Poco built its reputation on a simple idea: deliver flagship-grade power without the flagship-grade price. Originally launched by Xiaomi in 2018, Poco quickly gained fame among young tech enthusiasts by offering top-tier processors at mid-tier prices. Over the years, they’ve consistently bridged affordability and premium features—packing phones with powerful Snapdragon chipsets and impressive displays—to build a loyal following focused on raw performance.
With the new Poco F7 series—specifically, the F7 Pro featuring a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, and their first-ever F7 Ultra boasting the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and blazing-fast 120W charging—the brand is boldly stepping into premium territory, doubling down on their core strategy. These latest models represent Poco’s clearest attempt yet at challenging flagship devices from Samsung, Google, and Apple, while preserving aggressive pricing. But like with their previous F6 series, can Poco genuinely compete at flagship levels without losing sight of the value proposition that first made them popular? That’s exactly what we’re here to find out.
Design
The Poco F7 series clearly communicates a premium feel the moment you pick one up, thanks to the exclusive use of glass and metal—no cheap plastics here. The standout is the Ultra, especially in its bold yellow variant, which offers a vibrant departure from typical phone colors and refelects the brand’s signature yellow color. The contrasting black metal frame adds an appealing accent, making it feel uniquely stylish.
Both the F7 Pro and Ultra share the same large 6.67-inch screen size, which contributes to their premium but substantial feel. The phones are both notably top-heavy (and large) which might not be everyone’s favorite for daily use, but its thin bezels help offset somewhat by ensuring the face is almost entirely screen.
There’s a pleasant blend of glossy and matte finishes on the back, although at a glance neither model drastically breaks from standard premium smartphone aesthetics. The Ultra’s quad-curved back does add subtle ergonomic comfort, slightly distinguishing it from the more traditional feel of the Pro.
Both the volume rocker and lock button are located close together on the upper right side of the phone, which occasionally makes it tricky to distinguish quickly between them. Using the volume button as a camera shutter can sometimes result in accidentally capturing your finger in the photo if you’re not careful. There’s no special function button on these phones.
We have to hand it to Poco for not only including a charger, but also a nice silicone protective case.
Screen
The screen experience on the Poco F7 series is simply stunning—beautifully vibrant, incredibly detailed, and bright, plus the various eye comfort features does a nice job of softening the brightness and blue light when you’ll appreciate it most. Poco’s extensive theme options let you easily tailor the visual pop exactly to your liking. One standout feature is the seamless ability to switch resolutions between WQHD (3200×1440) and FHD (2400×1080), even automatically, to conserve battery life without noticeable disruptions.
The adaptive refresh rate also works very smoothly, providing a consistently fluid experience. We never felt the need to go full time 120hz. The lowest refresh rate we noticed was 30 frames per second on always-on-screen. It’s too bad it can’t slow down to 1Hz to save on battery like some of the flagships.
The built-in fingerprint sensor beneath the screen deserves mention for its reliability and ease of use, providing quick and natural unlocking every time.
While both the Pro and Ultra’s screens look largely the same (and perfect), the Ultra model features “Dual-core visuals,” a dedicated chip aiming to enhance video playback quality. Though it’s not enabled by default and promises smoother visuals, we found Poco’s default video experience already excellent, making the feature feel somewhat unnecessary for most users. Similarly, there are some AI video enhancement features that we usually steer clear from.
Specs and Connectivity
The Poco F7 series comes impressively equipped with top-tier chipsets and connectivity standards that easily compete with flagship offerings from other brands. The F7 Ultra features the Snapdragon 8 Elite, Qualcomm’s latest and most powerful chipset, currently among the absolute best processors available in smartphones. Similarly, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 in the F7 Pro is an exceptional performer in its own right, providing outstanding speed and efficiency that makes it a significant selling point.
A notable omission, however, is the lack of eSIM support, a feature increasingly standard even among mid-tier smartphones. While both Poco models support dual physical SIM cards, the convenience and flexibility of eSIM would have elevated their appeal.
For connectivity, Poco reliably covers key areas such as NFC and dual-frequency GPS. A welcome bonus is the IR Blaster, enabling convenient control of household electronics via the Mi Remote app. The Ultra’s upgrade to Bluetooth 6.0 is appreciated, although the absence of Ultra-Wideband (UWB)—a feature present in Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Plus—remains a minor shortfall compared to other premium flagship devices.
Battery
In order to hit Poco’s insane 90W and 120W charging speeds, they include a Xiaomi ultra-fast charger and a unique USB-A to USB-C cable right in the box. Despite what sounds like a significant difference between the Pro and Ultra charging rates and included chargers (90W vs 120W), Poco advertises full charges in 37 minutes (Pro) and 34 minutes (Ultra), respectively. The Ultra does have a smaller 5300mAh battery, which gives it a charging edge over the larger and longer-lasting 6000mAh capacity of the Pro. Either way, both batteries are large and charge at unprecedented rates.
Our tests were actually faster than advertised! The Ultra took between 30 and 33 minutes to fully charge from completely dead (0%), and the Pro fully charged in about 35 minutes. After just 10 minutes of charging, the Pro reached 34%, while the Ultra hit an impressive 43%. We observed the Ultra briefly peak around 100W, though charging generally hovered below 50W for most of the process.
Conveniently, the phone estimates how long a full charge will take, and there are settings to adjust charging speeds depending on your needs. When plugged into a standard PD charger, charging speeds drop to a more modest 25W, underscoring that you’ll indeed need the proprietary Xiaomi fast charger to achieve these ultra-fast speeds.
Only the Ultra offers wireless charging, also at an impressive 50W. Achieving this requires Xiaomi’s dedicated 50W wireless charging stand, which is sold separately. Additionally, the Ultra provides reverse wireless charging, a helpful feature for giving friends’ devices a quick boost when needed.
Throughout my week of testing, both batteries comfortably lasted a full day under regular usage—sometimes even extending to two days with lighter use. Poco also includes several software optimizations designed to maximize battery efficiency, including a handy Battery Check-up feature that helps ensure longevity and consistent performance.
Performance, Usability, and OS
Performance is a core highlight of both Poco F7 models and they stack up impressively. The Snapdragon 8 Elite in the F7 Ultra is currently Qualcomm’s most powerful mobile chipset, designed to dominate in gaming, multitasking, and demanding productivity tasks. With it, you’ll be able to max out the visual settings on most any game. Similarly, the F7 Pro’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset promises outstanding performance that also comfortably handles intensive gaming, streaming, and multitasking scenarios.
Both phones run on Xiaomi’s HyperOS 2—an advanced, feature-rich operating system that’s new to Poco devices. It includes enhancements like deep Google Gemini integration (which we found incredibly useful), floating windows for multitasking, a RAM memory extender, a handy “Second Space” feature for running two instances of the same app with different accounts, and even a built-in heart-rate sensor. We haven’t fully explored every Xiaomi AI feature, largely because Gemini already covers our day-to-day needs exceptionally well.
Navigating the interface feels smooth, buttery, and responsive. Poco offers extensive customizability through its robust theme library, giving you hundreds of themes to choose from to personalize your phone exactly how you like.
We found all these features come with a downside though—the settings menus and customizations are extensive and can feel overwhelming. Poco does a good job explaining what each feature does, but it’s definitely targeted at tech enthusiasts and power users willing to spend time exploring and going multiple settings levels deep. While feature rich, thankfully Poco and HyperOS doesn’t overload these phones with unnecessary pre-installed apps (“bloatware”).
One of the annoying UI quirks was a basic one: accessing the app switcher. Usually, a quick and short swipe up pops this open, but we found HyperOS to require a longer swipe up otherwise — this regularly tripped us up. We also struggled with the Always-On-Display (AOD). It takes multiple setting updates to turn it on and keep it on, and then we found ourselves regularly missing notifications when it’s enabled. AOD customization could use some work.
Overall, Poco has clearly prioritized performance, customization, and power-user features—areas where these phones excel. However, they could improve in streamlining usability for a broader audience without requiring so much digging, sometimes to enable the best features.
Camera
The Poco F7 series delivers an excellent default camera experience that’s consistent between the Pro and Ultra models, both capturing vibrant, sharp, and ready-to-post photos right out of the box. The biggest practical difference comes down to zoom capabilities. If you prioritize versatile zoom and closer-up shots, the Ultra is a clear standout with its dedicated 50MP telephoto lens, offering genuine optical zoom at 2.5x (60mm equivalent).
In our tests, image quality proved impressive—often outperforming expectations, though it had some quirks. Compared to the more expensive iPhone 16 Pro, Poco’s dark mode shots weren’t as seamless or as good. Night mode needs to be explicitly toggled on, and I found the photos good but not the phone’s strong suit. The Ultra includes a macro mode leveraging its telephoto lens and taking photos up to 10cm away. Rather than moving your phone close to the object (like on iPhone), you’ll need to zoom into the object or toggle the feature on.
For serious photographers who love control, the robust “Pro” camera settings offer impressive flexibility. Here, the Ultra shines most clearly—especially with its telephoto capabilities. But realistically, everyday users might rarely explore these advanced settings, meaning the practical camera experience between Pro and Ultra mostly boils down to zoom preferences.
We found the camera quick, intuitive, and enjoyable for everyday use, with default settings typically spot-on. Much like the OS, there are plenty of additional modes to explore, including portrait mode, AI-enhanced HDR, Dynamic Shots, and impressive slow-motion video capture at up to a staggering 1920 frames per second—though videos at these high frame rates are limited to just a few seconds. Other notable features include UltraSnap (continuous rapid capture up to 150 frames), AI Creativity Assistant, and 20x UltraZoom Beta on the Ultra, which adds creative flexibility. We tried to shut off all the AI beautify features we could find.
In side-by-side photo tests, Poco’s JPG images consistently delivered vibrant, crisp, and social-media-friendly shots. They typically excelled in outdoor scenes, action moments, and photos needing extra brightness and punch. Occasionally, this vividness resulted in overly sharp or artificially vibrant images, but generally, the results were pleasingly lively.
Overall, Poco’s camera experience is highly competitive, excelling in convenience, speed, and vibrancy. For professional-level accuracy, subtlety, and realism, other flagship phones—like our reference iPhone—might still have the edge. But if you value vibrant colors, versatility, and ease of use, the Poco F7 series, particularly the Ultra with its standout zoom capabilities, offers exceptional value.
Bottom line
Poco has traditionally been known as a brand delivering exceptional bang for your buck, but with the F7 Pro and F7 Ultra, they’ve confidently stepped into flagship territory. Both phones offer premium specs, strong performance, and vibrant AMOLED displays, genuinely giving top-tier competitors like Samsung and Apple a run for their money—though they’re not quite at the same polished hardware and software refinement just yet.
Between the two models, the key differences come down to processor, camera capabilities, and the availability of wireless charging. At around $650, the F7 Ultra justifies its premium with the superior Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, more RAM options (up to 16GB), a versatile telephoto camera for improved zoom, and the convenience of wireless (and reverse wireless) charging. If you’re looking for flagship-level performance, flexibility in photography, and those premium extras, the Ultra clearly stands out.
At around $500, the F7 Pro remains compelling, offering nearly flagship-grade performance with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, excellent battery life, and the same beautiful display. Without wireless charging, telephoto zoom, or the highest-end chipset, the Pro targets users who want top-tier essentials without spending more for features they might rarely use.
Both phones will be available with an early bird discount of $50 off.
Overall, Poco has delivered impressive value. We particularly loved the mega-fast charging speeds, the highly customizable software experience, excellent build quality, and vivid screen quality. Still, we missed certain modern conveniences like eSIM support, Ultra-Wideband, a more intuitive Always-On Display, and more seamless low-light photography.
Ultimately, Poco’s latest devices, once again strongly demonstrate that premium experiences don’t need to carry premium price tags—offering substantial value and making the flagship smartphone experience more accessible than ever.