POCO F6 Pro Review

The POCO brand is known for giving us the best price-to-performance offering with their flagship devices. We’re talking about the POCO F series, and based on our last year’s review of the F5 and F5 Pro, we expect the same with the next generation.

Before anything else, if you’re looking for our review of the base model POCO F6, you can find that full review here in our website.

Design

The first time we held the device, it felt lighter than the spec sheet suggests. The premium feel is adequate for its price but not on par with more expensive smartphones with similar specifications.

The aluminum sides have a gentle curvature, making the device easier to hold and more comfortable than smartphones with flat sides and sharp edges. At the back, you’ll see four circles housing the three rear cameras and the flash, arranged in a rectangular design with POCO branding and a “50MP OIS” text.

Our units are both in black and white variants, with the white one featuring a matte finish glass back and a unique design similar to marble tiles. The black one has that Calacatta marble effect to it.

Only antenna bands are on the left side, while the power and volume buttons and additional antenna bands are on the right. These buttons offer good tactile feedback for this price range.

The bottom of the phone has a dual-SIM slot, a Type-C port, and a speaker. The top houses an IR blaster, which can be handy in emergencies, such as losing the remote for your air conditioner or other home appliances, and a secondary microphone.

At the front, there’s a large AMOLED display with thin bezels. However, I wish the bottom bezel were thinner to be symmetrical with the other sides.

Unfortunately, the POCO F6 Pro lacks an IP rating which may be likely due to cost-saving measures. It does, however, have rubber flaps in the SIM tray port.

Display

The POCO F6 Pro comes with a 6.67-inch AMOLED display featuring a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. Notably, the refresh rate has only two modes: 60Hz and 120Hz, dropping to 30Hz when the screen is locked.

I prefer the flat display over the curved screens found on other phones, as it provides a better user experience and makes it easier to put tempered glass protection if you are the type of user who puts those on the display.

You can adjust the display to 1080p to conserve battery life, but I keep mine at the highest resolution to take full advantage of its capabilities.

The display offers a maximum brightness of 1200 nits, which, while not the brightest available, is still usable outdoors. Viewing angles are excellent, even from extreme positions. However, POCO has not specified the brand of glass used for the POCO F6 Pro.

In terms of audio, the POCO F6 Pro features a stereo speaker setup, with one speaker located at the top earpiece and another at the bottom. They deliver loud sounds, but the separation of sounds is somewhat lacking for my taste.

The POCO F6 Pro includes two biometric authentication options: an in-display fingerprint sensor and face unlock. The face unlock feature allows for registering up to two faces, while the fingerprint sensor can store up to five fingerprints. Face unlock is fast but less secure than the fingerprint scanner, which is more secure but slower in terms of unlocking the device.

Additionally, the fingerprint scanner doubles as a heart rate sensor, providing results similar to that of a smartwatch’s.

Performance and Benchmarks

The POCO F6 Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 — a flagship processor that provides an experience similar to the newer Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. This chipset is paired with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 1TB of UFS 4.0 storage.

This results in a smooth and fluid overall experience whether you’re performing everyday tasks like browsing social media or playing graphically intensive games.

We tested the phone with games like Mobile Legends, Night Crows, and MU Online for several hours. The performance was lag-free, maintaining a stable 120Hz refresh rate with graphics settings at maximum. However, the phone tends to heat up more than other devices with similar chipsets.

As expected, the POCO F6 Pro scored big-time in our benchmark tests with Antutu scores crossing the 1.5 million points. Here are our other benchmark results:

Antutu Benchmark v10: 1,551,302
Antutu Storage: 3,305 MB/s (Read), 3245 MB/s (Write), 987 MBs/s & 902 MB/s (Random Read/Write)
PCMark Work 3.0: 17,422
GeekBench 6 CPU: 1,151 (Single core), 4,288 (Multi-core)
GeekBench 6 GPU: 7,558 (OpenCL), 8,355 (Vulkan)

Cameras

The POCO F6 Pro features a triple rear camera setup: a 50-megapixel f/1.6 main camera, an 8-megapixel f/2.2 ultra-wide camera, and a 2-megapixel f/2.4 macro camera. I would have preferred a telephoto lens instead of the 2-megapixel macro camera for greater versatility.

The camera app is straightforward and offers various modes: Pro, Documents, Night, Video, Portrait, and Camera. It operates smoothly with minimal shutter lag.

Daylight shots from the main camera are impressive and perfect for social media. However, the default settings tend to over-sharpen images and produce high-contrast photos. While some users may like this effect, I prefer more naturally colored photos.

The ultra-wide camera performs well for capturing architecture and confined spaces. However, it struggles in low-light conditions, often producing muddy images.

You can also see our sample shots here:

Night photography on the POCO F6 Pro is commendable, especially with the main camera. It captures clear and detailed photos even in low-light environments. The ultra-wide sensor does not perform as well in these conditions though.

The front-facing 16MP selfie camera produces sharp photos but requires good lighting to achieve the best results.

The rear camera can record videos up to 8K at 30 fps, while the front camera supports 1080p at 30 fps.

Video quality from the rear camera is excellent in good lighting, and the Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) effectively smooths out video recording.

Here are sample video clips that we took from our Dubai event:

Overall, the POCO F6 Pro offers a solid camera experience. Its main and ultra-wide cameras excel in daylight and well-lit environments, while the main sensor’s night photography is impressive. The selfie camera and video recording capabilities make this a versatile and reliable camera setup regardless of the shooting needs you might need.

OS, Apps and UI

The POCO F6 Pro runs on the new Xiaomi HyperOS, which is essentially very similar to MIUI but tailored for global markets. It is based on Android 14, but it still retains the familiar MIUI feel.

As with many Xiaomi, POCO, and Redmi devices, this software has numerous bloatware, even if you deselect recommended apps during setup. While these bloatware apps are easy to uninstall, it’s still an extra step for the user.

HyperOS offers extensive customization options to tailor the device to your personal preferences. You can adjust the lock style, always-on display, icons, fonts, wallpaper carousel, and even notification effects.

Additionally, there is a theme store that allows you to change the entire look of your phone with a single click. This store features a wide variety of free themes, and you can also mix and match icons and wallpapers from different themes to create a custom look.

The overall feel of HyperOS is fluid, with smooth animations on certain icons and other parts of the interface.

One useful feature of this OS is the ability to have dual apps for messaging apps, which is great if you need to log in to multiple social media accounts. There is also a built-in app lock that requires a separate password from your lock screen, allowing you to let others use your phone without worrying about them accessing confidential apps or information.

Additionally, this phone supports L1 Widevine, enabling you to stream Netflix in HDR quality. There are occasional ads within the OS, a common experience for POCO and Xiaomi users.

Other noteworthy features include the Sidebar which functions like an app drawer that you can swipe from the left side of the screen. Clicking an app in the sidebar will launch it in a floating window, enhancing multitasking capabilities.

Battery and Connectivity

The POCO F6 Pro is equipped with all connectivity features – Wi-Fi 7 support, dual-SIM 5G, and Bluetooth 5.3, NFC and GPS. You also get that infrared sensor for pairing with home appliances such as TVs and air conditioners.

In terms of battery performance, I managed to drain the battery from 100% to 20% in 5 hours and 44 minutes of continuous gameplay, which is impressive considering the screen brightness was set to 80%.

In our PC Mark Battery test, the device managed to last a decent 10 hours and 50 minutes and 18 hours and 45 minutes in our standard video loop test.

The POCO F6 Pro offers four battery modes:

• Performance Mode: This mode is rarely needed since the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 can handle most heavy tasks without hiccups.
• Balanced Mode: This is the default setting out of the box.
• Battery Saver: This mode restricts system app activities, freezes background apps, and might affect notifications. It turns off background services and features such as sync, 5G network, and haptic feedback. Use this mode when you want to extend battery life while maintaining a normal user experience.
• Ultra Battery Saver: This mode restricts most power-consuming features and significantly reduces the device’s performance to basic phone functions like SMS and calls. It’s useful when you can’t find a power source to charge your device.

Given the POCO F6 Pro’s battery capacity, these modes may be rarely needed. The battery is sufficient to last a day or even two under normal use. Additionally, the device supports 120W fast charging, which can charge the battery fully in just 30 minutes.

Once you activate the “Boost charging speed” feature, you can fully charge the phone in just 20 minutes.

Conclusion

The price of the POCO F6 Pro has not yet been announced as of writing this review, but the company hints that it will be in the range of  $600.

POCO continues to be a strong player in the “affordable-yet-flagship” smartphone category and the POCO F6 Pro is a strong testament to this. Flagship level chipset, 16GB of RAM, 1TB of storage, great display, ultra fast charging – it’s everything a gamer would want in a phone that’s only priced at half the usual contenders.

Once again, the POCO F-series is breaking the mold and beating expectations. That’s where the POCO F6 Pro currently stands. It’s far from perfect but it sure as hell is one of our bets for best bang-for-the-buck phone this year.

What we liked about it:

• Great display
• No lag in gameplay
• Fast charging speed

What we don’t like:

• Device heats up too quick in intense gameplay
• May give out over-sharpen and high-contrast photos

POCO F6 Pro specs:
6.67″ WQHD+ Flow AMOLED display @ 3200×1440 pixels
120Hz refresh rate, 1200 nits (4,000 nits peak brightness)
3840 PWM dimming, 12bit color
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset
Adreno 730 GPU
12GB, 16GB LPDDR5X RAM
256GB, 512GB, 1TB UFS 4.0 internal storage
50MP Light Fusion 800 f/1.6 main camera
8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide camera
2MP f/2.4 macro camera
8K @ 30fps video recording
16MP front camera
5G, dual nano SIM
WiFi 7 support
Bluetooth 5.3, dual Bluetooth
NFC
GPS
IR Blaster
Dual stereo speakers
In-screen fingerprint sensor (FOD)
AI Face Unlock
Xiaomi HyperOS 1.0
5,000mAh battery, 120W HyperCharge
160.86mm x 74.95mm x 8.21mm (dimensions)
209 grams (weight)
Black, White (colors)