One of the most prominent flagship-killer series in the smartphone world just got a refresh for 2025. The POCO F7 Ultra is here, and we got our hands on it.
The latest in the POCO F series boasts a specs list that is also found on competing devices that cost much more. It has a proper flagship processor, fancy display, high-resolution cameras, big battery, and fast charging speeds.
In our POCO F7 Ultra review, we’ll see if it’s actually a good alternative to more expensive flagship Android phones in the market today.
POCO F7 Ultra Specs
- Android 15, HyperOS 2
- Dual SIM, Dual Standby
- 6.67-inch 2K AMOLED display, 3200 x 1440 pixel resolution, ~526ppi
- 120Hz adaptive refresh rate, 480Hz touch sampling, 2560Hz instantaneous touch sampling
- 1800-nits High Brightness Mode, 3200-nits peak brightness
- 12-bit color, DCI-P3, 3840Hz PWM dimming
- POCO Shield Glass
- 4.32GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite octa-core processor
- LiquidCool Technology 4.0, 3D Dual-channel IceLoop System
- VisionBoost D7 12nm chipset
- Adreno 830 GPU
- 12GB/16GB RAM, LPDDR5X
- 256GB/512GB UFS 4.1 internal storage, non-expandable
- 32-megapixel front camera
- 50-megapixel (1/1.55″ Light Fusion 800, f/1.6, OIS) + 50-megapixel (2.5x telephoto, f/2.0, OIS) + 32-megapixel (ultra-wide, f/2.2) rear cameras, LED flash
- IP68 dust and water resistant
- Ultrasonic in-display fingerprint scanner
- Stereo speakers
- HSPA+, 4G LTE, 5G
- WiFi 7
- Bluetooth 6.0
- dual-frequency GPS
- NFC
- IR blaster
- USB-C
- Dimensions: 160.26 x 74.95 x 8.39mm
- Weight: 212g
- Colors: Yellow, Black
- 5,300mAh non-removable battery, 120W wired, 50W wireless charging
Design and Build Quality
The POCO F7 Ultra doesn’t feel cheap in the hands like other more affordable handsets from POCO. The bizarre design accent around the camera looks a little perky and feels far from how premium it actually feels in the hands.
What we have here is the vibrant Yellow colorway, a signature of the POCO brand. The second and only alternative color is Black. It really doesn’t matter much, but kudos to POCO for not coming up with cheesy names for the color options.
I’ll give the aesthetics a score of 7.5 out of 10. POCO made it look very distinct without overdoing it, so it’s relatively clean and simple.
The rear glass frame on the upper part is shiny and glossy while the rest comes with a matte finish, so it stays free from fingerprint marks and smudges.
But what stunned us was how incredible it is to hold. It is incredibly sleek, thin, and light. It uses a metallic frame with smooth curves on the back that feels really great in the hands. Albeit going with slight curves on the screen, instead of being completely flat, would’ve made it more comfortable to hold.
POCO also highlighted its IP68 dust and water resistance, which the company claims allow the F7 Ultra to survive static-water submersion of up to 2.5 meters deep for half an hour.
It did survive accidental water splashes, but I didn’t dare submerge it deliberately in a pool. The overall rigidity of the device is also solid. No creaks or squeaks when I did a couple of light bend tests.
The gray rubber case provides good protection for the display, and the camera island is already protected by an aerospace-grade aluminum reco ring. Xiaomi also pre-applied a screen protector on top of the new POCO Shield Glass.
It may not have the most ravishing looks, but the POCO F7 Ultra is definitely distinctive and was built with durability and luxury in mind — as a proper flagship killer phone should be.
Taking a tour, we have a 6.67-inch AMOLED screen on the front with the fingerprint scanner underneath and a punch-hole on top for the selfie camera. It doesn’t have the thinnest bezels we’ve seen, but they are uniform on all sides.
The top is clean, while the bottom has the loudspeaker, USB-C port, microphone, and a SIM tray for two nano SIMs. Like most high-end phones, there’s no microSD card slot for storage expansion here.
Left side is clean, while the right side has the volume controls and lock/power switch. The physical buttons are flat, sleek, tactile, and really clicky.
The rear has the circular camera island on the left, which houses the three shooters and other sensors like the IR blaster. A wide pill-shaped LED flash is placed on the right. The camera bump is quite substantial but acceptable.
Display and Audio
The POCO F7 Ultra has a 6.67-inch 2K AMOLED screen with a sharp 3200 x 1440 pixel resolution, 526ppi, 60Hz/120Hz adaptive refresh rate, 3200-nit peak brightness, 1800-nit under High Brightness Mode, up to 480Hz touch sampling rate, 2560Hz instant touch sampling rate, 12-bit color, DCI-P3 coverage, and 3840Hz PWM dimming.
It is also rigged with a dedicated VideoBoost D7 chipset that enables better frame rates, resolution, and HDR in games. There’s a special “Original Color Pro” mode in the settings and adjustable resolution (FHD+ and WQHD+), with FHD+ enabled by default to save battery.
The display quality is outstanding, from the colors, contrast, smoothness, and brightness. HDR10, Dolby Vision, and HD streaming also worked well.
Unlike other flagships, POCO amped up the earpiece to work as the second driver for the stereo setup instead of having a dedicated one. It’s underwhelming on its own, but together with the primary speaker at the bottom, it provides impressive sound quality.
I’m getting a spatial-like feel from the loudspeakers; the treble is very crisp, and the bass is really felt, which made watching trailers and action films really enjoyable.
Hardware and Performance
The POCO F7 Ultra is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite 3nm chipset, just like other flagships in the market today. It consists of two prime cores clocked up to 4.32GHz and 6 performance cores up to 3.53GHz.
POCO F7 Ultra Benchmark Scores
It is paired with an Adreno 830 GPU and cooled with an advanced LiquidCool Technology 4.0 with a 3D Dual-channel IceLoop System. You can get it with 12GB/16GB of LPDDR5X RAM and 256GB/512GB UFS 4.1 storage. The review unit we have is the 16GB/512GB variant.
Unsurprisingly, the F7 Ultra breezes through basic and day-to-day tasks with no issues — from web browsing, media consumption, shooting videos, and more. Having one of the best processors in the mobile world, I expect it to handle games without breaking a sweat. But let’s check it out anyway.
Genshin Impact was incredibly smooth under the Highest resolution at 60fps. What’s more impressive is, the cooling system handled the thermals well even after extensive gaming.
It also played PUBG Mobile with no problems under Ultra HDR graphics and Ultra frame rate. But to unlock the Ultra Extreme frame rates, I had to settle for the Smooth graphics instead. For a game like this, I prefer smoothness over image quality.
Call of Duty: Mobile, one of the most optimized shooters around, had no issues using Max settings. Farlight84 also ran smoothly under the highest available settings, as well as Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and Asphalt Legends Unite.
So, to no one’s surprise, the POCO F7 Ultra can definitely game, and it’s really good at it.
| Game | Graphics Settings |
| Call of Duty: Mobile | • Graphics Quality: Max • Frame Rate: Max |
| Farlight84 | • Graphics Quality: Extreme • Frame Rate: Very High |
| PUBG Mobile | • Graphics Quality: Smooth / Ultra HDR • Frame Rate: Ultra Extreme / Ultra Extreme |
| Genshin Impact | • Render Resolution: Highest • Visual Effects: High • FPS: 60 |
| Mobile Legends: Bang Bang | • Graphics Quality: Ultra • Frame Rate: Ultra • HD Mode: On |
| Asphalt Legends Unite | • Visual Quality: High Quality • Frame Rate: 120 |
Software and User Interface
The POCO F7 Ultra runs on the latest Android 15-based HyperOS 2. Xiaomi highlights its two key improvements: HyperCore for improved performance optimization; HyperConnect which offers improved pairing with Windows, iOS, and macOS platforms; and of course, HyperAI, the company’s suite of AI features for creativity and productivity.
HyperCore appears to work well, at least based on our performance tests discussed earlier. It offers incredibly smooth performance for day-to-day tasks to gaming.
The Game Turbo is accessible on any game. It lets you switch between performance modes (Gaming, Balanced, and Wild Boost), quickly access recently used apps, free up memory, enable DND, screen record, use a voice changer, and more.
For the HyperConnect, we have features like Link to Windows. You can also link your iOS/macOS device, but the footnotes state an app called Xiaomi Connectivity Service is required. I don’t know why but I can’t find it yet on the Play Store or Xiaomi’s own app store.
Interconnectivity between Xiaomi products has also been improved since the conception of HyperOS, and we’re seeing it here.
For the HyperAI, the POCO F7 Ultra ditches Google Assistant with Google Gemini. Press and hold the lock/power button to summon Gemini and start asking questions and issuing commands more easily.
Standard AI features like AI-powered writer, gallery editor, speech recognition, interpreter, subtitles, and search are also here, albeit it’s odd that you need to create a Xiaomi account — on top of your signed-in Google account — before you can use it. I appreciated the Xiaomi HyperAI section in the settings, which shows how you can use all these AI features.
Xiaomi also highlights HyperOS 2’s customizability, especially on the lock screen. It’s now more extensive with adjustable effects, fonts, layout, and more. Some are even animated if you wanna go extra.
The POCO F7 Ultra is the first from the brand to have an ultrasonic in-display fingerprint scanner. It’s noticeably faster than the older optical technology.
Face unlock worked seamlessly, too, even in pitch-black rooms with the help of the extra screen brightness lighting up your face.
Xiaomi kept the bloatware at a minimum this time around. I’ve seen some preinstalled third-party apps, but they can be easily uninstalled. Sadly, a lot of the baked-in Google apps cannot be removed.
The app drawer is feature rich. You can swipe left/right to quickly switch between categories or find what you’re looking for quickly via the tab at the bottom.
Virtual Memory Expansion that converts storage into extra RAM is also available. You can adjust the capacity to 6GB, 8GB,12GB, or 16GB, or turn it off completely in the settings. The difference is barely noticeable, so I suggest leaving it off.
There’s a heart rate sensor hidden in the settings that utilizes the camera and LED flash to get a reading. Although it’s a bit finicky to use due to the awkward camera layout.
The Mi Remote works really well, despite the IR blaster being on the back instead of the top, like other phones. In fact, infrared has an impressive range with line-of-sight pointing needed. It works like the Bluetooth remotes smart TVs have.
It doesn’t have the most intuitive camera app, but it gets the job done. Google Keyboard is enabled by default, which has a more familiar layout and easy customizability than other keyboards on the Play Store.
Cameras
The POCO F7 Ultra sports a 50-megapixel Light Fusion 800 1/1.55-inch sensor, with a bright f/1.6 aperture and optical image stabilization. It is joined by a 50-megapixel floating telephoto lens that also has OIS, f/2.0 aperture, and 10cm macro capability.
There’s also a sharp 32-megapixel ultra-wide lens, and a similar pixel count for selfies on the front. The F7 Ultra has a flexible set of cameras for the price, but how well do they actually perform? Check out the samples below.
Daylight shots from the 50-megapixel main camera look solid. POCO didn’t overdo the colors in post-processing. The details were left alone and look real when you crop in with no over sharpening. The dynamic range was handled well, even in challenging lighting conditions. Shutter speed can be faster in impromptu moments, though.
It uses the same main camera of the 1x 24mm zoom for the 2x that has a 48mm focal length. Details, while inevitably softer, are still not that bad. It’s a handy focal length option for those who want to close in and focus on a subject, especially in architecture, landscape, and even portraits.
Image quality held up pretty well in low-light, but the dynamic range took some time to settle in on some occasions, which resulted in overblown highlights. Still, the sharpness and colors are often on point.
Tapping the 2.5x button gets us to the dedicated 50-megapixel telephoto camera that has a 60mm equivalent.
Image quality is identical to the main shooter. I’m seeing the same impressive details, colors, and dynamic range. Portrait Mode also works well on this lens, but low-light shots could be a bit better.
The 32-megapixel ultra-wide camera takes decent photos with a lot of details and exposure. Colors are slightly off with a weird tint on top of them, but I’m hoping it’s nothing a software update can’t fix. Barrel distortion could be better as well, although I can’t really complain much at this price point.
I got decent shots from the 32-megapixel selfie camera. Details and skin tones look fine, no matter the lighting scenario. The dynamic range is terrible, though.
The POCO F7 Ultra doesn’t have a great camera setup. But in my opinion, the image quality and lens options it provides are really enough to for its price, especially considering that it’s performance focused. Let’s just wait for Xiaomi to rollout software updates that fixes a few quirks in the ultra-wide and selfie cameras.
Battery and Charging
The POCO F7 Ultra is equipped with a 5,300mAh battery with staggering 120W wired and 50W wireless charging speeds — much faster than what other flagships offer.
It lasted for 14 hours and 48 minutes in our PCMark test, which is below the average score of 16 hours on other flagship phones I’ve tested in the past. However, it lasted much longer in our more realistic test of looping a 1080p YouTube Video. It went for 19 hours and 23 minutes, versus the average score of 15 hours and 34 minutes.
The bottom line is, the F7 Ultra has a really solid battery life. It easily lasted us for a whole day of taking pictures, browsing over data, and even with WiFi hotspot on.
Charging speed is unsurprisingly fast. But to make sure you take advantage of the full 120W, don’t forget to enable the “Top Speed” charging in the settings. Xiaomi does warn you that your phone might overheat under such speeds, so be mindful of that.
I did test out the difference between the Standard and Top Speed charging modes below and I’m not surprised by the results. Personally, I prefer the Standard for safety, unless I’m really in a hurry.
- 15mins: 40% / 44%
- 30mins: 72% / 79%
- 43mins: 96% / FULL
- 45mins: FULL / FULL
Verdict
So, is the POCO F7 Ultra really a flagship killer? Yes, in more ways than one. Xiaomi proved again that they can rival other flagship phones in the market even with a much cheaper price tag.
The F7 Ultra has all the specs and features you’d expect from a high-end smartphone: a Snapdragon 8 Elite chip that’s one of the most powerful chips around, a feature-packed display, incredible speakers, a variety of camera options, and of course, reliable battery life.
Xiaomi also went above and beyond by including a whopping 120W wired and 50W wireless charging speeds that even some prominent brands with their ridiculously priced flagships don’t have.
It’s not without its flaws, of course. The design, while unique, is forgettable. Also, the image quality from the ultra-wide and selfie cameras needs some work.
Still, there’s no denying that the POCO F7 Ultra is one of the best flagship killer phones you can get in the market today — and not just because of the price.
POCO F7 Ultra pricing and availability in the Philippines
The POCO F7 Ultra has an SRP of Php36,999 for the 12GB/256GB model, while the review unit we had, which has a 16GB/512GB configuration, retails for Php39,999. Like other POCO products, we expect this to occasionally go on sale at online shopping platforms, so watch out for that.
Pros
- Premium, durable build
- Top-notch flagship performance
- Loud, crisp, bass-y speakers
- Flexible camera options
- 120W wired and 50W wireless charging
Cons
- Forgettable design
- Ultra-wide, selfie cameras could be better