While the specifications and design of the Xiaomi Pocophone F1 left little to the imagination ahead of the device's official launch, Poco still had a few tricks up their sleeves. At its core, the specifications aren't too different from the other Xiaomi flagships here: It has a display notch, it's powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 system-on-chip with 6 or 8GBs of RAM, has a dual rear 12+5MP camera and 20MP selfie camera, and it runs Android 8.1 Oreo-based MIUI 9. But the Poco F1 manages to make its mark with its affordability: Even at a base price of Rs 20,999, the phone makes few compromises. It has an infrared sensor for face unlock, "LiquidCool" technology for sustained performance under load, a 4,000mAh battery, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The phone is knocking on the door of the OnePlus 6 and the Asus ZenFone 5Z given its price point in India. But Poco is also making a few interesting concessions that should draw the attention of smartphone enthusiasts—namely, that they want to support the custom developer community.

At the official launch event of the Xiaomi Poco F1, Jai Mani announced that unlocking the phone's bootloader will not void the manufacturer's warranty. This means you're completely allowed to play around with your phone as you wish without fear of discontinued support. Mr. Mani explicitly mentioned the custom ROM community during the conference and explained how they want to support it with the Xiaomi Poco F1. Additionally, Mr. Mani also promised a quick kernel source release—on August 29th, when the phone officially goes on sale in India. He even brought up Project Treble support and implicitly brought up flashing AOSP GSIs onto it!

Personally, I think this is a major step in the right direction. With Poco not only supporting but actively encouraging custom development on their phones, the developer community for the Xiaomi Poco F1 should grow exponentially. Xiaomi phones are already popular on our forums due to their affordability without compromising too much on hardware specifications, and given what we know of the Poco F1 we're pretty sure it will be incredibly popular on our forums. Speaking of which, the Xiaomi Poco F1 forums are now open, so if you're planning to get this phone, then keep an eye on it as we'll probably be seeing a lot of development for it in the coming weeks.