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Poco F7: Two-minute evaluate
After the flagship-approaching aspirations of the Poco F7 Ultra, the Poco F7 marks a welcome return to outright affordability. It hasn’t needed to sacrifice a lot in the way in which of efficiency both, with the brand new Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 offering an impressively speedy expertise.
For lower than £400, you’ll battle to discover a telephone that’s constructed higher. With a metallic and glass building, and full IP68 certification, this telephone is reassuringly strong within the hand – although it’s additionally fairly cumbersome, and the design of the Silver mannequin is an acquired style.
A few of the additional bulk could be attributed to the selection of a 6500mAh battery, which is among the greatest to be discovered wherever. It produces genuinely spectacular stamina, and 90W wired charging isn’t dangerous in any respect both.
The show is larger than we have grown accustomed to from the model, however it stays a pointy, brilliant, and customarily well-balanced panel.
It’s clear the place Xiaomi’s priorities lie with the Poco F7, and that leads to a digital camera set-up that fails to impress or excite. The 50MP most important digital camera will will do a job in good situations, however you will get a extra full photographic expertise for related cash within the Honor 400 or the Nothing Cellphone (3a) Professional.
The corporate’s HyperOS continues to underwhelm, too, with a cluttered format and approach an excessive amount of bloatware. The corporate pays lip service to AI options, however the implementation isn’t probably the most elegant we’ve ever seen.
All in all, the Poco F7 looks like a greater purchase than its Extremely brother, with related strengths – and weaknesses – at a a lot keener value.
A few of these aforementioned rivals are extra elegant and arguably higher balanced, but when efficiency and stamina (to not point out ruggedness) are priorities, you’re in contrast to to do higher on your £389.
Poco F7 evaluate: value and availability
- Launched in June 24 2025 for £389/$399 (12GB/256GB mannequin)
- 12GB/512TB mannequin prices £429/$449
- Not out there in US or Australia
The Poco F7 launched on June 24, 2025, with availability throughout the UK and Europe.
Pricing begins from £389/$399 for 256GB of storage. The step-up 512GB mannequin (with the identical 12GB of RAM) prices £429/$449. Xiaomi at all times provides greenback pricing, although it doesn’t promote its telephones to the US.
That makes the Poco F7 between £10 and £20 cheaper than its predecessor, the Poco F6, which is refreshing to see.
It additionally signifies that the telephone undercuts the likes of the Google Pixel 9a and the Samsung Galaxy A56 by greater than £100, and is a better rival to the Samsung Galaxy A36 and the Honor 400. The £449 Nothing Cellphone (3a) Professional additionally stands out as a key competitor.
As is usually the case with Poco telephones, you’ll be able to choose the Poco F7 up at a £70 Early Chicken low cost in case you’re fast.
Poco F7 evaluate: specs
| Header Cell – Column 0 | Header Cell – Column 1 |
|---|---|
|
Dimensions: |
163.1 x 77.9 x 8.2mm |
|
Weight: |
215.7g |
|
Show: |
6.83-inch 1.5K (2772 x 1280) as much as 120Hz AMOLED |
|
Chipset: |
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 |
|
RAM: |
12GB (LPDDR5X) |
|
Storage: |
256GB / 512GB (UFS 4.1) |
|
OS: |
Android 15 with HyperOS 2 |
|
Main digital camera: |
50MP 1/1.95-inch sensor w/ OIS |
|
Extremely-wide digital camera: |
8MP sensor |
|
Entrance Digital camera: |
20MP sensor |
|
Battery: |
6,500mAh |
|
Charging: |
90W wired |
|
Colours: |
White, Black, Cyber Silver Version |
| Row 13 – Cell 0 | Row 13 – Cell 1 |
Poco F7 evaluate: design
- One other massive, flat Poco design
- Cyber Silver Version has gaming telephone vibes
- Spectacular IP68 mud and water resistance
Following on from the Poco F7 Extremely, the Poco F7 brings one other massive, flat design. At 163.1 x 77.9 x 8.2mm and 216g, you’ll at all times know when it is in your pocket.
Whereas it’s fairly a bit greater and heavier than the Poco F6 earlier than it, nonetheless, it’s a extra premium design. That extends to the selection of supplies, with an aluminum alloy body and a glass (not plastic) again cowl.
It’s a troublesome cookie, too. Flagship-level IP68 mud and water resistance makes a welcome return, however Xiaomi can also be making noises in regards to the telephone’s bending resistance score of as much as 70kg². I didn’t dare put this one to the check, however it must be good and immune to these ‘plonk your self down with telephone in again pocket’ incidents.
When it comes to the look of the Poco F7, it’s one other vaguely iPhone-shaped system with dead-flat surfaces and curved corners. I believe the white and black fashions look fairly elegant, if a bit of boring – no less than from photos.
I wasn’t despatched both of these fashions, nonetheless. As an alternative, I obtained the restricted Cyber Silver Version, which utterly flips that script: it appears a bit of low-cost, however it’s definitely not boring.
Xiaomi has break up the again of the telephone at a jaunty angle, with the underside half(ish) of the telephone taken up by a shiny silver end and the highest half taking over a printed circuit board impact. It’s considerably redolent of a gaming telephone such because the Redmagic 10S Professional, which isn’t essentially the form of affiliation Xiaomi must be encouraging.
It screams ‘efficiency’, sure, however it’s additionally more likely to make grown adults really feel self-conscious at any time when they pull the telephone out in public. It’s a disgrace we didn’t get extra of Poco’s signature experimenting with the color yellow, which could be fairly efficient in serving to it to face out from the gang.
Suffice to say, this total reflectiveness makes the Poco F7 a fingerprint magnet. And likewise, for the report, a complete nightmare to {photograph}.
Poco F7 evaluate: show
- 6.83-inch AMOLED (2772 x 1280) with 120Hz refresh fee
- Respectable 3200 nits peak brightness, 1700 nits HBM
- Properly calibrated colors
Xiaomi’s funds sub-brands at all times flip up with glorious, balanced AMOLED shows, and the Poco F7 maintains the successful run.
It’s bigger than that of each final 12 months’s Poco F6 and this 12 months’s Poco F7 Extremely at 6.83 inches, whereas a 2772 x 1280 ‘1.5K’ decision proves good and sharp.
Similar to its Extremely brother, this display maxes out at 3200 nits of brightness in restricted HDR eventualities, which is an enchancment on the Poco F6’s 2400 nits. It hits a barely decrease (however nonetheless strong) 1700 nits in excessive brightness mode than the Extremely, which can kick in when direct daylight beats down on it.
There’s a 120Hz most refresh fee right here, as you’d count on. We count on that even of low-cost telephones nowadays, until you’re speaking about Apple.
This display is roofed in Corning Gorilla Glass 7i fairly than the toughened “Poco Defend Glass” of the Poco F7 Extremely, so these aforementioned robust credentials presumably solely prolong to date.
All in all this can be a massive, brilliant, sharp and colour-accurate show, which is de facto as a lot as you’ll be able to ask for in a mid-range telephone.
Poco F7 evaluate: cameras
- 50MP most important sensor produces strong however unspectacular pictures
- 8MP ultra-wide
- No telephoto
- 20MP entrance digital camera
From what I can see, the Poco F7 options the identical fundamental digital camera set-up as final 12 months’s Poco F6, in addition to the lesser Poco X7 Pro.
Meaning a twin digital camera system led by a 50MP Sony IMX882 sensor with a large f/1.5 aperture. You additionally get a humble 8MP ultra-wide, and a 20MP entrance digital camera. There isn’t a devoted telephoto digital camera.
Unsurprisingly, our feedback concerning the Poco X7 Professional digital camera broadly apply right here. The Poco F7 does profit from packing a Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 processor with its superior picture processing, however the traits are related.
That’s, you will get clear and brilliant pictures in good lighting, with good vibrant colors. As soon as the sunshine drops and Night time mode comes into play, pictures are strong, however not fairly as clear as I’d have favored, with a touch of grain to these darkish skies.
Don’t count on miracles from the 8MP ultra-wide. It clearly lacks the element of the primary sensor, in addition to the identical stage of distinction, and there’s a slight over-processed look as Xiaomi appears compensate for its hardwired deficiencies.
Zoomed pictures look nice at 2x, placing the additional pixels from that lead sensor to good use with out a lot seen grain. Issues begin getting fuzzy at 5x, nonetheless, whereas 10x is unusably blurry.
There are AI options right here, after all. AI Erase is the now-familiar device that permits you to erase background components. AI Picture Growth actually speculates on what may be outdoors of the body and sketches it in – convincingly, if incorrectly. Because the title suggests, AI Sky allows you to change the scene to a sunnier or cloudier day, adjusting the tone accordingly.
AI Beautify, in the meantime, affords the doubtful potential to ‘enhance’ your private appears, eradicating pores and blemishes (wrinkle elimination requires downloading), and altering your physique form. It may even pimp up your pets. Suffice to say, past giving it a fast check, I wished none of it.
Selfie high quality from the 20MP entrance digital camera is sufficient, when you bump the default beautifying impact right down to zero. You may discover that the element stage is sufficient and pores and skin tones are rendered fairly naturally, however it struggled with dynamic vary on brilliant days.
4K video at 60fps makes a return from the Poco F6, and the footage I captured was fairly clean with out being distinctive.
Poco F7 evaluate: digital camera samples
Picture 1 of 5
Poco F7 evaluate: efficiency
- New Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 is a powerful performer
- 12GB RAM as commonplace
- 256 or 512GB of storage
Xiaomi has gone with an fascinating alternative of processor within the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4. This can be a model new chip that falls nicely wanting the giddy heights supplied by the Snapdragon 8 Elite, however nonetheless seems broadly flagship-level efficiency.
Nothing is utilizing this very chip in its Cellphone (3), which goes to be priced at round £800, so it’s spectacular to seek out it right here in a £389 telephone.
Positive sufficient, within the Geekbench 6 benchmarking device, it comfortably beats the Pixel 9a (and the Pixel 9 Professional for that matter) on uncooked CPU efficiency, and positively decimates the Samsung Galaxy A56.
GPU efficiency utilizing the GFXBench device doesn’t show as spectacular, with each of these rival telephones beating the Poco F7 in on-screen exams. It’s price reminding ourselves that Xiaomi’s telephone has a a lot sharper show than both of these telephones, after all, which invariably takes a toll on GPU efficiency.
The primary factor to notice is that it’s nicely as much as the job of gaming. It’ll truly play console racer GRID Legends – which h is usually solely playable on high-end telephones – and easily at that.
It’s good to see that Xiaomi has gone with a hard and fast 12GB of RAM right here, whatever the storage capability you go for (256 or 512GB).
We must also notice that the corporate is utilizing a 6000mm² 3D Twin-Channel IceLoop System for cooling the aforementioned processor, with “the largest Loop Warmth Pipe ever utilized in a Poco system”. I did discover that the telephone heated up fairly considerably after working these GPU exams, however this isn’t uncommon for such a demanding process, and this was throughout one of many hottest days of the 12 months to date.
- Efficiency rating: 4.5 / 5
Poco F7 evaluate: software program
- Clumsy UI with plenty of bloatware
- 4 years of OS updates and 6 of safety patches
- Hit or miss AI provision
Xiaomi may need tried to do one thing a bit of completely different with the Poco F7’s {hardware}, however the software program provision may be very acquainted certainly.
That’s utterly pure – no producer makes sweeping UI adjustments between fashions – however it additionally signifies that all of my previous criticisms of Xiaomi’s HyperOS (and previous to that, MIUI) stay.
For the report, you’re getting HyperOS 2 layered on prime of Android 15. Simply as I famous with the Poco F7 Extremely, this can be a UI that responds good and snappily when there’s a half-decent processor concerned, as there may be right here.
Whereas it’s a well-tuned and very customisable UI – minus a slight however persistent occasion of lag when scrolling from the Google Feed again to the primary house display – HyperOS continues to frustrate. It’s jam-packed with additional apps, each from Xiaomi’s personal steady and from third occasion builders.
Even after laboriously deselecting all of Xiaomi’s ‘Really helpful apps’ on the set-up stage – all of which look bafflingly horrible – I nonetheless discovered the second house display enjoying host to the Temu purchasing app, Fb, Spotify, Microsoft OneDrive, Netflix, and the Reserving.com app.
Picture 1 of 3
Deliver up the app tray and there’s extra within the form of AliExpress, Amazon Music, Amazon Purchasing, TikTok, and a smattering of crushingly fundamental video games.
Xiaomi’s personal Theme retailer is an odd one. From a sure perspective, it grants extra wallpaper and lock display personalisation choices than nearly some other producer. However there’s an terrible lot of tat in there, and never all of it’s free to obtain.
Merely discovering some fundamental system options to the default wallpaper stays tougher than it ought to, and that sense of friction pervades HyperOS.
As with the Poco F7 Extremely, Xiaomi is providing 4 Android OS upgrades and 6 years of safety patches. It’s a fairly first rate provision all issues thought of, overlaying the probably pure lifetime of the telephone after which some. Nevertheless, it falls wanting Google’s (seven years) and Samsung’s (six years) personal intensive replace guarantees.
As with the Extremely mannequin, the Poco F7 comes with loads of AI instruments of various ranges of usefulness. AI writing can summarise textual content, AI Interpreter will translate calls in actual time, and AI subtitles will transcribe calls and conferences. There’s the standard suite of picture modifying instruments (after you’ve put in the related plug-ins), and Google Gemini is barely a protracted energy button press away.
A lot of this has change into a box-ticking train for producers, and this isn’t probably the most intuitive or seamless implementation we have ever seen. With that stated, these AI packing containers have undoubtedly been ticked.
Poco F7 evaluate: battery life
- Genuinely enormous 6500mAh battery
- As much as 90W wired charging
- No wi-fi charging
If there’s one stand-out spec for the Poco F7, it’s the inclusion of a 6500 mAh battery. That’s an enormous improve on the Poco F6’s 5000mAh battery.
Actually, wanting the Pink Magic 10S Professional and its predecessors – area of interest gaming telephones every person – that is the biggest battery I’ve seen in a telephone.
It’s a brute power technique to prolong the telephone’s stamina, however it’s an efficient one nonetheless. On one typical day of average utilization, with 3 hours 45 minutes of display on time, I used to be left with 70% – sufficient for a full second day with none stress in any way.
Certainly, I sailed proper by the evening with out plugging the telephone in, and by the tip of a lighter second day with an hour much less display on time, the Poco F7 nonetheless had 29% left.
The Poco F7 helps the identical 90W wired charging as its predecessor. Xiaomi claims it’ll go from empty to 80% in half-hour, however that’s solely with the Fast Cost operate lively, and also you’ll need to dive into the Settings menu and toggle that manually.
Straight out of the field, in its default configuration, I discovered that the telephone would get to only 60% in half-hour. That’s nonetheless fairly good, particularly when you think about the sheer dimension of that battery.
Ought to I purchase the Poco F7?
|
Attributes |
Notes |
Ranking |
|---|---|---|
|
Design |
The Poco F7 may be very well-built for its value, with IP68 certification and a top quality supplies, although it’s additionally fairly massive, and the Cyber Silver Version model is a bit of chintzy. |
3.5 / 5 |
|
Show |
The Poco F7’s 6.83-inch OLED is massive and brilliant, with a shark ‘1.5K’ decision. |
4 / 5 |
|
Efficiency |
The Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 is a succesful runner, outperforming most fellow mid-rangers and even some flagship telephones. |
4.5 / 5 |
|
Digital camera |
Cameras have by no means been a precedence with the Poco vary, and the Poco F7 doesn’t carry something meaningfully new or spectacular to the desk. |
3 / 5 |
|
Battery |
With an enormous 6500mAh battery, the Poco F7 will be capable of final most individuals two days, whereas 90W wired charging is greater than first rate. |
5 / 5 |
|
Software program |
HyperOS 2 is simply too cluttered, with approach an excessive amount of bloatware, however it’s no less than fairly customisable. |
3 / 5 |
|
Worth |
The Poco F7 is even cheaper than its predecessor, and undercuts a few of our favorite mid-range telephones by greater than £100. The extent of construct high quality and efficiency is spectacular for the cash. |
4.5 / 5 |
Purchase it if…
Do not buy it if…
Poco F7 evaluate: additionally take into account
The Poco F7 affords some spectacular specs for lower than £400, and it would not have the sector to itself.
How I examined the Poco F7
- Evaluate check interval = 1 week
- Testing included = On a regular basis utilization, together with net shopping, social media, images, video calling, gaming, streaming video, music playback
- Instruments used = Geekbench 6, GFXBench, native Android stats, 90W Xiaomi energy adapter
Future Labs exams telephones utilizing a mixture of third-party benchmark software program and proprietary, real-world exams. We use Geekbench, CrossMark, JetStream, WebXPRT and Cell XPRT, and 3DMark for efficiency testing. We check a telephone’s efficiency on video duties utilizing Adobe Premiere Rush. We additionally measure show shade output and brightness.
For battery testing we carry out proprietary exams which are the identical for each telephone, which allow us to find out how lengthy it takes for the battery to run down.
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First reviewed: June 2025
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