POCO F7 – a performance flagship benchmark?
POCO has always been the brand we turn to for incredible performance without the flagship price tag. With their new POCO F7, Xiaomi seems to have carried the “brand” the POCO F-series is known for – speed and power for less.
For the past week, I’ve been using the POCO F7 as my daily driver to see if it truly lives up to its promise of being a “Performance Flagship Benchmark”. Does it deliver? And more importantly, where does it make smart compromises to hit its incredible price point?
Build and Design
Right out of the box, the POCO F7 feels substantial. It has a flagship-style glass back and a sturdy aluminum frame, which gives it a premium feel in the hand. It weighs in at 215.7g, so it has some heft, but it’s well-balanced and the large-radius curves on the front panel make it comfortable to hold. The model I have is the Cyber Silver, which has this cool, futuristic look with an embossed Snapdragon logo next to the camera module—a clear nod to the power inside. It’s also available in a more classic Black and White. What we got is the Black version, which has some intriguing aspects; but I would prefer the look of the two-toned White colorway.
The camera module itself has what POCO calls a “neon flare deco,” which adds a bit of character. But the most impressive part of the design isn’t something you can easily see. This phone comes with an IP68 dust and water resistance rating. That’s a feature you usually find on phones that cost twice as much, and having that peace of mind against accidental spills and rain is a huge win for a device in this category. The display is also protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 7i, adding to its overall durability.
Display
Turning the phone on, you’re greeted by a massive 6.83-inch 1.5K AMOLED display. POCO says it’s the largest screen they’ve ever put in an F-series phone, and the ultra-slim bezels give it an immersive 94.23% screen-to-body ratio. It’s big, bright, and beautiful.
The specs here are impressive. You get a smooth 120Hz refresh rate, support for 68 billion colors, and a peak brightness of 3200 nits on parts of the screen, which makes it perfectly usable even under direct sunlight. POCO also paid attention to eye comfort. The display has multiple TÜV Rheinland certifications for being flicker-free and circadian-friendly, and it uses high-frequency 3840Hz PWM dimming to reduce eye strain during late-night scrolling sessions. For gamers, the screen is incredibly responsive, with an instant touch sampling rate that goes up to 2560Hz in Game Turbo mode. It’s a top-tier panel that’s great for everything from watching movies to competitive gaming.
Hardware
Now, let’s get to the heart of the POCO F7: the performance. This phone is one of the first to be powered by the Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 Mobile Platform. The “flagship” prefix here is not a misnomer. In my experience, this chip really does deliver flagship-level performance. Apps open instantly, multitasking is a breeze, and it chews through demanding tasks without breaking a sweat. It’s built on a modern 4nm process, which helps with power efficiency.
When Xiaomi said this phone delivers flagship performance, to some extent, it really does. From gaming to productivity, the POCO F7’s performance can easily cross that flagship threshold. However, it’s still not the full “flagship killer” some might have hoped for. It comes close with flying colors, but it doesn’t quite outperform its bigger sibling, the POCO F7 Ultra, which is the real top-tier performer in the series. We also managed to compare its performance to the more expensive realme GT7 Dream Edition. The latter did outperform the POCO F7, but at a significantly higher price.
To keep things cool, POCO included its 6000mm² 3D Dual-Channel IceLoop System, which seems to do a good job of managing heat during long gaming sessions. The hardware package is rounded out with fast LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.1 storage, ensuring the entire system feels quick and responsive.
Benchmark
For the kind of gaming performance you get, the new POCO F7 definitely blows the competition out of the water at its price point. At boot, however, you have to note that the energy setting of the POCO F7 is set to “Balanced.” To fully maximize its performance, you need to switch it to “Ultimate,” which does use more battery.
At its default state, I have to report that we did not get the advertised AnTuTu score of over 2 million. My test came in at around 1.7 million. After switching the energy setting to “Ultimate,” I was able to achieve a score of 1.82 million. While this is still a massive score that reflects the phone’s power, it is a little less than the advertised claims.
Now, we did something interesting: we compared the result of our benchmark to 3 categories: Midrange, High Midrange, and Flagship. The POCO F7 performed exceedingly well in the first two segments, and relatively good on the flagship segment. This is great regardless of optics as it’s a total display of victory thanks to its outstanding price.
Now, in real-world gaming, this phone is a beast. With WildBoost Optimization 4.0, games like Genshin Impact can run at up to 120 FPS with 1.5K Super Resolution, which is fantastic. The experience is smooth, and the phone remains relatively cool thanks to its advanced cooling system.
Software and Other Features
The POCO F7 runs on the new Xiaomi HyperOS 2 (my unit is on version 2.0.100.0). Overall, the new OS provided a great experience. It has been refined further and feels very fluid, helping the phone deliver its feature set outstandingly. It’s clean, intuitive, and packed with useful features.
However, there’s one thing I need to talk about: the ads. In my week of using the device, I’ve seen ads pop up, mostly in Xiaomi’s own apps. This has always been a concern for Xiaomi users, and I’m not a huge fan of seeing casino ads on my new phone. There is a process for turning these ads off, and a quick search will show you how, but it’s an extra step users have to take.
The phone also comes with a suite of AI features in the gallery app, like AI Erase, AI Image Expansion, and AI Sky. These tools work well and the output is surprisingly clean, but there’s a catch. These AI gallery features will not work if you’re not connected to the internet and signed into a Xiaomi account. The same goes for AI Speech Recognition. This suggests that most of the AI processing is happening in the cloud, rather than using the phone’s powerful Hexagon NPU on the Snapdragon chip. It seems the NPU is being used more as a node to connect to Xiaomi’s AI cloud service rather than for on-device computation. This isn’t a huge issue, but it’s something to be aware of.
Camera
The camera is one of the most surprising features of the POCO F7. The main shooter is a 50MP Sony IMX882 sensor with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), and it’s genuinely good. The photos I took were sharp, and the color reproduction was accurate and vibrant without being overly saturated. It’s a very capable main camera that punches well above its weight.
There are a few caveats, though. The main camera is paired with an 8MP ultra-wide lens, which is a noticeable step down in quality but is fine for casual shots. Digital zoom is limited to 6x in the normal photo mode, and the quality degrades quickly past 2x. I also found a small bug in Portrait mode; you have the option to dial up the artificial bokeh to f/0.95, but it doesn’t always seem to apply the effect correctly after taking the shot. This isn’t something that happens all the time; and it usually occurs when it doesn’t detect a face. Lastly, the Pro mode is limited to photos only, and the camera app doesn’t have as many creative modes as you’d find on a flagship Xiaomi device like the Xiaomi 15.
In terms of video the POCO F7’s main camera can shoot up to 4K 60FPS. You cannot use .6x when shooting at this resolution though as it dials back to 1080P 60FPS automatically. Meanwhile, you’re limited to 1080P 60FPS when shooting the phone’s front facing camera. But you know what’s interesting? It does come with a Teleprompter built-in to the camera app when using the front facing camera on video mode. Neat!
Despite these limitations, the main camera is a solid performer, and for most people, it will be more than enough.
Audio
The POCO F7 is equipped with dual speakers that provide a good stereo sound experience. The audio is clear and well-balanced, which is great for watching videos or gaming without headphones. They don’t get exceptionally loud, but the clarity is there, which is often more important. For a phone in this price range, the speaker quality is perfectly adequate.
I have to also mention that this phone lacks 3.5mm port for headphone/earphone enjoyers like myself. If you’ve got a Bluetooth audio device, then this should not be a major setback.
Battery
If there’s one area where the POCO F7 is an undisputed champion, it’s the battery. It packs a massive 6500mAh battery, the largest ever in a POCO F series phone. This thing just goes and goes. Even with heavy use, I was easily able to get through a full day with plenty of charge to spare.
When you do need to top up, the phone supports 90W HyperCharge with the included charger. The wired charging has two options in the settings: “Standard” and “Top Speed,” which maximizes its charging capability. POCO claims it can charge to 80% in just 30 minutes, and my testing confirms it’s incredibly fast. There’s also a great feature that automatically stops charging the battery once it reaches 80% to preserve its long-term health, which is something all smart devices should have these days. As a bonus, it also supports 22.5W reverse wired charging, so you can use it as a power bank to charge your other gadgets.
Verdict
So, does the POCO F7 live up to the “Super speed unleashed” hype? Absolutely. This phone is a performance monster for its price, wrapped in a premium, durable package. The Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 processor is incredibly fast, the 6500mAh battery is enormous, the 120Hz AMOLED display is stunning, and the IP68 rating is a fantastic bonus.
It’s not perfect. The software has ads, the AI features are cloud-dependent, and the secondary camera isn’t as strong as the main one. But these are smart compromises that allow POCO to deliver where it counts without sacrificing price.
And yes, the best part is the price. The POCO F7 is available as a Shopee exclusive in three colors—Black, White, and Silver—and in two variants. From June 24-30, you can get the 12GB+256GB model for only P17,499 and the 12GB+512GB version for P19,499 when you claim vouchers on POCO’s official Shopee store. This is, by far, the most affordable device with this caliber of chipset and performance. It really reminds me of how POCO has always been at the forefront of pricing its products insanely well.
The POCO F7 isn’t trying to be a “flagship killer” that beats phones twice its price in every category. Instead, it’s a “Performance Flagship Benchmark”. It sets a new standard for what we should expect from a phone under P20,000, and it absolutely nails it.
Giancarlo Viterbo is a Filipino Technology Journalist, blogger and Editor of gadgetpilipinas.net, He is also a Geek, Dad and a Husband. He knows a lot about washing the dishes, doing some errands and following instructions from his boss on his day job. Follow him on twitter: @gianviterbo and @gadgetpilipinas.
