How much performance can you pack into a smartphone in the $600-$700 segment in 2025 and are there any compromises? Xiaomi and Poco recently discovered how to navigate this situation by building the pretty crazy Poco F7 Ultra, which costs a cool $599 at launch. Here is our review.
The F7 Ultra comes in the typical playful Poco look. The large, circular, black camera island dominates the top left segment behind. On our yellow-colored review unit, this provides a strong contrast to the otherwise bright yellow back with its sophisticated surface.
The super-smooth glass back consists of individual segments that appear glossy or matte, depending on where the light lands. However, this happens from different angles, creating a more or less visible “etching” depending on the viewing angle. This has a comic-like quality and should go down well with the target demographic. Clearly, the F7 Ultra is not a smartphone for iPhone fans.
The frame around the smartphone is made of aluminum and feels excellent to the touch. The entire smartphone looks very solid, which is also further underlined by the IP68 certification. Unfortunately, there is no established Gorilla Glass type to protect the panel, but “only” Poco Shield Glass and a very scratch-prone screen protector that was applied at the factory. It’s best to order a screen protector to go along with the handset. Nevertheless, Poco also includes a simple dark gray silicone case in the box.
The display measures 6.67 inches across diagonally with super-sharp 3,200 x 1,440 pixels resolution, and the OLED display simply looks great. With up to 1,800 nits (HBM) and 3,200 nits (peak) brightness, the screen is extremely bright — surprisingly brighter on paper than the S25 Ultra (review), for example. Indeed, the difference is clearly visible under the blazing March sun in Europe. Thanks to a maximum refresh rate of 120 Hz, the display is also buttery smooth, although it can only be reduced to 60 Hz.
4 years of Android updates 6 years of security updates
Special features
The Poco F7 Ultra runs HyperOS 2.0 which is based on Android 15 and therefore, is the same operating system as all current Xiaomi smartphones. The user interface is comparatively colorful and somewhat playful in nature.
Compared to previous Xiaomi smartphones, however, the interface has become much more mature. What remains, however, is the comparatively large bloatware package. Six third-party apps came pre-installed on our review unit right out of the box. Although this is not a utopian amount, it is still unsightly for a smartphone that falls within this price range.
Xiaomi has clearly caught up in terms of update promises in recent years. The Poco F7 Ultra is now set to receive Android updates for up to four years, letting you install Android 19 on your handset in 2029 and be outdated only after 2030 has come to pass. The manufacturer guarantees security updates for up to six years.
That’s not on a par with Samsung, Google, or Honor, which guarantee some devices for seven years for both Android and security updates, but it’s still a solid statement of intent. After all, the hardware has to last for five years before it begins to show its age.
Even if the manufacturer doesn’t make a big deal of it, the Poco F7 Ultra also comes with all kinds of AI gimmicks. Gemini is on board as an assistant and can be called up directly with a long press via the on/off button. And yes, Gemini also has access to apps on the Poco handset and can key in appointments in your calendar or search for restaurants on Google Maps for instance.
There are also various image editing features you can play around with. You can impressively erase objects and people that fill half the frame from photos without leaving a trace, use AI to further expand photos that were taken too close, or change the sky to something more favorable in photos.
How Powerful Is the Poco F7 Ultra?
Performance
Processor
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite
Memory
Storage variants
Connectivity
Bluetooth 6.0, Wi-Fi 7, 5G, dual SIM (no eSIM)
The Poco F7 Ultra is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC, where you currently cannot find a more powerful processor in an Android smartphone. Unsurprisingly, the smartphone achieves the same level of performance as the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra or the equivalent. In synthetic benchmarks, the Poco smartphone performed even slightly better and achieved higher scores in continuous load benchmarks. However, the F7 Ultra is more prone to overheating than the Samsung flagship.
In everyday use that do not involve benchmarks, this looks far more harmless. In Genshin Impact, for instance, the smartphone never gets as hot as in the benchmarks but of course, not every last shred of performance matters here, either.
Speaking of performance, the Poco F7 Ultra also offers various options to optimize games. In the Game Turbo Suite, there is a graphics upscaler known as “2K Super Resolution” for games and with “Wild Boost”, the graphics performance can be boosted even further. The upscaler acts like a sharpener, increasing the micro-contrasts in the game and thus ensuring a sharper image effect. “Game Audio” was also designed to provide a more immersive sound experience in games when playing while wearing headphones.
Apart from that, the Poco F7 Ultra also offers Bluetooth 6.0, Wi-Fi 7, 5G, and dual SIM support but misses the mark by ommiting the eSIM and microSD slot. The lack of eSIM is indeed a shame, but I’ll ask you about the missing memory card slot: Do you really need one in 2025, at least for a handset in this price range?
Camera Experience
Camera
Main camera
Ultra wide-angle camera
Telephoto camera
Selfie camera
Maximum video resolution
8K @ 24 fps 4K @ 60 fps Full HD @ 960 fps
The camera often falls victim to the price-performance trade-off in high-performance Poco smartphones. This does not necessarily apply here. We already know the main camera in the F7 Ultra from the F6 Pro, and unsurprisingly, the image quality of the current model is also excellent during the day and still offers very good results in low light conditions. As is typical for Poco, the colors are quite bright but that’s definitely pretty Insta-worthy.
The sensors in the telephoto camera and the ultra wide-angle camera are significantly smaller than those in the main camera, and the image quality is noticeably lower, which you will notice when you zoom in or enlarge the photos. For most everyday scenes and sharing pictures over social media, however, the quality is generally perfectly adequate, at least if the subject is still.
The much bigger disadvantage of the smaller sensors is the relatively slow shutter speeds in mixed lighting conditions. These pose a greater risk of camera shake, especially with the zoom lens, than with the huge telephoto zoom sensor in the Xiaomi 15 Ultra (review), for instance. Of course, the Xiaomi 15 Ultra is simply in a different price class and does not have to make such a compromise.
A maximum resolution of 8K at 24 fps is possible in video mode. However, only the main camera can achieve this resolution as the other camera modules are limited to 4K resolution at 60 fps. Honestly speaking, that should be more than enough for everyday use. By the way: there is an ultra-slow motion mode that continuously records 240 fps at Full HD resolution. Even doing so at 960 fps is possible for about a second.
At 5,300 mAh capacity, the Poco F7 Ultra unfortunately has a good ten percent less battery capacity than the F7 Pro, although the more economical processor should compensate for this in theory. Unfortunately, our typical Work 3.0 battery benchmark from PCMark failed several times, but the half test runs indicate a result of around 12 to 14 hours, which would place the smartphone well below the Xiaomi 15, but still a completely decent performer in the mid-range segment. We will catch up on the review and update the test report here with the final result.
A note on this at this point: Since the smartphone has such a solid score of four stars according to our review protocol and this result can no longer be changed by the result of the battery benchmark, we are also publishing the review without including the final battery benchmark result.
The Chinese are traditionally strong when it comes to charging, and the Poco F7 Ultra is even more “ultra” than the large Xiaomi 15 Ultra (review). A maximum charging speed of 120 W is supported, which means a fully discharged F7 Ultra will gain more than 50 percent charge after being plugged in for less than 15 minutes; where a full battery charge takes anywhere between 30 and 35 minutes, depending on the ambient temperature.
Incidentally, wireless charging is also supported, which is another rarity in the Poco series at speeds of up to 50 W. If you want to take full advantage of this speed, you will need a proprietary wireless charger from Xiaomi. The same also applies to its 120 W wired charging: This also only works with a Hypercharge charger, which, unlike the global version, is unfortunately not included with the German-bound Poco F7 Ultra.
Should You Buy the Poco F7 Ultra?
The processor in the F7 Ultra is clearly the highlight of the device. For $600 for the early bird price or its $649 RRP, you won’t find more performance anywhere else at the moment. The display is also really fun and impressively bright.
Of course, Xiaomi also had to cut corners in certain places, where the camera is better on a Pixel smartphone in this price range, while Samsung and Google offer longer software support on their upper mid-range handsets.
Nevertheless, the trade-off in favor of maximum performance is not as pronounced in the Poco F7 Ultra than in previous models. Hence, the first Ultra handset from Poco with features such as wireless charging, a telephoto camera, etc. has far fewer flaws than some of its predecessors. If you like the design and want a real gaming monster, then we heartily recommend you pick it up without any hesitation.
Poco F7 Ultra Availability: Where to Buy It
As usual, Poco doesn’t sell devices in the US, but through their global website, they offer you the chance to buy it from AliExpress. However, you can also find them in different regions like Europe, India, and China. Poco offers the F7 Ultra in a total of four variants. You can buy the smartphone with either 256 or 512 GB of memory, plus 12 or 16 GB of RAM. You also have the choice between yellow and black colors.
The smallest 256 GB capacity of the Poco F7 Ultra costs $649 a pop based on the RRP, while the 512 GB version costs $699. From now until April 10, Mi.com is running an Early Bird promotion where you can save $50 on your purchase. During this period, you can also purchase the 120 W charger for $29.99 after a discount, since the charger is not included with each purchase.
