Poco pokes at flagship performance with the F6 and F6 Pro
Latest global launch also includes Poco's debut tablet
Poco is holding a major international launch event today with two new phones — the F6 and F6 Pro — as well as its first tablet.
Poco is a sub-brand of Xiaomi, and its phones tend to be remixed or redesigned versions of Xiaomi products that aim for a particular target market. Today, Poco said it’s shipped more than 60 million devices since launching in 2018. A lot of Poco phones are focused on gaming, though they don’t follow the typical gamer aesthetic; the emphasis is more on performance and endurance.
Let's start with the Poco F6 Pro, which I've been using as my main phone for over a week.
The F6 Pro is a really well-built device, with relative heft to it at 209g. The chassis uses flat aluminium sides with a matte finish, while the back panel glass has a subtle slate-style effect that reacts to the light around it. The camera housing probably doesn't need to be as huge as it is, as we'll get to, but the mirrored finish and gold accents look good.
The 6.67" OLED display is excellent, with tiny bezels and flat edges. It has a 3200x1440 resolution and a refresh rate of 120Hz. The panel gets pretty bright, with a theoretical peak of 4,000 nits, though you'll never see that in typical use; the 1,200 nits in high-brightness mode already makes the screen easy enough to read in harsh sunlight.
Overall I like what Poco has done with the design here. The F6 Pro doesn't feel like a "gaming phone" at all — there aren't any RGB highlights or fan vents — but it does feel serious and high-end.
Inside you get a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 system-on-chip. This is the processor you'd find in most flagship phones from 2023 like the Oppo Find X6 Pro and the Xiaomi 13 Ultra, as well as Xiaomi's recent Pad 6S Pro 12.4 tablet. As such, the F6 Pro doesn't deliver the absolute best performance you can buy, but it's still very much in the realm of high-end phones. Poco also touts its “LiquidCool Technology 4.0” system for long gaming sessions, claiming up to 3x cooling performance over traditional vapour chambers.
The phone starts at $499 for 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, which is a nice touch that sets the floor high. The most expensive model has 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage for $629. Each version also gets a $50 early-bird discount for a period of time.
The battery is 5,000mAh and can be fast-charged at 120W with the brick that comes in the box. There's no wireless charging, though, which is an unfortunate regression since last year's F5 Pro was the first Poco phone to include it.
The F6 Pro runs Xiaomi's HyperOS, built on Android 14. It's essentially the same as what you'd find on a Xiaomi flagship, just with a lot more pre-installed bloatware to uninstall once you're done setting up the device.
It's fair to say that the camera system is not really the main differentiator on Poco phones. What you get here is a 50-megapixel 1/1.55" Light Fusion 800 main sensor with an optically stabilised f/1.6 lens; an 8-megapixel f/2.2 ultrawide, and a 2-megapixel macro camera that really exists just to fill space in the F6 Pro's ostentatious camera housing.
The Redmi K70 Pro that the F6 Pro is largely based on had a 12-megapixel ultrawide and a 2x telephoto alongside the 50-megapixel main camera, so Xiaomi has cut back a little on the camera hardware for this Poco variant.
That's not to say that the F6 Pro has a bad camera — it's actually quite good and certainly by far Poco’s best yet. The 50-megapixel main sensor produces well-exposed, detailed images in most settings, though as you'd expect there's less confidence in the colours in lower light.
The ultrawide, meanwhile, does a decent job of keeping up with the main camera in good light despite its smaller size and lower resolution. I do wish Poco had found a way to include something more useful than the essentially decorative macro sensor.
The Poco F6 Pro comes closer than ever to a true flagship package from Poco. You’re compromising on camera versatility, wireless charging, and a slightly outdated chip, but the performance, design, and display are all on point.
The regular F6 has a similar chassis, but it loses 30g in weight due to an entirely plastic construction, and it’s also a little thinner. The display looks the same as the F6 Pro from the front, with the same slim bezels. The resolution is a touch lower at 2712x1220, and peak brightness reaches 2400 nits, but the panel is still 120Hz and doesn't look much different to the F6 Pro's in most situations. It’s much better quality than what you get on the Pixel 8A.
The most interesting thing about the F6's spec sheet is its system-on-chip, the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3. This is a cut-down version of the 8 Gen 3, Qualcomm's current flagship chip, which means the comparison with the F6 Pro is not straightforward.
In Geekbench testing, I found the F6 Pro ran a little faster in single-core performance, but the F6 came out slightly on top when it came to multicore and the GPU. These chips are basically in the same tier so I wouldn't sweat the details too much; real-world comparisons will come down to how individual apps and games have been optimised. But it's interesting from a product marketing perspective that the "Pro" device gets the older chip.
Elsewhere the F6 has a 5,000mAh battery and 90W fast charging, which gets you a full charge in 35 minutes. It starts at 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $379, going up to 12GB/512GB for $429. Again, there’s $50 off for early pre-orders.
The main camera uses a 50-megapixel 1/1.95" sensor and a f/1.59 lens, while there's an 8-megapixel ultrawide. I haven't had enough time to test these cameras in detail but I will note again that those are some gigantic circular bumps for some relatively tiny sensors. I do like the mini ring flash, though.
Even Poco itself will admit that camera quality isn’t its highest priority with this phone, but the F6 is an impressive device for the price if you’re looking for strong performance in a lightweight design.
Poco is also announcing its first tablet today, the Poco Pad, which I didn’t get the chance to use ahead of its announcement.
The Poco Pad is a 12.1” tablet with a 16:10 2560x1600 120Hz display. It has quad speakers and a 10,000mAh battery that charges at up to 33W. There’s 8GB of RAM and 256GB of onboard storage, plus a microSD card slot for expansion, which is an unusual but welcome addition.
The processor is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7s Gen 2, which is a strange SoC; there actually wasn’t a Snapdragon 7 Gen 2, but the name would suggest it’s on par with a cut-down midrange phone chip from last year. It should be more than capable for typical tablet tasks like watching video and browsing the web.
Poco is also releasing a keyboard and an active stylus for the Poco Pad, though, as well as outfitting it with the same tablet version of HyperOS that we saw on the Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro 12.4. We’ll have to see how well (or whether) the hardware keeps up with a multitasking-heavy workflow.
Even if it isn’t best suited for that kind of thing, at $329 (or $299 for early orders) the Poco Pad feels like a good way for Xiaomi to get back into entry-level tablets now that it has solid software for the form factor.
Pricing is always a caveat with product launches like this. Poco only provided dollar figures, but these devices don’t get fully supported launches in the US, and they’ll inevitably be more or less compelling depending on where they’re available through normal channels — not to mention their direct local competition.
Overall, though, this is a strong launch for Poco. The F6 Pro gets closer to feeling genuinely flagship-class than ever, the F6 offers similar-to-better performance in a cheaper, lighter package, and the Poco Pad may turn out to be a compelling entry-level tablet.