Poco announced its new flagship at the end of March. In Singapore, we were able to get acquainted with the new Poco F7 Ultra. We were able to test that phone over the past few weeks, and we share our experiences in the Poco F7 Ultra review.
Poco F7 Ultra: our experiences
DroidApp had the honour of travelling to Asian Singapore at the end of March to witness the announcement of the Poco F7 Ultra and the Poco F7 Pro up close. We shared our preview of the F7 Ultra last week. Over the past few weeks, we've already had the chance to put the phone through its paces, so it's high time to share our experiences with you. Because with the Poco F7 Ultra, Xiaomi's subsidiary is targeting the high-end market, but with a lower price. A successful move? You can find out in the Poco F7 Ultra review.
Design and interface
We can already see the surprises Poco has in store with the sales package. A plastic screen protector is already pasted on the Poco F7 Ultra's screen and even a simple, silicone case is included right away. Unlike Apple and Samsung, for instance, the range of cases always remains a bit less with this kind of device, but that doesn't have to make the fun any less. Although our review copy comes with the 120W charger, it is not included in the retail versions, according to the manufacturer's information.
We already wrote about it in the Poco F7 Ultra review. The smartphone looks very good. The back is part matte and part glass, in which we can see another effect with the latter, along with the camera module. The phone is available in yellow, or in black as we see with this one. With the black colour, we see a nice copper ring around the camera module. It immediately reminded me of the Nokia 6.1, though there were more copper accents on that. The smartphone has the keys on the right side, and we see the speaker, USB-C connector and SIM card slot on the bottom.
On the front of the Poco F7 Ultra, we see a 6.67-inch AMOLED display. This delivers a resolution of 3200 x 1440 pixels and a refresh rate of 120Hz. The screen is easy to read on sunny days; so that came in handy in Singapore. On the front is also a 32-megapixel camera for taking selfies.
The phone looks good in the hand and doesn't slip easily. However, it is still a nice size in terms of phone. In that case, using the Poco will take some getting used to.
Interface
The Poco F7 Ultra has the same software skin as Xiaomi devices. This means we see HyperOS back on the smartphone. At first, I found this really getting used to, but it actually gets used surprisingly quickly. We do miss, for instance, an option to customise the grid, where you can add more icons to the home screen. Also familiar is the menu, which lists apps vertically in front of you. In the menu, however, we also see handy tabs, where certain categories of apps are bundled together. This way, you can quickly access your photography apps, or just for communication or entertainment.
What strikes us is that the interface does seem to be slightly tighter than the one on different Xiaomi models. For instance, Xiaomi's interface has square app icons by default, and although you can download themes and icon styles, this still looks different, in a positive sense.
It is noticeable that the device comes with quite a lot of bloaware. For instance, we find Amazon Shopping, LinkedIn, WPS Office, AliExpress, Booking and several other applications already directly on the device.
Your notifications are bundled in one screen and, as we know from Android 15, we find the quick settings in the other screen. We find it a pity that the shortcuts on the lock screen cannot be customised. On the Poco, you will find the option to use the Always-on display, which keeps the screen always on.
Communication and multimedia
A phone was originally released once for making calls. Of course, the Poco can do that too. Call quality is excellent and we don't notice any annoying features while talking on the phone. There is room for two nano SIM cards. But very strangely; we don't see any support for eSIM. Something very noticeable, as almost every high-end today offers this. Besides, we also see it in mid-end devices, but at Poco, eSIM support has been omitted from the Poco F7 Ultra. Now that might not be a dealbreaker for everyone, it does make a holiday data bundle in a country outside Europe a lot easier. So with the Poco, you can forget about that. Too bad.
In terms of multimedia, the Poco F7 Ultra does not disappoint. The picture quality is, as mentioned, very good. For the music lover, there is also good news. The Poco's speakers are of good quality and can go really loud.
Camera
The circular camera module of the Poco F7 Ultra houses three lenses. These are a 50-megapixel main camera, a 50-megapixel telephoto lens and a 32-megapixel wide-angle lens. The camera app is clear to use and captures images quickly. On top of that, you can still choose from several modes and you can opt to use things like a watermark or grid lines, for example.
We used the Poco F7 Ultra's camera in a variety of conditions. The days in Singapore obviously lent themselves well to this. The Poco F7 Ultra takes absolutely great photos. We see a wide dynamic range and generally the white balance is also fine. The F7 does go a bit enthusiastic with the saturation every now and then, making some photos a bit over the top in terms of colours.
Overall, however, we can definitely say that the Poco F7 Ultra manages to take brilliant photos. Not just during the day, but especially at night, we see clear, sharp photos. Zooming can be done with the 2.5x telephoto lens, which also gives great results. You can also opt for 5x hybrid zoom. The wide-angle lens also does a good job, but sometimes we would have liked the edges to be a bit sharper; although we often see this with smartphones.
Check out the photos we took with the phone in the F7 Ultra' s digital photo album.
Video camera
Filming is also no problem with the Poco F7 Ultra. The smartphone lets you film in up to 8K at 24fps. Of course, lower resolutions are also possible, The video images are of high quality and very colourful. When switching between lenses at night, you notice quite a bit of colour difference, something you hardly see during the day. You can watch two videos we shot with the Poco below.
Performance and battery life
We find the powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset in the Poco F7 Ultra. In several devices, this processor has already proven itself and in the Poco, too, it is a breeze. Add to that the 16GB RAM memory and you have a blazingly fast device. For storage, we have 512GB available. However, a variant with 12GB RAM and 256GB storage is also available for sale. We do notice that the phone sometimes gets a bit warm, even though we don't even put it under heavy load in our opinion.
With a 5300 mAh battery, you won't have to worry about running out of power for the time being, you might think. The Poco F7 Ultra will last a day with average to heavy use, but that's about where it ends. We note an average screen time around 4.5-5 hours on the mobile network, which is certainly not bad, but with this capacity, we would have expected a bit more. Fortunately, there is an upside; if the battery is dead, it can be recharged lightning-fast with the 120W charger. In just over half an hour, you'll have a full battery again.
Update policy
Poco was immediately clear at the announcement about what we can expect in terms of updates. Four Android updates and six years of security updates are planned for the F7 Ultra. This means you can be sure of version updates at least until Android 19 and March 2031 for security patches. It's a less generous update policy than competitors offer, but not a bad one.
Review
Poco shows with the Poco F7 Ultra that a high-end smartphone does not have to go far above a thousand euros in terms of price. We've spent the past few weeks with the Poco F7 Ultra extensively and we really liked it, the smartphone is incredibly fine. A nice design, very good screen, good camera and a lightning-fast full battery. Although you still have to buy the charger yourself. The battery is an immediate point of improvement for the smartphone, though. We really did expect a lot more from this. The endurance is not bad, but we hope a software update can bring some improvements here.
If you're looking for a new flagship device that won't disappoint you easily, we can definitely recommend the Poco F7 Ultra. You can purchase the Poco F7 Ultra directly from Belsimpel. Later, the device will also become available at Bol.com, Coolblue and MediaMarkt.
