Fast yet affordable

Review: Xiaomi Poco F7 Pro - Top phone at a mid-range price

Poco F7 Pro offers substantial performance at a surprisingly low price.

Published 15 April 2025 - 10:20

Today, flagship models among mobile phones typically cost from 11,000 kronor and upwards. Then we have the mid-range models for 4,000 - 6,000 kronor, which often give you a good screen and decent cameras but in a noticeably slower mobile, and below that the budget models that mostly manage to deliver what you need but without either good performance or particularly good cameras.

It's fun when you find a mobile that breaks that pattern, and therefore it's also extra exciting that Xiaomi has reintroduced its brand Poco to the Swedish market. Poco mobiles perhaps focus a little less on the cameras, but provide plenty of performance for the price.

The reintroduction comes in the form of two models, Poco F7 Pro and Poco F7 Ultra, the latter being a mobile with Qualcomm's fastest Snapdragon chipset for 8,000 kronor. We have tested it separately but it is of course interesting to compare the differences between the two mobiles as they are quite similar to each other.

Poco F7 Pro, which we are testing here, has a price tag of 6,000 kronor with 12 gigabytes of RAM and 256 gigabytes of storage space. It is 300 kronor cheaper than what Samsung charges for its mid-range mobile Galaxy A56 with 256 GB. If you want the Poco F7 Pro with 512 GB storage, you have to pay 500 kronor more, and you might want to, as the phone lacks a memory card slot so you cannot expand the amount of storage.

Luxurious

There is nothing that suggests mid-range with the design of the Poco F7 Pro. The phone has thin bezels around the screen, an aluminium frame, and a glass back where the area around the camera island has a rather cool design. The phone is waterproof according to the IP68 rating, and the screen has impact-resistant glass of the Gorilla Glass 7i type, but of course, there is no guarantee that you won't crack the glass, so you will probably want to use the included black rubber case.

A 90-watt fast charger is also included, which is used to charge the phone's extra-large 6000 mAh battery. This charger can charge the phone from one percent to 42 percent in 10 minutes, and to full in just about half an hour. Despite this, Xiaomi promises that the battery will last for 1600 charge cycles before the capacity drops to 80 percent.

Despite the extra-large battery, I actually only get average battery life in our battery test where we stream video until the battery dies. The large battery also makes the phone quite large and heavy.

The screen is also large and bright. The maximum brightness is 3000 nits, which in practical use means that the screen is fully readable in direct sunlight if you have set the phone to automatic brightness. The screen is of the OLED type and has high resolution and a fast refresh rate of 120 Hz, which provides a sharp display even while you are quickly swiping through menus, scrolling on web pages, or in other apps. It is an excellent screen, which is not unique for the price tag.

However, it's the performance. The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset from Qualcomm. This is the chipset that powered most of last year's flagship models with Android as the operating system, such as the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, OnePlus 12, or Xiaomi 14. This year's flagship models are faster, but they are also the only ones that are. Compared to other mid-range phones with cheaper chipsets, the Poco F7 Pro is significantly faster. The Poco F7 Ultra is of course even faster, but you only notice that in certain high-performance situations like our graphics tests and 3D games. In everyday use, the response feels immediate in both models.

Mid-range cameras

The cameras, on the other hand, are more mid-range than flagship. There is a main camera with a 50-megapixel sensor that is about the same size as the one in the Samsung Galaxy A56. It is also the same main camera found in the Poco F7 Ultra. However, the rather good telephoto camera that the Poco F7 Ultra has is completely missing, and the wide-angle camera is of a simpler kind with only 8 megapixels resolution and no autofocus.

The main camera, on the other hand, is really nice. We don't get the fine colour reproduction that Xiaomi has in its flagship models thanks to more expensive hardware there and its collaboration with Leica, but otherwise, the images are sharp and detailed, even in poorer light. The large and high-resolution sensor also allows you to take photos with two times zoom that are still sharp. In practice, I think I can shoot with up to five times magnification and still get images that look acceptable, but after two times zoom, the images are only digitally enlarged.

The system is Android 15 with Xiaomi's user interface Hyper OS 2, the sub-brand Poco is mainly noticeable in the phone's themes and that some app icons look a bit different. Hyper OS is a bit cluttered with many settings that can be harder to find, but it shouldn't be exaggerated. If you're coming from another mobile brand, you'll still find your way around quite quickly. Xiaomi is fond of apps, and in addition to Google's mandatory apps, you get Xiaomi's system apps which sometimes duplicate Google's, such as the browser, third-party apps, and Xiaomi also tries to sneak in some games you didn't ask for during installation if you're not careful, but you can opt out.

Xiaomi promises four major system updates for the Poco F7 Ultra. That's two fewer than what Samsung promises for the Galaxy A56 but on the other hand, it's as much as Xiaomi promises for its more expensive Xiaomi 15, so at least they don't give the budget brand worse support.

In almost every other way, you get significantly more phone for your money with the Poco F7 than with other new mobiles right now. It's as close to a top model for 6000 kronor as you can get.

Questions & Answers

How is the fingerprint reader? It's located in the screen which I'm sceptical about, but during the test period, it works without problems.

What are the differences compared to Poco F7 Ultra? Poco F7 Ultra costs 2000 kronor more and has a faster system chip, telephoto camera, and a better wide-angle camera. It is also slightly thinner and lighter but has a smaller battery in return. The Ultra has wireless charging which is missing in the Pro.

Can you have esim in the phone? No, that function is missing.

An alternative

For 500 kronor more, you get the Google Pixel 9a, which is slightly smaller and more convenient, also with a really good camera for the price and promised 7 years of system updates.