Poco F6 Pro Review
A flagship gaming experience at half the price
Verdict
The Poco F6 Pro offers powerful performance, premium build quality, an impressive display and lightning-fast charging at half the cost of most flagship devices. The cameras aren’t the most impressive, and the software has its quirks, but overall, it’s easy to recommend for gamers on a budget.
Pros
- Tonnes of power
- Brilliant high-res display
- Very speedy charging
Cons
- Auxiliary cameras are unimpressive
- Lots of bloatware
- HyperOS is an acquired taste
Key Features
- Flagship powerUtilising last year’s top chip, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the Poco F6 Pro is a blazing-fast performer that outclasses most mid-range rivals.
- Brilliant displayThe completely flat OLED display has a higher resolution than a lot of top-tier flagship phones. It also boasts a speedy 120Hz refresh rate and a 4000-nit peak brightness.
- Super-fast chargingThe included 120W wall adapter will get you up and running in no time at all. If you hate waiting around for a charge, this is a great option.
Introduction
If you’re seeking a high-performance phone that doesn’t break the bank, then Poco is a name you should get familiar with. The Xiaomi sub-brand has a reputation for delivering flagship-level performance at midrange prices, and this year’s top performer is the F6 Pro, coming in at a budget-friendly £499.
Of course, some compromises have to be made to hit such a price point. You won’t get the same kind of camera specifications that you’ll find on Xiaomi’s 14-series, for example. The phone also utilises last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, rather than the newer Gen 3, but that means it can deliver flagship-class performance at lower prices.
The question is, are these compromises too large to make it a compelling daily driver? I used the Poco F6 Pro as my main device for the last week in an attempt to find out.
Design
- 160.86 x 74.95 x 8.21 mm, 209g
- Gorilla Glass 5 front, Velvet Glass rear
- Black and White colour options
Aesthetically, the Poco F6 Pro has a lot more in common with the X6 models than last year’s F5 Pro. It has a completely flat display, boxy iPhone-like edges, and a subtly curved glass rear panel.
Everything about this phone feels flagship-level. It has an aluminium frame and the glass back has a velvety smooth feel with a rock-like pattern that shifts in the light. It’s fairly large and weighty, too, which gives it an air of quality compared to lightweight plastic-framed mid-rangers.
The velvety rear feels amazing in the hand, but it’s super slippery, and you’ll need an iron grip if you plan on using it without a case. Thankfully, a fairly nice matte black TPU covering is included in the box, and it’s plenty grippy with that installed.
I have the black version in for testing, and as mentioned, there’s a unique repeating pattern on the rear in a graphite grey colour. The camera surround has a mirror-like finish, which is a nightmare to keep clean, and each lens has a yellow-gold accent ring surrounding it, which I think looks quite nice. The constant smudges and dust on the mirrored surround sully those nice touches, though.
It’s also available in white, and the white model has the same pattern on its rear. However, it looks a little more subtle, in a lighter shade of grey. There’s no signature Poco yellow option this time, which is probably welcome news to most people, but personally I quite like a banana-coloured phone.
Oddly, the Poco F6 Pro only carries an IP54 rating for dust and water resistance, while the cheaper Poco F6 has an IP64 rating. It’s not likely to matter unless you frequently find yourself battling dust storms, but it’s interesting to note.
Another odd step backwards is the use of Gorilla Glass 5 on the display, while the cheaper model features Gorilla Glass Victus. Perhaps it’s a move to help offset the cost of the metal frame, but whatever the case may be, it’s still looking great after a week of use with no screen protector, so it seems to be up to the task.
Screen
- 6.67-inch 120Hz AMOLED
- 1440 x 3200 pixels
- 4000 nits peak brightness
While there may be compromises elsewhere on this device, there are almost none to be found with the display. It boasts an extremely high resolution of 1440 x 3200, equating to a pixel density of 526PPI, outclassing many of the most expensive flagship models.
It also has a 120Hz refresh rate, and can dynamically shift down to 60Hz to save battery. It’s not quite as impressive as the 1-120Hz range offered by LTPO rivals, but it’s still nice to have.
If that wasn’t enough, the panel is very bright, too. Poco says it can boost to 4000 nits in certain conditions. In real-world use, it had no trouble competing with direct sunlight, and the fact that it’s completely flat means you won’t have to deal with any distracting edge reflections, either.
The display supports Dolby Vision and HDR10+ and it can display 12-bit colour, too. This means that HDR content from apps like Netflix and Prime Video looks stunning, with rich accurate colours and dazzling highlights.
If you like to manually calibrate the colours of your display, HyperOS offers some of the most comprehensive controls of any Android skin. There are lots of profiles to choose from, all of which can be tweaked, as well as tweakable DCI-P3 and sRGB modes in the advanced settings.
For those concerned about eye health, there’s more good news. The Poco F6 Pro has TUV Low Blue Light, Flicker Free and Circadian Friendly certifications, as well as an extremely high PWM dimming rate of up to 3840Hz.
Cameras
- 50MP f/1.6 main camera (1/1.55-inch sensor)
- 8MP f/2.2 ultrawide
- 2MP f/2.4 macro
- 16MP selfie camera
With four large circular modules on its rear, the Poco F6 Pro camera array looks like it means business – but looks can be deceiving. There’s a solid main camera here, with a relatively large 1/1.55-inch sensor and 50MP resolution, but it’s joined by the familiar mid-range combo of an 8MP ultrawide and 2MP macro.
As expected, the 50MP main camera is the best performer. It captures the most detail and it bests the others in low light, with the least noise and motion blur. It can focus pretty close-up for macro photography and delivers a wide dynamic range across the board.
It also has a 2x mode, which is a digital crop of this sensor, and it works really well in daylight. At night, however, the 2x mode shows a definite drop in quality.
The ultrawide does a good job of matching the colours of the main sensor, but it lacks detail when you view the images on a larger display. There’s no autofocus, either, so you can forget about using it for closeups.
The 2MP macro is hidden away in the camera settings, and for good reason, because it’s pretty useless. It’s just too low of a resolution, and it can only focus marginally closer than the main sensor. Really, it’s just there to increase the camera count.
Around the front, you get a decent 16MP selfie camera, but again, it’s nothing too special. It has a typical FOV, no autofocus, and can shoot video at a maximum of 1080p 60fps. Still, it takes nice pictures when the lighting is sufficient, and Xiaomi’s excellent portrait mode effects can help elevate your shots.
In video mode, you can shoot at up to 4K 60fps or 8K 24fps on the main sensor. Personally, I wouldn’t bother going above 4K, as the 8K files are huge and don’t look all that much better. The 8K video is stabilised, at least, which isn’t the case on a lot of phones. On the ultrawide camera, you’re limited to just 1080p 30fps.
Performance
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2
- 12GB / 16GB RAM, 256GB / 512GB / 1TB storage
- Dual stereo speakers, Dolby Atmos
The Poco F6 Pro runs on the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC that powered all the top-performing flagship phones of last year. This means that it can outperform pretty much any other phone in this price range, and it’s only slightly behind the greatest performers of 2024.
I have the top-tier model in for testing, with a whopping 1TB of storage and 16GB of RAM, but the £499 base model drops that down to a more modest 12GB RAM and 256GB storage.
There’s no microSD slot on this phone, but the storage configurations are more affordably priced than a lot of the competition, and even the 1TB model comes in at under £600. If you need tonnes of storage, but don’t fancy remortgaging your house to get it, the F6 Pro could be a good option.
Xiaomi has blocked a lot of our usual benchmarking tools (nothing new there) but it’s no secret what a powerhouse the 8 Gen 2 is. In real-life scenarios, you’d have a hard time telling the difference between this phone and an 8 Gen 3-powered flagship at twice the cost. Everything feels lightning quick, multitasking poses no issue and I never experienced any slowdowns.
For gaming, you can max out the graphical settings on essentially any game in the Play Store and it’ll run like a dream. After half an hour of hacking and slashing on the graphically demanding Genshin Impact, the phone only got slightly warm, so the cooling solution is impressive, too.
On the audio front, the built-in speakers are also well above average. You get dual stereo drivers, which creates a nice soundstage and helps with positional accuracy in FPS games like PUBG. There’s plenty of clarity in the mids and higher frequencies, and there’s a respectable amount of low-end thump for music, too.
Software
- HyperOS based on Android 14
- AI image editing features
- Lots of bloatware
The Poco F6 Pro runs HyperOS, Xiaomi’s fresh new Android skin that has replaced MIUI. Despite the name change, though, HyperOS functions almost identically to MIUI, so if you weren’t a fan of the old system, the new one isn’t going to win you over, either.
Personally, I don’t mind it. It runs quickly, it’s fairly intuitive and you get lots of customisation options. It could use some text in the quick settings menu, as I find it difficult to remember what all the icons mean. It certainly looks clean in this implementation, though.
The biggest change from stock Android is that you have split notifications and quick settings shade, accessed via swipes from each side of the display. You’ll be familiar with this if you’ve used a recent iPhone, or a Huawei or Honor device, for that matter. If you’re coming from another Android brand, it’ll take a moment to adapt, but it’s not the end of the world.
HyperOS is lacking some of the headline-grabbing AI features that we’ve seen from brands like Samsung and Google, but it’s not completely AI-free. There are actually some very cool image editing features that can be enabled in the gallery app – but you have to download a plug-in before they work.
Once installed you’ll be able to access extra options within the image editing tools. For example, in the crop tool, you can expand images to have a wider FOV and generative AI will fill in the missing details. There’s also a super-charged version of the person/object eraser tool. The results aren’t perfect, but they’re not far behind Samsung’s, and I’m quite surprised that Xiaomi isn’t shouting about these features.
Unfortunately, some of my least favourite things about MIUI are still present in HyperOS, too. There are lots of system apps that are essentially duplicates of Google’s own apps and there are lots of notifications from these apps too. Then, there’s the bloatware.
There’s a tonne of pre-installed junk on this device, which tends to come with the territory in this price range, but it’s worse than usual with this model. You’ll find all sorts of things, including a folder full of random games. Most can be removed, but most of Xiaomi’s apps can’t. So you’ll end up with a more cluttered app drawer than you’d like.
Battery life
- 5000 mAh battery
- 120W wired charging
- Charger included
The Poco F6 Pro has a relatively large 5000 mAh battery and this saw me through an average day’s use without issue. On heavier usage days, with lots of Google Maps navigation and camera use, it cut it fine, but I never needed to do a mid-day top-up.
So, it’s not incredible battery life, but it’s definitely good enough for most people. On the plus side, charging is incredibly fast, and that means that battery life isn’t much of a concern.
You get a 120W wall adapter included in the box, and that’s quick enough to get you from completely flat to fully charged in about 25 minutes. A quick 5-minute blast on the charger tends to recover around 30-40%, it’s super convenient.
There’s no wireless charging on this model, which is a little disappointing, as its predecessor supported wireless charging at up to 30W. Still, the lightning-quick wired charging is a great consolation prize.
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Should you buy it?
You want a flagship gaming experience at half the price
From the build quality to the speakers, the performance and the display, this phone is almost indistinguishable from a flagship handset. If you’re looking to do some serious gaming on a budget, look no further.
You want flagship-level cameras
While the rest of the phone is flagship-quality, the cameras are decidedly mid-range. It won’t be the top choice for photo and video enthusiasts.
Final Thoughts
The Poco F6 Pro isn’t advertised as a gaming phone, but perhaps it should be. With a brilliant display, great speakers, ample storage options and a powerful chipset it delivers a truly premium gaming experience at a fraction of the cost of flagship devices.
Compared to some of the competition, it’s the cameras that let this device down. This will never be the top choice for avid photo snappers, they’ll be far happier with something like the Pixel 8a. That said, the cameras here are way better than any gaming phone I’ve tried. So it all depends on what you’re comparing it to.
Overall, I’ve really enjoyed using the Poco F6 Pro. It’s fast, has a premium look and feel, games like a champ and charges incredibly quickly. The software won’t be to everyone’s taste, but I found it easy to live with. If you’re looking for a powerhouse that doesn’t break the bank, it’s an easy recommendation.
How we test
We test every mobile phone we review thoroughly. We use industry-standard tests to compare features properly and we use the phone as our main device over the review period. We’ll always tell you what we find and we never, ever, accept money to review a product.
Find out more about how we test in our ethics policy.
Used as a main phone for a week
Thorough camera testing in a variety of conditions
Tested and benchmarked using respected industry tests and real-world data
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FAQs
The Poco F6 Pro is IP54-rated, which means it can withstand sprays of water from all directions, but it can’t be submerged. Light rain will pose no issue, but handle it carefully around open water.
Poco promises at least 3 major OS upgrades and four years of security patches. It’s a shorter support term than Samsung and Google, but more generous than some competing brands in the mid-range space.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
