POCO F7 Ultra Review | Geek Lifestyle

We’ve had our hands on the POCO F7 Ultra for a hot minute, put it through the wringer, and had a jolly good time with it overall. Yes, that’s the long story short, but you have to take into account that mostly gaming was involved–and POCO, in itself, focuses almost unabashedly on gaming. Given the landscape that’s teeming with new mobile titles, and people in search of a portable powerhouse to run all said titles, it’s nice to see the competition alive and well.

Given that the Snapdragon 8 Elite–the cream of the crop, is looking to be the flagship standard, it’s nice to see POCO break it out in such a remarkable way. Do you recall the last time they released an Ultra variant in their F series? We sure don’t. As such, the gloves are off, and we’re all here for it. Packing a top-tier chipset, more than capable specs, a massive battery, and a few bells and whistles worth your time–this one just might be early 2025’s sleeper hit.

Check out our first impressions here.

So, if you’ve been a fervent day-one POCO fan or simply got enticed by the rumblings on the internet about this sweet device series, stick around and see if this new Ultra-powered smartphone is for you.

Geeksthetic

First off, just check out that matte black finish. Gorgeous. Now, back to business.

Give the POCO F7 Ultra a spin and you’ll see that it’s a quad-curved glass back with some gloss-matte craftsmanship. Hence, the slick look. That glossy part up top may add to the aesthetic, but like everything that shines on a smartphone, it’s a fingerprint magnet. Best be warned. Still, that visual balance is kind of trippy to stare at. Speaking of the body, it’s 8.4 mm thin and a hefty 212 grams. Not heavy enough to slip out of your hands, but no lightweight either. Curved as it may be, the sides are flat enough to grip snugly–and of course, contain all the necessary I/O you’d need. Minus a headphone jack, sadly.

Now you’ve probably noticed the sharingan-esque camera cutout–and so have we. It’s rather distracting in a good way, if we’re keeping it a buck. What we’re getting is a circular segmentation design with the camera outline gilded with what’s supposed to be aerospace-grade aluminum. Quite the looker. Now, while POCO hasn’t exactly been everyone’s go-to when it comes to cameras, we’re hoping they’ll surprise us. More on that later.

As for the large display, it’s nice and bright from the moment you boot up the device, and remains as such throughout the day. Let’s touch base on that, shall we?

Binge-watching Factor

Now, let’s check out that 6.67″ 2K FLOW 1440 x 3200 resolution Ultra-bright display with a 120Hz refresh rate. POCO’s words, not ours–but we’re keen on agreeing with that “Ultra”  brightness. With 3200 nits ultra peak brightness and 1800 nits HBM, well, you’re pretty much covered, regardless of whether you’re HDR viewing under cover or under broad daylight. The POCO F7 Ultra’s equally ultra-slim bezel design is borderline chinless while barely having any borders at all in spite of a 89.3% screen-to-body ratio. Prime viewing real estate, right there. Too bright? No problem. Set dimming to dynamic and you’re good to go.

You’re also getting three levels of eye-care, should you decide to actually go binge-watching when you should be sleeping at 2AM. We’ve got TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light (Hardware Solution) Certification, TÜV Rheinland Flicker Free Certification, and TÜV Rheinland Circadian Friendly Certification–all of which are readily accessible and user-friendly in your display settings.

Lastly, audio. The stereo speakers are decent, clear, and offer non-crackly audio even if you jack things up to maximum. Thanks to AI Super Cinema, you get an immersive enough experience even if you’re quite a bit of distance from the device. It’s safe to say that if you’re not slapping on any wireless earbuds, you’ll be satisfied.

Gaming Prowess

Ah, the joy of mobile gaming. Playing your FPS, MOBA, or gacha on the go just might be the difference between a complete crashout and maintaining your insanity when boredom strikes, and it’s nice to know that the POCO F7 Ultra is ready and willing to serve. Before anything else, here are some benchmarks.

We’ve probably mentioned it ad infinitum at this point, but we can’t stress enough how much of a gamechanger the Snapdragon 8 Elite is. The Snapdragon 8 Gen-3 of yesteryear is no slouch–by any means. But once you start gaming a bit more seriously and for much longer, you’ll see that gaming on an Elite is like night and day. Thermals and battery life make the difference here, and once those go out the window, what exactly would you do with all that great performance?

Yes, performance. Exemplary performance, if we’re being exact. We’ll be dropping a dedicated gaming test with more titles down the line, but when it comes to the usual, demanding suspects, you’ll be pleased to know that everything runs smoothly. A good couple of hours of Wuthering Waves completely maxed out was our test for this–as we earnestly believe that anyone in their right mind won’t be running Antutu or GeekBench on their device 24/7. Let’s be real.

Yes, we said “Wild Mode” but you know what we mean.

To make things spicier, we used the recommended settings–this includes activating Wild Boost, Super Resolution, and Smart Frame Rate. To be more specific, these make full sue of the 2K resolution and cap things out at a maximum 120 FPS frame rate. For good measure. we slapped on Game HDR, too–all at the same time. That processor, coupled with an Adreno 830 and 16 GB of RAM is firing off on all cylinders while staying relatively cool under all that pressure.

Screen temps are great, and going beyond 40 degrees may not seem like much on paper, but your hands will disagree. That never happened with the POCO F7 Ultra. At the one-hour mark, we did feel some relative warmth over the proprietary TPU case, but no discomfort. Going into more detail, this is all thanks to LiquidCool Technology 4.0, which is basically an advanced cooling system geared towards peak performance. Sophisticated technology. This features a 3D Dual-channel IceLoop system with a 5400mm heat pipe which keeps temperatures low. Not necessarily ice cold, but just warm enough after two hours of continuous gameplay.

The TL;DR of this section is, for as long as you don’t attempt to emulate any higher-end, triple A, PC exclusive titles, you can fire–set to max–and forget. Plain and simple.  

Geek Photoshoot Capabilities

Now, the aforementioned cameras. Let’s do a rundown first. In the F7 Ultra, we’re getting POCO’s strongest 50MP HDR main camera to date, featuring the brand’s first flagship-level floating 50MP telephoto lens. This is coupled with the highest-pixel ultra-wide camera in its lineup at 32MP. We’re also getting a grand total of 8 different focal lengths.

The 50MP main shooter is powered by the Light Fusion 800 image sensor with four focal lengths. This is your “fire from the hip” lens, and the photos come out rather decently. As a default shooter, you won’t be disappointed. As for the floating telephoto lens , things get a bit interesting. While you still retain a good amount of detail, there’s a bit of a color shift once you go from 2.5X zoom to 5X. This could be rectified by a firmware update, though. Another cool feature is being able to adjust the zoom just a teensy bit without using the preset distances or using the large scroll wheel. You just need to tap 1X, for example, and you can go straight to 1.2 or 1.5X.

Lastly,  the 32MP ultra-wide camera features a 120-degree field of view that captures a good amount of space. We see the same color difference compared to the main shooter, though. As for portrait shots, there’s a good amount of bokeh whether you’re rocking the 24mm or 75mm preset.

It’s worth noting the cameras are powered by POCO’s first-ever AI LM computational photography platform, POCO AISP. This essentially makes use of the CPU, GPU, NPU, and ISP through Xiaomi HyperOS. Yes, you read that right. There’s more to the OS than literally meets the eye. You’ll see the results if you decide to go beyond the default 5X zoom, or choose to edit your shots in the gallery.

As for selfies, you get a decent 32MP front-facing camera that allows 0.8X and 1X zoom. Shooting in portrait defaults to 1X while still offering decent bokeh. For videos, you can shoot up to 8K 24fps via the main camera–for some cinematic clips, and 1080p 60fps via the front camera for some decent vlogging material.

Overall, the cameras won’t be the smartphone’s highlight–which was likely the plan from the start. Still, it’s nice to see some substantial improvements from last year’s iteration.

Everyday Reliability

Now, we’re in the homestretch. Rocking the POCO F7 Ultra as a daily driver should be a no-brainer at this point, and we’ll agree. We’ll keep it short and sweet by saying yes, it’s more reliable than most smartphones in the market right now and you can definitely rely on its capabilities to get the job done.

Now, if we were to elaborate, let’s talk about Xiaomi HyperOS first. Aside from its AI capabilities, you can’t deny how well-optimized it is, working smoothly with the heavy hitter that is the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor. From HyperOS, we get Xiaomi HyperAI-– a tool that will definitely enhance your productivity–and even creativity. What’s more is we also have Google Gemini which can within in-house apps. This time around, having things working in the background works in your favor, as AI Performance Scheduling maximizes CPU and GPU efficiency–which leads us to the power-efficient 5300mAh battery with 120W HyperCharge.

Thanks to the said optimization, we got more than a day’s worth of battery life with regular use and about 8 solid hours with much, much heavier use. To be more specific, in a span of 24 hours (2:00AM to 2:00AM), we still had 25% battery life.

Results may vary, especially if you consider mobile data–which ruins just about anyone’s batter life. But given you’re rocking 120 watts of HyperCharge, you’ll be back to action 100% in over half an hour. It’s still a bit early to say if this will improve, as we’ve yet to receive our day one update–but with that amount of time, we’re satisfied.

Geek Lifestyle Final Verdict

The POCO F7 Ultra is a fantastic addition to the legendary F series. Being the first variant of its kind, one would expect big things from this handy dandy device, and those expectations would not only be met, but also, likely exceeded. Of course, this depends on your user case. If it’s straight-up gaming and productivity, you can’t go wrong. If you’re into content creation, you’ll need to curb your expectations just a pinch.

Overall, it’s a great device that should definitely be on your radar.

The POCO F7 Ultra is priced at: Php 36,999 for the  12GB + 256GB variant, and Php 39,999 for the 15GB + 512GB variant. To snag one yourself, check out the official website or shop online via Lazada.

POCO F7 Ultra Full Specs:

• Qualcomm SM8750-AB Snapdragon 8 Elite (3 nm)
• Adreno 830
• 6.67″ 2K Flow AMOLED Display, (1440 x 3200 pixels), 120Hz refresh rate
• 12/16 GB RAM
• 256/512 GB Storage
• 50 MP, f/1.6, 24mm (wide), 1/1.55″, 1.0µm, dual pixel PDAF, OIS
• 50 MP, f/2.0, 60mm (telephoto), 1/2.76″, 0.64µm, PDAF (10cm – ∞), OIS, 2.5x optical zoom
• 32 MP, f/2.2, 15mm, 120˚ (ultrawide)
• 32 MP Front-facing camera (wide)
• 5G, LTE, Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
• WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, fingerprint scanner, USB Type-C
• 5300mAh battery with 90W fast charging support
• Android 15, Xiaomi HyperOS 2
• Black, Bold Yellow
• 12GB + 256GB model: Php 36,999
• 16GB + 512GB model: Php 39,999