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The Poco F7 Ultra brings the flagship Snapdraon 8 Elite chip to the mid-range smartphone market, as well as a serviceable camera system that's as good as any other competitor at this price. Oh, and a frankly staggering battery life.
The Good
- High power delivered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite
- Incredible battery life
- Solid camera system with especially good portraits
The Not So Good
- Zoom beyond 5x is overly AI-processed
Need-to-knows
- Flagship Snapdragon chip delivers bags of power
- Cameras are good for this price range
- Battery life is brilliant and lasts well beyond a day
- Great value overall
The Poco F7 Ultra is Poco’s first-ever ‘ultra’ smartphone. If you’re not excited by that, you should be. Poco is a mid-range smartphone brand from Xiaomi, and those guys know what they’re doing at this price level.
This is also my first experience with a Poco phone. And I’m glad I said “yes” to the opportunity, because this is, without a doubt, one of the most fascinating smartphones I’ve ever tested. It might also be one of the best value smartphones on the market.
However, my review process for the Poco F7 Ultra on YouTube wasn’t what you’d call ‘typical’. I went a bit rogue, you see.
How I reviewed the Poco F7 Ultra
When I receive smartphone review units from brands, they usually come complete with a full spec sheet and a reviewer’s guide. And I read them. Not from cover to cover, but certainly enough to get a feel for the device and what I should be focusing on.
Read my full iPhone 16e review!
The Poco F7 Ultra came with both documents. I didn’t read either of them. I lie, actually – I did pay attention to the fact that it featured the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and the pricing tiers. But that was it. This isn’t because I no longer respect the review process or couldn’t be bothered; it’s because the presence of Qualcomm’s latest chip in such a well-priced device was fascinating enough for me to just use it at face value.
I did that by popping my second SIM card in and using the Poco F7 Ultra as my secondary smartphone (alongside the iPhone 16e) for a couple of weeks, which included a long weekend break in the UK.
Specs and pricing
These are the specs and pricing tiers for the Poco F7 series – including the specs that I did not know while testing the phone for my YouTube video review.
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Powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite, the Poco F7 Ultra comes in two configurations – one with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage and the other with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. They’re priced at £649 and £699 in the UK, respectively.
The display is 6.67” with a 2K resolution and a 120Hz variable refresh rate. It also has 3,840Hz PWM dimming and 3,200 nits of peak brightness and is covered with Poco Shield Glass. There’s also IP68 water and dust resistance and stereo speakers.
The battery is a 5,300mAh unit featuring 120W HyperCharge and 50W wireless HyperCharge, and everything is powered by Xiaomi HyperOS 2, which is based on Android 15.
The full pricing for the Poco F7 series is:
- POCO F7 Ultra
- 12+256, £649
- 16+512, £699
- POCO F7 Pro
- 12+256, £499
- 12+512, £549
Design
The Poco F7 Ultra is available in yellow and black. I was sent the latter to review, although I’ve seen plenty of images of the yellow version and, to be honest, if pushed, I’d opt for that one.
The black F7 Ultra is still a great-looking phone, though. In my YouTube review, I described it as ‘professional’, which sounds like a back-handed compliment, but it really isn’t. It’s understated yet smart-looking and feels very well-built.
I inadvertently tested the latter suspicion during our family getaway when I dropped the F7 Ultra onto a concrete floor. I was sitting at the time, therefore, the drop was no more than half my leg’s length, but it’s still the last thing you want to happen to your smartphone. The F7 Ultra emerged relatively unscathed, with just a few small chips to the casing (the display was spotless).
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I like the fact that the camera bump on the F7 Ultra isn’t too big and doesn’t protrude too much. As a result, it’s a really well-balanced phone when placed on a desktop. That’s refreshing in a world of massive camera-bumped phones.
The display? It’s lovely, because of course it is – this is an Android device, and we’ve reached the point in that realm where I would be astonished if it wasn’t super bright, fast, and all-encompassing. iPhone 16e beater in that regard? Of course it is.
Performance
If we’ve not met before, I’m the British tech reviewer on YouTube who never benchmarks his smartphones and never games on them, either. I have little interest in either practice, but I appreciate they might matter to you.
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The good news for gamers and those who want to know how well the F7 Ultra stacks up when pushed to the limits is the fact that it’s powered by that Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. It should also be comforting that one of the key things Xiaomi encouraged reviewers to do while testing the phone was play some hard-hitting games. I didn’t because that’s not my bag, but I’ve seen this device in action at the hands of others, and it looks great.
Strip all of that back, however, and you can’t escape the fact that we’re getting flagship internals and performance for mid-range money. And that really means something.
Xiaomi’s HyperOS 2 is a joy to use, too. There’s not too much bloatware installed at all, and it’s a considerate reimagining of Android 15 – like most Android variants I’ve tried. Just like the display and performance game, this is fast becoming a deliciously moot point.
Battery life? It is astonishing.
I charged up the F7 Ultra before we headed away on our long weekend at Sherwood Forest Center Parcs, and 81 hours into the trip, HyperOS 2 joyfully informed me that there were five hours still left in the tank. That’s over three days of use and at least half a day in reserve. I can’t think of a phone that has performed this well, battery-wise. Ever.
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And if you’re about to suggest this is because I wasn’t using it as my main phone, there is a shred of truth there. As noted earlier, it was carrying my secondary SIM card, but it was in use a lot that weekend – I barely used my iPhone 16e, to be honest.
If battery life is important to you (which is almost certainly is), the Poco F7 Ultra will take some beating.
Camera
The Poco F7 Ultra has a 50MP main camera with optical image stabilisation (OIS), a 50MP telephoto with a 2.5x optical zoom and OIS, a 32MP ultra-wide (without OIS), and a 32MP front selfie camera (again, without OIS).
To put this camera system to the test, I did two things with it. Firstly, I took it to the old Top Gear test track during a hot lap session with ex-Stig Ben Collins (yes, I really just wrote that, and I still can’t believe it’s true). Secondly, I took it on the aforementioned family holiday to Center Parcs.
The F7 Ultra takes great photos. Really great. They’re sharp, vibrant, and processed just enough not to be obnoxious.
It’s also a fast and reliable camera system which rarely – if ever – failed to capture my fast-moving two-year-old son. Which is all that matters to me these days, to be honest.
The zoom capabilities for a relatively short optical focal length telephoto are also great. As noted, I had no idea what the camera specs were when I tested the F7 Ultra, and the 5x felt very much optical to me. It isn’t – it’s as digital as you like, but whatever the software is doing behind the scenes is scarily convincing.
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Go beyond 5x and, just like every smartphone these days, you’re into highly processed territory. At the far reaches of the zoom range (which extends to a maximum of 60x) things get very AI-ified, and I still have no idea who needs that much zoom in everyday life.
Video performance is great, even if it’s where the F7 Ultra starts to reveal some of its mid-range concessions. For instance, it can go right up to 8K at 24FPS (bonkers), but the wide-angle lens and front-facing camera are both only capable of shooting 1080p, maximum. That’s a bit disconcerting when switching focal lengths, but it’s a fair compromise, I guess.
Camera comparison: iPhone 16 Pro Max vs Samsung S25 Ultra
For the money (and even beyond the prices of these phones), this is a brilliant camera system.
Conclusion
The Poco F7 Ultra might be the best value mid-range Android phone on the market at the moment.
If it’s available in your region, it should be on your list. Right at the top, actually, if only for that incredible battery performance alone. The fact that the build quality, performance, camera system, and durability are equally as impressive nudges the Poco F7 Ultra into no-brainer territory.
