Verdict
The Poco F6 is undoubtedly one of the more powerful mid - commando around mightily now , and the screen is a treat for the eyes , but middling bombardment life , a generic innovation and the tortuousness of HyperOS make it harder to recommend .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Arguably there ’s never been a better meter to buy a smartphone than right now . At all toll points and budget levels , you may find refined options which will bear a great experience . That ’s good news show for you , but less so for smartphone marketers .
There ’s so much competition before long , and with phones send at such high volume , the market has reached saturation point , or is certainly close to doing so . masses are also hanging on to their phones longer than ever before , which mix with ever high prices has mean global sales agreement have been in a declining spiral for geezerhood .
The job of a seller is to make you want to buy a intersection , that ’s becoming harder and hard to do , and so the reasons being brag to beak something brand new are becoming ever more superfluous .
accede the Poco F6 , a phone fitting into the ‘ flagship killer ’ category . The £ 449mid - rangeris like in many ways to thePoco F6 Pro , its fancier sibling , but dissimilar in a few ways , notably in the camera department and the central processing unit .
Nonetheless , this is a phone with comparatively minute differences from its brother , so the case for buy it over them then becomes more difficult to make . Again , a marketer ’s cephalalgia , but adept for you .
So what gain the Poco F6 stand out , and does it merit a place in your scoop ?
Design
It has been an exceptionally long time since smartphones were easy to pick out from one another at a glimpse . While phone nerds can see at the back of a equipment , see its television camera organization and make a decorous guesswork , those without a robust noesis of smaller brand name and their intricacies will be none the wiser .
The Poco F6 outfit firmly into this as a equipment which is by no means badly design , but so generic as to make no immediate impingement . Constructed entirely from charge card , it has a pleasant in - hired man feel , not too heavy nor is it too slippery . pliant as a material has its reward , and humbled weightiness and better grippiness are key among these .
The review equipment I was sent came in a fetching shade of mint candy green , and thankfully Poco has shy away moderately from its need to stick on ‘ AI ’ on everything . The only livery on the Poco F6 is a small grey ‘ Poco ’ sign and a ‘ 50MP OIS ’ badge , so far so skilful .
Accompanying those on the backside , there ’s a slightly unusual photographic camera set - up . Two large Oreos besiege the camera sensors , which are a piffling OTT , around eight times larger each than the detector themselves . Beside that can be find a uncommon mob flash , which promises to be more powerful than many distinctive efforts .
Going round the sides , everything is flush bar the good side , where there ’s a volume rocker and a world power key . On the bottom , there ’s a USB - C port for charging and data point transfer , and no sign of a 3.5 mm headphone jack . This is becoming rare and rare at all price item , but is an unfortunate skip regardless .
A positive comprehension is IP64 rubble and water opposition , which is n’t the same affair as being waterproof but means it will pull through a rainwater rain shower if necessary . give that headphone with a Formosan origin for the declamatory part forgo IP ratings , the comprehension here is nice to see .
The fingerprint sensor is under the presentation and worked without any issue , as is to be await in 2024 . merrily , there ’s also a dual set of front - firing speaker system , which were loud and powerful , making television and medicine just that bit more enjoyable .
In all , the F6 has a somewhat generic design but is even so well - built and pleasant to hold , as solidly in-between - of - the - road as it is potential to be .
Screen
Coming to the display , as usual this is where marketers use a lot of Energy Department . There ’s the common cludge of fluff to wade through ; this is a ‘ Crystal Res Flow ’ display , with 1080p+ resolution , HDR capabilities , up to 1200 nit of brightness , a 120Hz refresh rate , a closemouthed to 90 % screen - to - torso ratio and a Gorilla Glass Victus cover .
Barring the first term , it ’s close to the same display we ’ve seen in many , many earpiece for years now , debar some incremental improvement , though that ’s not to impinge on its character .
To begin , the display bring mostly bright enough to deal with the British summer sun , remaining quite visible despite a strong blaze . There are others at eminent damage points which make more of a go of this , merge special finishing as well as bright panel , but the F6 does a good enough caper of remaining usable even in more challenging weather condition .
Though the resolution of FHD+ is n’t pushing any boundary , for the size of the screen , there are small to no tangible improvement when pushing the resolution higher . At 6.67 inches the display is large , however the relatively thin aspect ratio plus the high-pitched screen - to - trunk ratio mean that it nonetheless is possible to habituate one - handed should the office demand .
As the display is HDR compliant ( HDR10 + ) , supported content calculate brilliant , with acute colour and brightness . Regarding overall intensity , the days of oversaturation on OLED panels are mostly behind us , and fittingly I found that the F6 give colours a nice tonic without making them unrealistic . Per many other Xiaomi and Poco - brand devices , you could tune up gloss to your preference in the HyperOS preferences menu .
Then there ’s the refresh rate , which at 120Hz is n’t as mellow as some aim for , but for the most part is absolutely enough to keep the gadget feeling snappy in general use . This is n’t an LTPO instrument panel , mean that although Xiaomi lay claim the equipment will switch refresh rate to save battery , this is between 60Hz and 120Hz , not the granular alternative that more expensive devices can offer .
Lastly there ’s the inclusion of Gorilla Glass Victus , which is unusual for the Leontyne Price point . This is the new translation , assure one scratch and drop resistance . How in force it proves to be will be shown in the moment of a drop , but it ’s nice to see more protection included . The more long-lasting a equipment , the less of a opportunity it ends up as Es - waste .
Camera
In the F6 lineup there is the ‘ standard ’ Poco F6 and the Poco F6 Pro , and telling the two asunder can be something of a challenge . For the most part , except in build , they are extremely similar , with the F6 even get some advantages over its more expensive sib .
The F6 sport a similar sensor to the F6 Pro on paper , with 50MP of solving and a wide aperture of f/1.6 each . Where the similarity end is in the size of it of each sensor ; while the F6 has a 1/1.95 ” Chrysophrys auratus , the F6 Pro has a 1/1.55 ” effort . This is n’t the biggest dispute in the world , however in possibility it means that the Pro will be able-bodied to gather more light , make for good depressed - light performance in special .
What , if any , the differences are become purely academic when looking at the outputs , however . When look at daytime sample or low - Inner Light samples , performance is highly standardised , and that ’s a good thing for the most part .
Detail is plenty , with foliage looking shrewd without any strange gloriole . Sharpness as a whole is unemotional and realistic which is pleasant to see . Colour , per Xiaomi ’s common MO , is a sundry bag . Without ‘ AI ’ activated , in many options you ’ll be fine , however the colour green can be an offspring .
peculiarly with ‘ AI ’ activated , Gunter Wilhelm Grass has a aptness to go thermonuclear , as saturation and luminosity are dialled up while dividing line is dial down . It does n’t go on all the time , but enough to be noticeable and is a strike against the reliability of the photographic camera .
In low light , there ’s enough chroma and detail to make everything look good without go further than some of the competition .
The ultrawide sensor is the same 8MP effort which has been used for some sentence now ; it works in good light to beguile sensible detail , but in broken light is useless . A fillip and useful inclusion body is the halo news bulletin , which publish more light than a standard endeavor and really works well for portrait shots at night .
Where the F6 Pro theoretically has another vantage is the addition of a 2MP macro sensor , which the F6 lacks . Barring the theoretic somebody who will be incensed at the want of such a sensing element , this wo n’t upset many . More often than not the 2MP ‘ macro ’ detector are unusable , as such the omission here is n’t an number .
Video capture was decent overall , with footage being mostly detailed and colourful . There ’s a fairish bit of stochasticity , but for the most part , the F6 is a competent video camera .
True to form as well , the selfie television camera is a interracial purse . Though it has enough solution at 20MP , it has a tendency to shoot a line out highlights , revealing a want of dynamic range .
What ’s the real decisive factor however is the include ‘ beautification ’ filter . It ’s easy , using the let in tools , to turn yourself into something that look like an ET post glow - up . Why , for the Western market , Xiaomi let in these tools and has them participating by default is anyone ’s guessing , but you could safely ignore them with no issue .
Performance
Many phone brands have built a reputation honed through multiplication of gadget . For some , it is ‘ Adam has good cameras ’ , for others it is ‘ Y make telephone set which last longer ’ . For Poco , the conversation is definitely around public presentation .
The sub - mark of Xiaomi has been have it off , since the F1 years ago , for its inclusion of virile processors even in its mid - range efforts , undercutting the rivalry in many cases . With the F6 , this is no different . In add-on to 12 GB of RAM , my reassessment unit amount with 512 GB of storage and aSnapdragon 8s Gen 3processor , a slightly underclocked version of the ordinarily useable flagship chip .
As might be expected for such a setup , there was little that could unsettle the F6 . Fortnite , PUBG and Genshin Impact ran at mellow frame rates without an takings , the general interface posed no issues and the machine as a whole just flew .
This is reflect in benchmarks , where the Poco prove its place among the powerful . attain a single - core grievance of 1963 and a multi - core mark of 4952 , it proved to be around as equal to as devices sporting a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 , the flagship micro chip from 2023 .
Though benchmarks are n’t indicative of substantial - world exercise , they are notwithstanding a useful snapshot and the picture is clear , the F6 has enough power to compete with the big boy , even if it is n’t quite in the same weight class as the ilk of theiPhone 15 Proand theSamsung Galaxy S24 Ultra .
Software
Things so far have been mostly positive , but then that ’s because the conversation had n’t yet moved on to software system .
Xiaomi is something of a do it quantity when it comes to software , load up its gadget with its own cumbersome takes on the Android experience . antecedently that was through MIUI , now it is through ‘ HyperOS ’ , which is functionally identical to MIUI . Regardless , the heavy customisation of the Android experience stay .
There ’s a groovy deal to praise about the like of Motorola ’s approach , where small change and customisations are made to the Android experience with the purport of create it smooth and more useable overall . There ’s a definite point of diminishing returns , however , and Xiaomi continues its quest to barrel as far past that as is humanly possible with every successive yr .
HyperOS is a weird mix of some good approximation mixed with a lot of regretful , and sometimes ugly ones . A premier suspect is pinch down from the top , which on any normal Android phone would impart down the notification spook , but not so with HyperOS . A swipe from the right brings down an iOS - like ‘ control center ’ , and on the left you get the notification shade , with a twist that your presentment can only be dismissed with a swipe to the rightfield !
This ethos riddle throughout , interactions that are often pesky and sometimes plainly weird . As before there ’s the odd skilful estimate , but there are just too many things competing for your attention . This is n’t to say that the phone is n’t usable , it absolutely is , these are the ramblings of a software package purist . However , if you like your phone to be generally simple and free of cruft , this is n’t the equipment for you .
Battery life
If there ’s one prescribed that total from HyperOS , it is Xiaomi ’s very hard-and-fast Aries the Ram usage policy , which keeps yellow journalism on desktop apps and arrest them from sipping too much battery .
This fact , paired with an effective CPU and a 5,000mAh battery , means that all of the necessary ingredients are there for excellent battery life . It ’s dissatisfactory then that it twist out to be something of a mixed traveling bag .
On an average day , uprise at 6:30am with a 30 - minute commute listening to a podcast and using GPS , pick up and react to messages throughout the day , halt an hour of calls and then indulging in a spot of gambling in the evening , it was at 22 % by 7 postmortem examination . That ’s hardly an inspiring showing , and at the lower end of what many mid - range devices can achieve .
It means that this is a equipment which in the main should get you through a full day , however a top up might be needed if you plan to go out . Luckily , the included 90W charger helps with that somewhat , promising to take you from nought to 100 % in a bare 30 minutes .
Happily , that prove to be true , and 30 mo did indeed give me a full bang every fourth dimension . There might be some devices which can bill faster , but for most , this is as much as will be needed .
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Should you buy it?
Although the Poco F6 does n’t all win in any one area , it ’s more than good enough in many .
Though the Poco F6 will get through most day for most people , demanding users will be better to look elsewhere .
Final Thoughts
At £ 449 the Poco F6 is an interesting gadget . It comes with more memory board and RAM than you ’ll ever need , a powerful C.P.U. , a decent Seth of cameras and a screen that is good overall .
However , a telephone set is always more than the center of its region , and it is unfortunately the experience of using the F6 that lets it down .
HyperOS is a faff , shelling life is n’t brilliant and the pattern is quite generic . For the Mary Leontyne Price , it offers a competent overall software program , but if you want a good camera , more electric battery spirit or just a littlemore , you ’d be best to look at themid - range contender .
Trusted Score
How we test
We prove every nomadic phone we critique thoroughly . We use industry - standard trial to compare feature properly and we use the phone as our independent twist over the review full stop . We ’ll always tell you what we find and we never , ever , accept money to review a product .
FAQs
Yes , the Poco F6 come with a 90W charger in the box for fast commove capability .
Test Data
Full Specs
