The POCO F7 Ultra is the first “Ultra” model for the POCO brand and it’s the top-of-the-line for the F7 series of POCO phones. It’s very similar to the Redmi K80 Ultra in terms of looks but includes some tweaks to the specifications and color options.
The lower part of the back of the POCO F7 Ultra has a matte finish that doesn’t attract fingerprints at all and I love it. The upper glossy part certainly does attract fingerprints, but you shouldn’t be touching that area and getting grease on the camera lenses anyway.
Specifications
The POCO F7 Ultra runs on the Snapdragon® 8 Elite Mobile Platform with Octa-core CPU, Oryon architecture, 2 Prime Cores, up to 4.32GHz, 6 Performance Cores, up to 3.53GHzm, Adreno™ GPU, the Qualcomm AI engine, and VisionBoost D7 Chipset. For RAM and storage, we’ve got LPDDR5X + UFS 4.1 at 12GB+256GB or 16GB+512GB with LiquidCool Technology 4.0 with 3D Dual-channel IceLoop System with WildBoost Optimization 4.0.
We’ve also got a 6.67″ 2K 120Hz Flow AMOLED display with 3200×1440 pixels, 526 ppi density, 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio, refresh rate: Up to 120Hz, 12 bit color depth, 68 billion colors, and DCI-P3 wide color gamut.
The POCO F7 Ultra also has 3 cameras on the back and one on the front. The 50MP main camera has a Light Fusion 800 image sensor, 1/1.55″ with aperture: f/1.6, 2.0μm 4-in-1 Super Pixel binning, 6P lens, and optical image stabilization. The 50MP 2.5x telephoto camera has an aperture: f/2.0, 60mm equivalent focal length, and optical image stabilization. The 32MP ultra-wide camera has an aperture: f/2.2 and 120° FOV. There’s also a 32MP front camera.
When it comes to battery specs, the POCO F7 Ultra has a 5300mAh (typ) battery with 120W HyperCharge, and 50W wireless HyperCharge.
For Dimensions we’ve got 160.26 x 74.95 x 8.39mm and the weight is 212g. We’ve also got dual SIM (nano SIM + nano SIM), with lots of radio bands 5G/4G/3G/2G, 5G SA: n1/3/5/7/8/20/26/28/38/ 40/41/66/77/78/2/48, 5G NSA: n1/3/5/7/8/20/28 /38/40/41/66/77/78, 4G LTE TDD: 38/40/41/42/48, 4G LTE FDD: 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/18 /19/20/26/28/66, 3G WCDMA: 1/2/4/5/8/6/19, 2G GSM: 2/3/5/8. Of course there’s also Bluetooth 6.0, Dual-Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi 7/ Wi-Fi 6/ Wi-Fi 5/ Wi-Fi 4 and 802.11a/b/g. Additionally, the POCO F7 Ultra has IP68 dust/water resistance, NFC, infrared blaster, dual-frequency GPS, an ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor, dual stereo speakers, and is Xiaomi HyperOS 2.04 with Android 15.
The POCO F7 Ultra comes with a black rubber case to protect it and an awesome 120W fast charger.
Hardware
The hardware design looks great with its off centered camera array bump, glossy upper section, LED flash slit, and matte lower section.
On the right side is the power button and volume rocker. They’re raised up well enough to feel with your fingers. The edges are flat metal as opposed to thin pointy edges and that’s a good thing because the larger surface area of the boxy sides makes it easier to hold.
On the bottom we have some speaker grill holes, a USB-C port, and the SIM card tray slot along with a microphone hole.
The top edge is totally flat and clean, with just some separator lines for the antennae. You can also see how much the camera hump protrudes from the rest of the phone at this angle.
The left side is also completely void of buttons or controls.
Camera
For the camera array we’ve got a 50MP main camera with a 24mm equivalent focal length, 1/1.55″ sensor size with f/1.6 aperture, 2.0μm 4-in-1 Super Pixel binning, 6P lens, and optical image stabilization. There’s also a 60mm equivalent focal length 50MP 2.5x telephoto camera with an f/2.0 aperture and optical image stabilization. The ultra wide angle 32MP camera has an aperture of f/2.2 and 120° FOV. I really like this range of focal lengths though I certainly wouldn’t mind a fourth camera with a 120mm equivalent focal length like the Xiaomi Ultra devices have.
The camera software has all of the usual features of Xiaomi’s other devices. Unfortunately there is no RAW output support at all and these cameras don’t work with the OpenCamera app and Google’s Camera API 2. However, the 50Mp JPG images seem to be a lot better than some other phones that really just upsample their 12Mp photos after the fact in their high resolution modes.
For the following samples, I shot everything in full resolution 50Mp or 32Mp mode since RAW mode is not available. Honestly, the cameras fared very well even shooting at 50Mp especially in terms of speed. Normally, shooting at 50Mp on my Xiaomi Ultra in RAW mode, there can be some lag between shots as it needs to save a lot more data, but in high-res JPG modes the POCO F7 Ultra was quite fast.
The main 24mm equivalent 50Mp main camera is totally acceptable even in low light situations like the above. Pixel peeping does show a lot of noise and mushiness from the processing, but it’s not awful. Of course, my Xiaomi 13 Ultra’s main camera is much cleaner, but this is to be expected given the price differences.
I love having ultra-wide angle lens cameras on phones and the POCO F7 Ultra is no exception. Of course, there’s noise and softness in low light images, but I’m totally happy with the results such as the image seen above.
The 60mm equivalent telephoto lens camera combination is my favorite for portraits. Note, that I don’t ever use “portrait mode” due to the inaccuracy of all cameras with their background blur filtering in those modes. However, this camera and lens combination is still great due to its lack of distortion that the 24 and 15mm lenses will get with people photos. We don’t get the bokeh or the sharpness that we would get from other similar lenses, but it’s still quite acceptable.
The front facing camera works great for the selfies, too. The 32Mp are again a bit noisy, but the sharpness is acceptable.
For video, the POCO F7 Ultra only handles 30 frames per second at 4K resolutions and 24 fps at 8K resolutions, so lacking 60fps is a limitation there, but combined with a good external LED light panel, we can still get good results as seen in the above Instagram Reel.
Software
The Xiaomi POCO F7 Ultra runs Xiaomi’s HyperOS 2.04 on Android 15 and comes with all the Google Apps and services pre-installed. Xiaomi also includes a lot of their own apps such as the Gallery, Weather, Mi Browser, Music, Themes, Mi Video, Game Center, Cleaner, Security, File Manager, Mi Home, POCO Community, Calculator, Clock, Recorder, Compass, Scanner, Notes, Mi Remote, Mi Mover, Calenda, Services & Feedback. Some other bloatware is also included like Facebook, Amazon Music, WPS Office, Booking.com, Netflix, and AliExpress.
In my DNS server, there aren’t too many crazy server access requests. Just a lot to Xiaomi.com subdomains and MIUI.com subdomains in addition to the usual constant Google connections of course.
Battery life is pretty excellent too. My first test of mostly just running email and a DNS filter VPN got around 80 hours, which is a lot. A more likely battery life would be about 26-30 hours with more usage.
Pros/Cons
Pros
- Premium hardware design with matte backing that doesn’t show fingerprints at all
- 15mm, 24mm, 60mm equivalent camera array focal lengths are a great range
- Great performance
- Fantastic battery life
- Fast 120W charging, and 50W wireless charging
Cons
- Cameras don’t output to RAW DNG formats
- A bit of bloatware software included
- No MicroSD slot, no 3.5mm headset jack, non-removable battery
Pricing
The POCO F7 Ultra pricing hasn’t been announced yet but it will probably cost around $700USD like the Redmi K80 Ultra. See Mi.com for more information.
UPDATE: Pricing:
- 12GB+256GB: RRP $649 / Early Bird $599
- 16GB+512GB: RRP $699 / Early Bird $649
Conclusion
My biggest disappointment with the POCO F7 Ultra is that I got the black version instead of the yellow version as that model looks really nice. The performance when shooting fully resolution 50Mp JPGs rapidly is very impressive. While normally, Xiaomi’s POCO brand is meant for the less expensive Android smartphones, the brand’s first “Ultra” model steps things up quite a bit bringing it closer to the high-end Xiaomi brand.
Guest appearances from Angelina, Natasha Berezhnaya, and Deby Costa.