.jpg "Poco F7 Pro Full Review")
The Poco F7 Pro by Xiaomi aims to deliver top-tier performance and camera quality without the flagship price tag. This review dives into its features, from its build and screen to battery life and camera capabilities, to see if it lives up to the hype as a potential "flagship killer" for 2025.
Design and Build Quality
The Poco F7 Pro feels pretty good in your hand. It has a flat glass back with a cool two-tone look—glossy on top, frosted on the bottom. The aluminum frame is also flat, which helps you get a good grip. It just feels like a premium phone.
One big improvement this year is the water and dust protection. The F7 Pro is now IP68 rated, meaning it can handle dust and even being submerged in water, not just splashes. That's a nice upgrade.
Display Features
The F7 Pro has a 6.67-inch OLED screen with a QHD resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate. It's protected by Gorilla Glass 7i. The screen is brighter this year, too, which is great for using it outside. We measured about 780 nits manually, and it can boost up to 1480 nits in auto mode when you need it.
This panel looks really sharp with a pixel density of 526 PPI. You also get 12-bit color depth and support for Dolby Vision and HD10 Plus video. The refresh rate isn't as adaptive as some more expensive phones since it doesn't use LTPO tech, but it can still go from 120 Hz down to 60 Hz to save power.
Audio and Security
For sound, the F7 Pro has a pair of stereo speakers that get pretty loud. The sound is balanced and clear, with no real issues. You can check out comparisons online to hear for yourself.
To unlock the phone, there's an ultrasonic under-display fingerprint reader. It's fast and works well. The phone comes with either 256 GB or 512 GB of storage, but you can't expand it with a microSD card.
Software and AI
The phone runs Xiaomi's newest Hyper OS 2 on top of Android 15. It has some new looks and tweaks, but it works pretty much like other recent Xiaomi or Poco phones.
There are also some AI features built in:
- Google's Gemini AI assistant is on board with all its functions.
- In the notes app, AI can do things like summaries, proofreading, translation, and changing text layouts.
- An interpreter for real-time translation and subtitles is available in supported apps.
- The gallery has AI tools like "AI Sky," which can change the sky in your photos and even alter the whole scene.
Poco promises 4 years of major software updates and 6 years of security patches for the F7 Pro.
Performance
The Poco F7 Pro uses last year's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset. Even though it's not the newest, it's still very powerful, offering performance similar to what you'd expect from a 2024 flagship phone. In tests, the F7 Pro does an excellent job. To get better performance, you'd need a phone with this year's top chip, like the Poco F7 Ultra.
The phone handles heat pretty well. We saw good results in our long CPU stress test, though graphics tests did cause some thermal throttling.
Battery Life and Charging
Xiaomi increased the battery size this year from 5,000 mAh to 6,000 mAh. This means much better battery life. In our tests, the F7 Pro got a great active use score of 13 hours and 51 minutes, which is a big jump from last year's 10.5 hours.
The phone supports 90-watt charging, and the official charger might come in the box in some places. We charged the Poco F7 Pro from 0 to 53% in just 15 minutes, and a full charge took only 34 minutes. That's really fast! However, there's no wireless charging, which you do get on the Ultra model.
Camera System
The F7 Pro has a main camera and an ultrawide camera on the back. They removed the 2-megapixel macro camera this time. There's also a new 20-megapixel selfie camera on the front, up from 16 megapixels last year. Even with the upgrade, the detail isn't amazing, but you do get bright colors and good dynamic range.
Main Camera
The 50-megapixel main camera is the same as last year's, and it does a very good job during the day. It captures lots of detail with natural colors and excellent dynamic range. Photos of people also look great at the normal zoom level. Even at 2x digital zoom, photos are solid with good detail.
At night, the main camera takes excellent photos, not just for its class but overall. Detail is great, dynamic range is wide, and colors are accurate.
Ultrawide Camera
The 8-megapixel ultrawide camera takes good photos for its type. The pictures are sharp and have good contrast, colors, and dynamic range.
At night, the ultrawide also performs well for its class, with decent dynamic range. Shadows can look a bit soft, but that's common for ultrawide cameras.
Video Quality
The F7 Pro's main camera can record video up to 8K resolution. The ultrawide and selfie cameras are limited to 1080p.
We like the main camera's 4K videos. They capture a lot of detail and have good colors and dynamic range. The ultrawide's 1080p videos aren't super sharp, but they're okay. The F7 Pro's stabilization works well, smoothing out walking shakes and pans.
In the dark, the main camera does a great job with video, offering superb detail, wide dynamic range, and accurate colors.
