soon!

[@wolfmode69]

I also was considering getting this even though the new poco f4 came out. Do you still enjoy it? Also did you have to flash TWRP to add custom roms to your phone?

[@CoilWhine]

Honestly if you can get a good deal on an f3 I'd go for it. The f4 has a snapdragon 8 gen 1, but afaik those like to overheat. The 870 I have can run genshin (not that I personally play it on mobile) just fine and handles everything else I throw at it without breaking a sweat. Battery life is pretty good too. I flashed the custom rom with fastboot, I'd prefer TWRP but it is what it is. Currently I'm running the MIUI EU build, it's got less crap on it than the mainline version I got (wait, I got mine from spain...did I waste my time?) TLDR; Good phone, especially if you can get a good deal. I have one and another discord member has one, we both enjoy it

[@luked2767]

The F4 is the K40s F3 the K40 They are both the exact phone apart from the F4 has a little but if a better cam and faster charging cam. The F4GT has the 8gen1 888 888+ and 8gen1 would only be OK in a pad with a huge heatscync and fan Redmi K50s will be making one with the good 8plus gen 1

[@nqtpixel5632]

do you recommend the f3? why or why no. Im about to buy it everyone talked so good about this phone except for you :/ something that really stop me from buying it

[@CoilWhine]

Well I still use it, and I like the phone, I didn't mean for it to come across negatively. The biggest question is if you're in the US or not. It's a pain to get it to work on our networks here but overseas I'm sure it's easier. I've recently upgraded to MIUI 13 and it's much better

[@artdogg50]

I have the Poco F3 and Xiaomi Mix 4, and a few more Xiaomi branded older phones sitting around. The only issues have been specifically with Cricket Wireless. I know AT&T Postpaid and AT&T Prepaid have both not allowed Xiaomi and pretty much all foreign phones except a few. The AT&T MNVOs like Straight Talk, Red Pocket, Unreal Mobile, and probably most AT&T MNVOs still allow you to use them. Pretty sure H20 Wireless still uses them also. Check to make sure though. As far as T-Mobile goes, I think only Metro is not allowing coverage. There may be more, but that's the only one I know of, as the owner of this site has already affirmed. My Unreal Mobile Sim just expired last week. I didn't re-up, but I could have. I had no issues using it in my Xiaomi Mix 4, Poco F3, and older MI 9T.

[@rudehr]

You can't be more wrong with miui xx - it's a solid interface.

[@artdogg50]

I bought mine from my favorite US from Ebay. I paid $430 for the 8gb/256gb version. So I paid a little more than I would have buying it somewhere else.

[@CoilWhine]

Yeah, I was able to snag mine off amazon spain. It was the best price and I'm more comfortable with amazon than ebay typically. It's a good phone if you can live with the tradeoffs

[@debatetv5794]

just curious, why is ur miui like that? I have mi, redmi , poco before but ur phone has a weird looking miui. fresh from the box mi8, mi 9 , even redmi note 8, 9 , 10 , poco f1, i didn't have that we chat or other chinese apps pre installed, it does have ads but it can be turned off thru the settings= no more app suggested. but i uninstalled bunch of pre installed google apps like podcasts, news, wallet google tv, etc. and just recently i bought a cheap redmi 9c for a backup phone its miui is different compare to ur f3 miui.

[@CoilWhine]

Depends on if you had the chinese roms or the EU one I suppose. I was running with it stock, then with ArrowOS (a custom rom not based on MIUI), so I'm not sure what the difference is between our MIUI versions. The phone was bought from amazon in Spain.

[@debatetv5794]

@@CoilWhine oh yes i remember they have different versions, thanks bro 👊

[@paintingtutorials2d3dprodu22]

It is because it is not the official youtube app, and that does not have to anything with MIUI. another thing some real flagships are missing even more network bands.

[@CoilWhine]

I wanted to assume it was just the vanced app, but I also had it with prime video. As far as bands, most flagships sold for the us market have the appropriate us bands. It was actually a huge pain to find a xiaomi that had the bands I needed

[@hisenberg9521]

Hey, I have this phone and I'll be moving to USA (Boston) next month. Should I buy a new phone or just use Mi 11X? (I'm only concerned about carries(Volte/5G)). I got used to software glitches...lol...

[@CoilWhine]

The Mi 11x is basically unusable on US carriers, it's missing far too many frequency bands. I had 0 luck getting my poco to work on Metro PCS (tmobile backend), but mint mobile worked fine (also tmobile???) One user on our discord is using the f3 on regular tmobile. The phone will be useless without VoLTE, but putting a code into the phone dialer will enable that functionality. My only issue is the lack of extended range LTE/5g. The phone is perfect while I'm in the city, it just has issues maintaining a connection when I'm in the middle of nowhere

[@hisenberg9521]

@@CoilWhine Thanks for the info!!

[@OGEdgyUsername]

@@CoilWhine Dang it, I have Metro 😔

[@CoilWhine]

@@OGEdgyUsername I did too, honestly switching to mint isn't a bad option (same tmobile network). I'm currently on tmobile prepaid without any issues (I needed more than 35gb/month on mint)

[@eatonkevin]

Got that hair cut on discount too 🤪

[@eatonkevin]

I'm balding and shave my own hair. Nothing cheaper than that

[@CoilWhine]

The debate between shampoo cost vs razer blade costs will rage on

[@kaneKun]

I just move to Seattle and I want to buy a F3 and use it with AT&T but I'm afraid calls or internet is not going to work, what would you recommend?

[@CoilWhine]

You have to use a dialer command in order to enable VoLTE otherwise you won't get any service for calls. Theoretically you should be fine, though you're lacking band 29, 30 and n260. n260 is mmWave 5g, so it's only useful in _very_ short ranged situations, so I don't consider it to be a big loss. You lose 29 and 30, but those seem to be used mostly to improve speeds in congested areas, but I'm on a Tmobile carrier. I can't guarantee it'll work, though I've heard some other users successfully use it on ATT. Just be aware that you might lose a little bit of speed in some situations.

[@kaneKun]

@@CoilWhine thanks 👍

[@artdogg50]

@@kaneKun Just curious if you ended up getting AT&T service?

[@kaneKun]

@@artdogg50 Not yet, I decided to wait for the pixel 6a because it has very good connectivity.

[@fishermenmike47]

Poco f3 has great specs , But it doesnt do adriod auto, Doesnt send pics text to some providers like verizon and others only people on my network,it sucks spent 350 plus tax ,help me pls ,I feel like I got beat

[@CoilWhine]

What carrier are you on? I haven't experienced any issues with messaging. I'll try android auto when I get the chance

[@artdogg50]

Don't think I've experienced any issues either.

[@bananafone1414]

i got some questions, ive heard that it doesn't support some networks like at&t, does that include wifi instead of just data? and also what networks work with it then?

[@CoilWhine]

It won't work on verizon afaik. It works partially on tmobile and ATT. You need to enable VoLTE with a dialer code for it to work now. At least on tmobile i get everything besides bands 71 and n71, which are your long range LTE and 5g bands. It just means that I have mediocre service when i'm not in a city, and that's fine in my use case. Only thing I know is that MetroPCS wouldn't let me activate it. Mint Mobile did, and a guy on our discord has it working on T-mobile. It looks like it'll be ok on ATT, but I don't have any personal accounts on that front

[@bananafone1414]

@@CoilWhine wait it works on at&t? because im trying to order one on amazon and people are saying it doesn't work on at&t , so thats the reason I'm a bit scared of ordering this phone.

[@CoilWhine]

@@bananafone1414 So it _should_ work, but ATT recently cut off 3g and a lot of devices are having a hard time working. I'd definitely do some research or ask on the pocophones subreddit. ATT is being kinda scummy right now

[@bananafone1414]

@@CoilWhine ah i see, thanks for the info (:

[@artdogg50]

A little late on this, but most of the major AT&T services like AT&T, AT&T Prepaid, and Cricket Wireless won't let you activate Xiaomi or pretty much any foreign phone. The list of approved foreign phones is very short. A lot of the AT&T MNVOs that use AT&T towers do still allow you to use them though. That's like Straight Talk, Red Pocket, Unreal Mobile, and I think Total Wireless. I'm sure there are many more, but those are the only ones I know or think for sure. H20 Wireless is probably good too, but I don't use them anymore.

[@honorablecnotes]

im gonna get this phone over the samsung galaxy s10+ for about 230 plus tax. good deal or bad?

[@CoilWhine]

A snapdragon 870 for 230 bucks is a solid deal. The new poco f4 just got announced, but I still think this is a solid phone, and that price (new?) is great

[@honorablecnotes]

@@CoilWhine ok but also one more thing. Do you think the xiaomi phones will be like banned from the US because I hear things about it getting blacklisted for banned idk if that's true. Can you explain?

[@CoilWhine]

@@honorablecnotes They might be "banned" from being sold in the states but current devices shouldn't be removed from service. I have an old huawei phone that'll boot onto att just fine. You really just need to check that the phone supports the network bands you're using with your carrier. A xiaomi won't have perfect service on any US carrier.

[@honorablecnotes]

@@CoilWhine ok ok i might buy the poco f3 now and it works on usa network carriers for the most part on t-mobile which is the one im using. ima buy the 128gb store=age/6gb ram version on amazon for 300 usd

[@CoilWhine]

​@@honorablecnotes I'm on tmobile as well (well, mint mobile). You need to be careful, metroPCS wouldn't let me activate it because it wasn't whitelisted. You need to use a dialer code to enable VoLTE as well. My friend uses his on tmobile proper, so it's probably fine there. Last thing is network coverage is usually fine, but you'll have some issues when you're in the middle of nowhere. Not having band 71 extended LTE does hurt a little. I still love the phone though, just giving you a heads up on everything

[@willherrington2012]

A T And T just dropped my service on this phone. Any suggestions on how to continue it's use? It still dials out but doesn't receive calls. I could really use a Loop hole

[@CoilWhine]

ATT dropped their 3g service so you're likely unable to make calls because of that. The phone has VoLTE capability, but it's not enabled out of the box. You need to follow a guide like forum.xda-developers.com/t/volte-not-working.4173849/page-2 If that works then you should be able to make/receive calls on any LTE signal.

[@willherrington2012]

@@CoilWhine yeeeoooh!! 👍👍👍👍

[@samuelj2475]

Are you still using it?

[@CoilWhine]

Yup! I love the phone, just having an issue with it dropping data every once in a while, just means I drop my call for ~1 minute while it reconnects. It's almost definitely caused by my rom from december, never updated it. Battery life and speed are still excellent though

[@fcjey]

I think u don't know how to use a phone 🤣

[@Bijoubix]

Too bad to flash a new rom, but one band of 5G is really pathetic.

[@CoilWhine]

Honestly the mmwave bands are mostly a joke. I'm seriously hurting with the lack of lte band 71 and 5g n71 though. The lack of long range/low speed coverage is annoying when you're commuting and your calls keep dropping.

[@y.bowcat7782]

miui used to be really great but the lead up to miui 12.5 has seen some real whacky bullshit happen. my "favorite" bug has caused gesture navigation to not function when using a non-MIUI launcher, so I had to download one of those old-school gesture apps as a workaround. my mom's (you were right do not buy these for family) Redmi Note 9 also will only work with calls over speaker or headphones, earpiece don't work. I still love the feature set but it seems like you should either flash the xiaomi.eu variant or go with a non-MIUI rom entirely now

[@jol7754]

Stay away from that phone ,MIUI is full with bugs and for gaming you can go on the max frame rate and graphics only it will lag and have delay after 30 min gameplay ,don't waste your money on this Only if you like bugs and daily problems after a few weeks

[@CoilWhine]

That's why I flashed ArrowOS on mine. MIUI was not a great experience. It's still not a perfectly polished device with Arrow, but it's _SO MUCH_ better now.

[@fcjey]

What r u on about my Poco f3 is fine. Great for gaming and I like miui

[@CoilWhine]

@@fcjey That's a personal opinion honestly. I prefer a stock-ish android build rather than an OEM skin. The exception is samsung oneUI, that's been fairly impressive once you start messing with goodlock.

[@johngestupa5717]

@@CoilWhine What arrowos android version are you rocking? Android 12?