POCO F7 – review of a large smartphone on an almost flagship platform

With the release of the POCO F7, Xiaomi continues to experiment with smartphone features, trying to create a model that could compete with flagships but cost less. Read the review to find out if it succeeded this time.

The editorial team would like to thank Allo company for kindly providing the POCO F7 smartphone for review.

Features

Package contents

The POCO F7 packaging is made in the brand's signature black and yellow colors. In the box you will find only a USB-C cable, a SIM clip, a simple matte case and documentation. A protective film is glued to the screen right from the factory. Unfortunately, there is no power supply in the official Ukrainian package. This situation is due to the fact that in Ukraine they sell the European version of the device with a "reduced" configuration, the manufacturer has been removing chargers for our market for some time. Instead, the global version comes with a 90 W adapter. However, the lack of charging is no longer a critical problem for many users.

Design and materials

Since POCO is a subsidiary brand of Xiaomi, its designers have more freedom in terms of the style of new models and they may not rely on the appearance of previous versions. Therefore, the POCO F7 is not at all similar to last year's F6 and even differs from the older models of the F7 line. I received a version in black with a glossy back cover, which is diagonally divided by a different pattern, and this same dividing line is duplicated on the camera block.

This is an interesting design technique that somewhat distinguishes the POCO F7 from other monoblock models. But the best, in my opinion, the smartphone looks in the Cyber Silver color, in which part of the back cover is made in silver, and the other part is transparent with various geometric shapes under the glass and the Snapdragon logo.

Putting aside subjective impressions of the design, considering the 6.83-inch display and 6500 mAh battery, the smartphone turned out to be quite large and heavy: 163.1×77.9×8.2 mm, 215 grams. However, it feels well-built and is pleasant to hold in your hands. The combination of a glass back and an aluminum frame really resembles flagship models and does not create a feeling of "toyness" or cheapness.

The front of the screen is protected by Gorilla Glass 7i, which promises increased resistance to scratches and cracks. The smartphone also has full protection against water and dust according to the IP68 standard, meaning it is not afraid of immersion in water up to 1.5 meters for 30 minutes. This is a nice addition, because not all competitors in this class can boast of water resistance.

However, the smartphone also has a few practical nuances related to the design. The SIM tray is designed for two nanoSIM cards, but it does not support eSIM, neither in the global nor in the European versions. And the infrared port, traditional for Xiaomi, in the POCO F7 has moved from the top edge to the camera block, so now the smartphone needs to be directed a little differently at devices compatible with the IR port.

The stereo speakers in the POCO F7 produce loud sound and support Dolby Atmos, their sound will be enough for watching videos, although the quality does not reach the level of the best flagships. But the vibration feedback in the smartphone was pleasantly impressed, despite the rather large size and weight, the linear drive has a fairly wide range of operation and provides different levels of vibration for different actions in the operating system.

Overall, the POCO F7 turned out to be a rather large smartphone, but it is well-built, has protection against water and dust, and a rather unique back cover design.

Display

The screen is one of the main advantages of the POCO F7. The model has a 6.83-inch AMOLED display with thin, even bezels. The resolution of the matrix is 2772×1280 pixels, which at this diagonal gives a high pixel density per inch (447 ppi). The refresh rate reaches 120 Hz, ensuring smooth animations and scrolling. There are 60 Hz, 120 Hz or automatic modes. The panel supports all current standards for improving the dynamic range, such as HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, so content on Netflix or YouTube is displayed with rich colors and wide contrast.

The typical screen brightness is at 800 nits, in the sun POCO F7 can automatically increase it to 1700 nits, which allows you to comfortably read the display in the sun. The peak brightness of the screen reaches 3200 nits, but it is supported for a short time in certain scenarios, such as HDR video. In addition, the smartphone uses a high frequency of PWM dimming – 3840 Hz, which means the screen has brightness control without noticeable flickering. Thanks to this, even people sensitive to PWM should not feel discomfort from flickering at low brightness.

Overall, the POCO F7's display is lacking the LTPO technology to directly compete with flagships, which would make the always-on display more efficient and consume less power. However, even without LTPO, the POCO F7's display is excellent for its class: it's large, bright, contrasting, and has a high refresh rate.

Performance and hardware platform

The POCO F7 is built on the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 platform, a new 4nm chip from Qualcomm, which outperforms the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor released in 2022, but lags slightly behind the 8 Gen 3. Accordingly, we have a fairly good level of performance for a model in this price category. The Adreno 825 graphics are also suitable for modern games like Diablo Immortal or GRID Autosport, but not at maximum settings.

The RAM capacity is 12 GB of LPDDR5X type, which is more than enough for multitasking, dozens of applications can be kept in memory without reboots. The smartphone uses a fast UFS 4.1 storage, memory options are available: 256 or 512 GB. Expansion with a memory card is not supported. But this is typical for modern smartphones, in which manufacturers do not want to combine fast built-in memory with slower memory cards.

The POCO F7 has a new 3D Dual-Channel IceLoop cooling system, and the manufacturer promises that it will ensure stable processor operation even during long gaming sessions. In games, for example, in the same Diablo Immortal, the smartphone really tries to balance performance and heating, after more than 20 minutes of playing it becomes warm, but the body temperature remains comfortable.

However, the manufacturer made a choice in the direction of performance, just like in Xiaomi 15, and configured the platform so that it does not try to avoid overheating. Therefore, in the 3Dmark stress test, the POCO F7 demonstrates stability at 76% and performance when heated, which is higher even than the results of flagships on the more powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. However, already on the 20th lap of the test, the smartphone temperature begins to exceed 52 degrees Celsius, and it may report overheating. Of course, such a load in real applications or games on Android is not yet possible, so Xiaomi's similar approach to platform and heating settings has the right to life, and again the test results are higher than those of competitors.

HyperOS 2 operating system

The new product runs on Android 15 with Xiaomi's proprietary HyperOS 2.0 shell. For POCO, it is no different from the one used in Xiaomi smartphones. We have the same interface that replaced MIUI, with all its features and, unfortunately, a continuation of the tradition of integrating advertising into proprietary applications that must be disabled manually.

The most pleasant moment is updates and support, as the manufacturer promises 4 years of Android updates and 6 years of security updates for the POCO F7. This means that a smartphone purchased in 2025 will potentially receive new OS versions up to Android 19 and will be relevant in terms of security until about 2031.

In terms of features, HyperOS 2 in POCO F7 also has built-in artificial intelligence capabilities. For example, there is an integrated Google Gemini chatbot, which is called by long pressing the power button. There are also familiar tools like the "magic eraser" for removing unwanted objects from photos, "smart notes", the Circle to Search function (searching the screen for selected content), etc. We have seen most of these features in recent versions of MIUI, so HyperOS continues to develop them. Overall, the interface is rich in features, but it takes some getting used to if you have not used MIUI before.

Cameras

In POCO F7, the manufacturer does not particularly focus on photo capabilities. The smartphone has only two cameras:

• 50-megapixel, f/1.5, 26mm focal length, 1/1.95", 0.8µm, PDAF, optical stabilization;
• 8-megapixel, f/2.2, 15 mm focal length, 1/4", 1.12 μm, electronic stabilization.

The main module uses the Sony IMX882 sensor, equipped with optical image stabilization. This is not a top-of-the-line sensor - the physical size of the 1/1.95" matrix is somewhat smaller than that of flagship cameras, and the IMX882 model itself does not belong to Sony's latest developments. Additionally, only an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera is installed - unfortunately, without autofocus and with a small 1/4" matrix. In fact, this is a rather modest module in terms of capabilities, which is found in many mid-range models. There is no separate telephoto camera or macro lens here - such a solution saves money, but narrows the shooting possibilities. The front camera has a resolution of 20 megapixels and an aperture of f/2.2 - a typical parameter designed more for good lighting.

However, not everything is as bad as it might seem from the characteristics. With sufficient lighting, the main camera of the POCO F7 can take quite detailed shots with the correct white balance and wide dynamic range. At night, the result is also decent, thanks to optical stabilization and night mode, the camera extracts a lot of light, while maintaining decent sharpness. The focusing speed depends on the lighting, but the smartphone rarely misses, the shutter is triggered instantly, but processing the saved photos takes a few more seconds. In general, the quality of the main camera of the POCO F7 does not lag behind other models in this class, but, of course, it loses to the flagships.

The wide-angle camera is significantly inferior to the main module. 8 megapixels provide average detail, noticeably worse clarity at the edges of the frame, and poor performance in the dark. This is quite expected, because the manufacturer saved money on this module.

The 20-megapixel front camera also shows itself as a completely ordinary selfie module: in good lighting, selfies come out detailed, but in more difficult conditions (room light, twilight) noise quickly appears.

The selfie camera won't impress demanding mobile photography enthusiasts, although its capabilities are sufficient for video calls and stories.

Battery life and charging

One of the key "chips" of the POCO F7 was its battery with an increased capacity. The European version has a 6500 mAh battery, which is significantly larger than most modern smartphones of this size. For comparison, even the older POCO F7 Pro received 6000 mAh, and the Ultra version - 5300 mAh, that is, the basic F7 has the largest battery in the family. In some markets, such as India, the company generally offers a modification with 7550 mAh, but only a "more modest" version is available in our region. However, as tests have shown, this is also more than enough: the battery life of the POCO F7 can be called above average.

In the PCMark test scenario (simulating continuous load with the screen on), the smartphone lasted almost 17 hours and 40 minutes. In real life, this translates into 1.5–2 days of work on a single charge with moderate use. This is less than you can expect from a battery of this capacity, but it is worth considering the almost flagship processor and the fact that most high-performance smartphones have battery life at the level of 1-1.5 days, depending on use.

The POCO F7 supports 90W wired charging (Xiaomi's HyperCharge technology). When using a compatible adapter (unfortunately, purchased separately), the F7 charges very quickly. Xiaomi promises 80% in 30 minutes. A full cycle from 0 to 100% takes about 37 minutes with the screen off and maximum charging mode activated.

The POCO F7 doesn't have wireless charging - this is one of the compromises the manufacturer made. However, there is a nice bonus: reverse wired charging with a capacity of 22.5 W is supported. That is, the POCO F7 can be used as a power bank and charge another smartphone or accessories from it.

The editorial team would like to thank the Allo company for kindly providing the POCO F7 smartphone for review.