The POCO F7 Ultra, a first for the company, is an impressively powerful smartphone packaged in a sleek design. Featuring the powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, up to 16 GB of RAM and a 6.67-inch 2K display, the F7 Ultra is POCO’s first attempt at a truly flagship-level phone. It also features a solid camera package, exceptional battery life, and the latest in Wi-Fi connectivity, making it clear that POCO is working hard to ensure its first Ultra-tier smartphone succeeds. After a few weeks of testing, can the F7 Ultra genuinely live up to its name? Let’s dive into the review and find out.
As with previous models, POCO provides a clean aesthetic. Offering two colours—black, which was received for review, and yellow, a colour I’ve not seen in the series before—the F7 Ultra has opted for a sleek and elegant design. The back of the phone features a smooth, matte black finish for the lower three-quarters of the device, with the upper third transitioning to a high-gloss glass finish.
The result is a backplane that highlights the circular camera bezel, which is accented with a bronze ring around its circumference. Its sharp look helps elevate the POCO from its utilitarian roots to a more premium appearance. This is further reinforced by the small design details offered in the F7 Ultra, from the subtle artistic lines under the glass surface that follow the camera’s circular pattern to the dark grey accents along the phone’s edges. These small attentions to detail help elevate the F7 Ultra’s overall aesthetic to a level I haven’t seen in previous iterations.
“The F7 Ultra truly feels like POCO’s first flagship phone.”
The front display of the POCO F7 Ultra features an impressive 6.67-inch 2K AMOLED screen that boasts a resolution of 3200×1440 and a pixel density of 526 ppi. Protected by POCO’s in-house Shield Glass, which, along with the rest of the outer shell, provides IP68 dust and water resistance, the display offers incredible brightness—rated for 1800 nits in high brightness mode with an impressive 3200 nits peak. This results in a display that remains easily visible even in direct sunlight.
More impressive still is the rich colour and sharp image quality present in the AMOLED display. Offering 12-bit colour depth and a 120 Hz refresh rate, the POCO F7 Ultra’s display looks incredibly sharp and crisp, delivering outstanding image and video presentation. Games are equally impressive on the F7 Ultra, especially more visually intensive titles such as Diablo Immortal or Star Wars Hunters. In each case, the visuals showcase beautiful colour depth and richness.
As for size and weight, the POCO F7 Ultra is comparable to other premium phones, landing between the iPhone 15 Plus and the Pixel 9 Pro. Weighing 212 g and measuring 160.26 x 74.95 x 8.39 mm, the F7 Ultra fits comfortably in my hand, with my thumb easily reaching most of the display. While it is slightly heavier than previous POCO F series models, this can be attributed to the F7 Ultra being the first in the series to support both wireless charging and wireless Supercharging.
On the note of charging, the POCO F7 Ultra offers some impressive capabilities. The first is 120W wired HyperCharging, a feature I was pleased to see carried over from the Xiaomi 14T Pro smartphone. Thankfully, POCO has included the 120W charging brick and USB-C cable needed to achieve HyperCharge speeds. The second charging option, mentioned earlier, is the new 50W wireless HyperCharge mode—a first for both POCO and me. While wireless charging itself isn’t new, I’ve never worked with or tested wireless HyperCharge before.
In both cases—wired and wireless—HyperCharging performed incredibly well. With 120W wired charging, I was able to take the high-capacity 5300 mAh battery from 0 to 100 percent in just over 20 minutes. While I didn’t have a 50W wireless charger on hand to test with, the wireless HyperCharging on the POCO F7 Ultra is rated to fully charge in 45 minutes at 50W. Both methods are impressive and, interestingly, have changed my perspective on how I use and plan out my day with my phone.
Historically, I have a worst-case scenario mindset, and as such, I always stress about keeping my phone charged in case of an emergency. So much so that I schedule battery drain times a couple of times a week when I’m home to preserve the health of my phone battery. While I still default to this habit, the HyperCharging feature has significantly reduced that concern. I now live with a phone that is always 20 minutes or less away from a full charge. It’s a small thing, but it has changed my perspective on battery life.
“The POCO F7 Ultra offers some impressive capabilities, from its powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite processor to its 6.67-inch 2K AMOLED display.”
Though not as much of a concern with the aforementioned HyperCharging capabilities, the POCO F7 Ultra also boasts impressive battery life. With its 5300 mAh battery, you’ll have no problem getting through a heavy workday and still having battery life to spare. In the three weeks of testing, I’ve finished my busiest workdays with over 35 percent battery remaining.
For context, my job requires an exceptional amount of phone usage, and there are days when I am constantly using my phone for email, research and phone calls. Yet despite the heavy usage, the POCO F7 Ultra has had no issues keeping up with my work and life.
Looking under the hood, the F7 Ultra offers an impressive hardware lineup, starting with the powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite processor built on the custom Oryon architecture. This octa-core processor is a custom-designed variation of the ARMv8.7-A architecture, engineered to provide exceptional processing power and efficiency. It’s the perfect fit for the F7 Ultra, delivering incredible speed and power for even the most demanding workloads while also promoting prolonged battery life to keep working longer.
Paired with the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor is 16 GB of RAM (a 12 GB model is also available) and the Adreno GPU. Like the Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, the Adreno GPU is designed to leverage AI processing to enhance the visual experience on mobile devices. This optimization affects every aspect of the user experience on the POCO F7 Ultra, from the UI interface and interactions to gaming.
In performance testing, the F7 Ultra delivered some impressive results. Geekbench 6 tests scored the F7 Ultra with a single-core performance of 2,296 and a multi-core score of 8,140, outperforming the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra in both tests. It also managed to beat my Xiaomi 14T Pro in both categories, offering a powerful alternative to other premium brands. This is significant, considering that POCO has historically been a solid mid-tier phone manufacturer. As their first real attempt at delivering a premium phone experience, POCO has knocked it out of the park.
In real-world testing, the F7 Ultra is a pleasure to work with. It has no trouble handling even the most taxing productivity tasks, smoothly swapping between apps and managing dual app mode with ease. Streaming content and gaming are also a treat, with game performance ranking among the best I’ve seen—second only to game-dedicated phones like the ROG Phone 9.
The camera kit for the POCO F7 Ultra is also a solid offering. While it lacks some of the refinement of the aforementioned Xiaomi 14T Pro—which, in fairness, is a photography-first phone—the F7 Ultra still packs an impressive punch. It features a 50 MP main camera with a light fusion 800 image sensor of 1/1.55 inches and an aperture of f/1.6. With full automatic and manual setting control, the POCO F7 Ultra can produce impressive shots with minimal setup.
My only note is that during testing, the autofocus took slightly longer to adjust than I’d like, but not to the point of being problematic. As for auto white balancing and colour representation, it’s slightly warmer than the Xiaomi 14T Pro by default. However, I find that for point-and-shoot scenarios, this warmer tone tends to be the preferred colour and white balance I like to see. As such, the F7 Ultra works great for capturing high-quality pictures without the fuss of adjusting every setting.
In manual mode, the F7 Ultra is a pleasure to work with. Premium features such as focus peaking, exposure verification and even a histogram display are all present. You also have full control over focus, shutter speed, ISO and aperture settings, giving you an exceptional amount of freedom to shoot how you want. As much as I love shooting with my mirrorless camera, I’ve found myself defaulting to the F7 Ultra for shots, thanks to its ease of use and solid photo capture.
The 50 MP 2.5x telephoto camera provides a solid equivalent focal length of 60 mm, which is great for capturing distant objects with clarity and detail. While it won’t replace a telephoto lens on a DSLR or mirrorless camera, it’s still a reliable option that doesn’t require hauling out your entire kit to capture a quick shot. The ultrawide 32 MP lens, however, is a real treat to work with and does an impressive job of image capture. Rated for a 120° field of view, this ultrawide lens captures details with ease.
The front camera, a 32 MP lens, is also solid. In portrait mode, the camera does an excellent job of capturing a high-quality image of the subject, with face detection performing quickly and accurately every time. My only small critique is that the blurred background effect can, at times, feel a bit too aggressive by default. Fortunately, this is easily adjusted using the blur slider offered in portrait mode, giving you complete control over the final capture.
“The POCO F7 Ultra has no trouble handling even the most taxing productivity tasks, smoothly swapping between apps and managing dual app mode with ease.”
Video capture on the POCO F7 Ultra is in line with other premium phones and offers multiple resolutions of capture with built-in stabilization (limited to 1080p at 30 fps). The F7 Ultra’s 8K at 24 fps capture works quite well, though in testing, I found myself defaulting to 4K at 60 fps, which seemed to offer the best balance of quality and smoothness. However, if you need a steady shot for action-oriented filming, the POCO F7 Ultra offers a Steadshot Pro mode at 1080p at 30 fps, which performed well during testing.
The POCO F7 Ultra earns its title in every way. From performance to design, the F7 Ultra truly feels like POCO’s first flagship phone. It offers an excellent balance of performance and efficiency in a sleek and attractive package. With quality-of-life features such as HyperCharging and a wealth of powerful tech under the hood, POCO has built a premium phone that impresses on every level.
