POCO is back with the POCO X7 Pro, the company’s next smartphone in the X series, as the successor to the popular POCO X6 Pro. Once again, we have impressive on-paper specs including a 1.5K 120Hz AMOLED display with Dolby Vision, Dimensity 8400 Ultra SoC, a major upgrade from Dimensity 8300 Ultra, and the battery has also increased to 6550mAh battery. Is the phone worth the price? Let us dive into the review to find out.
Box Contents
- POCO X7 Pro 5G 12GB + 256GB in Black colour
- 90W fast charger
- USB Type-C Cable
- SIM Ejector tool
- Protective case
- Screen protector (Pre-installed)
- User guide
Display, Hardware and Design
Starting with the display, the POCO X7 Pro has a 6.67-inch 1.5K AMOLED display with a pixel resolution of 2712 x 1220 pixels, 20:9 aspect ratio and a pixel density of about 445 PPI. This is almost similar to the screen in the X6 Pro, but this offers up to 3200 nits peak brightness, compared to 1800 nits in the predecessor. It is bright outdoors or watching HDR content. It has 100% DCI-P3 Color Gamut, so the colours are vibrant.
The phone has a 120Hz refresh rate display and 480Hz touch sampling rate. When enabled, it offers a buttery smooth user experience, especially when you are scrolling through the UI and when gaming.
The phone has a 1920Hz high-frequency dimming technology. In dark environments, the phone will automatically switch to 1920Hz PWM dimming mode to maintain accurate colors on display with a more comfortable eye experience. It also has HDR 10+ support, which works for YouTube and Amazon Prime Video and there is Dolby Vision which works for Netflix.
Under the display options, there are different options to adjust colours and contrast based on your preference with Original colour PRO option. It also has Super resolution, AI HDR enhancement for videos, and there is also MEMC. The phone has an always-on-display option, which can be enabled from display settings. The phone comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 7i protection.
The phone has a tiny punch-hole that houses a 20-megapixel camera, which doesn’t disturb when watching videos since it just occupies a small space. Above the display there is an earpiece on the top edge which also doubles up as a secondary speaker. It has an ultra-narrow bottom bezel.
Coming to the button placements, the volume rockers and the power button are present on the right side of the phone. The dual SIM slot, loudspeaker grill, primary microphone and USB Type-C port are present on the bottom. It doesn’t have a microSD expansion slot.
On the top there is a vent for the speaker, secondary microphone and an infrared sensor. Since the phone has a plastic frame, you don’t see any antenna cutouts. The flat frame offers a good grip to hold and doesn’t attract fingerprints.
The back of the phone also has a plastic finish, so it doesn’t feel premium. In addition to the Black colour that we have, the phone also comes in POCO Yellow with a vegan leather finish and Nebula Green colours in India.
The phone is just 8.2 thick, and weighs 195 grams even though it packs a 6550mAh battery. The phone has IP66 + IP68 certification and also has IP69 support for dust and water resistance compared to IP54 ratings in the X6 Pro, which is a major upgrade.
Camera
- 50MP main camera with 1/1.95″ Sony LTY-600 sensor, f/1.5 aperture, OIS, EIS
- 8MP ultra-wide camera with f/2.2 aperture
- 20MP front camera with 1/4″ OV20B sensor, f/2.2 aperture
The camera UI is familiar with other Xiaomi or POCO smartphones running Hyper OS 2. You get all the features such as Pro, Night, 50MP, Short Video, Panorama, VLOG, Slow motion, Time-lapse, Dual video, AI watermark, Long exposure and Pro mode lets you adjust white balance, focus, shutter speed (1/4000s to 30 seconds), ISO (50 to 6400) and option to select main, and ultra-wide lens. You can enable focus peaking, exposure verification and more options.
Coming to the image quality, daylight shots came out well with good dynamic range. After pixel binning technology, you get 12MP output from all main camera. HDR shots are better with improved dynamic range. 8MP wide-angle shots are decent. It is a good thing that there is no 2MP macro camera, which was not useful. The 20MP front camera is good, and you get full 20MP output. Lowlight camera performance is decent, but it could have been better.
Check out the camera samples.
It can record videos at 4k resolution at 60 fps, and it also has slow motion 1080p at up to 240 fps and there is interpolation to 960 fps. You can also shoot 1080 30 fps videos using the front camera and ultra-wide camera. There is no HDR video option, which you can enable from settings. OIS in the main camera does its job, and there is a separate ultra-steady mode that uses both OIS and EIS, but it switches to 1080p.
Software, UI and Apps
This is the first POCO phones to run HyperOS 2 out of the box. It has got December 2024 Android security patch. The company has promised 3 OS updates and 4 years of security updates for the phone, which is good. HyperOS 2 brings several customization options such as upgraded lock screen setup with personalized customization, Dynamic Effects Across Screens, 3D Real-Time Weather System, Upgraded Xiaomi Interconnectivity, Link to Windows and more
There are also AI features such as AI Notes, AI Recorder, AI Interpreter and AI subtitles. You also get AI-powered editing features like expand, reflection remover, erase and sky replacement. There are some minor bugs in HyperOS 2 like crashes when you create a homescreen folder, but these can be fixed in the update.
Since the phone has an infrared sensor for remote function, it comes with Mi Remote that lets you control your home appliances easily. Out of 12GB LPDDR5X RAM, you get 11.05GB of usable RAM, and about 5GB of RAM is free when default apps are running in the background. It also has up to 12GB of memory extension or virtual RAM, which you can disable from additional settings. Out of 256GB UFS 4.0 storage, you get about 225GB of free storage.
Apart from the usual set of utility apps, Google apps and POCO’s own set of apps, it comes preloaded with Netflix, Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn, Spotify, Snapchat and a couple of games. It also asks for additional app installation during setup, which you can skip. You can easily uninstall these apps, but these come up when you reset the phone. Even though there is personalized ads option during set up and recommendations in all the apps, you don’t get any ads in apps.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone has an in-display fingerprint sensor. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. You can also use the fingerprint for app local and payments in apps. There are also options to change the fingerprint animation. The phone also has face unlock, but it is not that secure.
Music Player and Multimedia
The Mi Music Player is the default music player with usual POCO audio effects and equalizer. It also doesn’t have FM Radio, but comes with Dolby Atmos, and the phone has stereo speakers that offer an excellent audio experience, and Audio through earphones is good as well.
It has Widevine L1 support, so you can play HD content on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and other streaming apps without any issues. The phone also supports Dolby Vision for Netflix and HDR10+ for Amazon Prime Video. Vibration motors are good, so the haptic feedback is good as well.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
It supports 5G, and has support for several 5G Bands – SA: n1/3/5/7/8/20/26/28/38/40/41/66/77/78/2/48 and NSA: n1/3/5/7/8/28/38/40/41/77/78. There is also support for Dual 4G VoLTE and phone supports carrier aggregation as well. Other connectivity options include Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6 802.11 ax. It has VoWiFi / Wi-Fi calling support, Bluetooth 5.4 LE, GPS, Glonass, Beidou, and there is also NFC support.
It also has USB OTG support that lets you connect USB drives. Call quality is good, and we did not face any call drops and the earpiece volume was loud. It has Xiaomi dialer instead of Google dialer seen in some Xiaomi phones.
The POCO X7 Pro’s body SAR is 0.773W/Kg and head SAR is at 0.876/Kg, that is well under the limit of 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g) in India.
Performance and Benchmarks
This is one of the first phone to be powered by MediaTek Dimensity 8400-Ultra 4nm processor, which is a major upgrade from the Dimensity 8300-Ultra in the predecessor. This has 1x Arm Cortex-A725 at 3.25GHz, 3x Arm Cortex-A725 at 3.0GHz, and 4x Arm Cortex-A725 at 2.1GHz.
The SoC is fabricated using the TSMC’s second generation 4nm process
technology. The phone 5000mm² stainless steel VC cooling, ultra-thin 3D IceLoop system.
The Mali-G720 MC6 GPU with POCO’s Wildboost 3.0 optimization for high quality image rendering, high fps and has a new UI. We did not face any issues or frame drops in the graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact. It reached maximum 43º in our testing indoors in 5G, but this might vary outdoors.
In 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 49.3%, which is decent, but POCO F6 is higher. The temperature shot up from 30 to 52 degrees, which is almost similar to the POCO F6. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
As you can see, the POCO X7 Pro is better than the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 that powers the POCO F6 and the realme GT 6.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 6550mAh (typical) built-in carbon silicon battery compared to 5000mAh in the POCO X6 Pro, and this is the highest on a POCO phone till date. This lasts for more than a day, even with heavy use. With minimal use on Wi-Fi, it should last for over 2 days. I got over 6 hours of screen on time with 2 and half days of mixed use on 5G and Wi-Fi in 120Hz.
There is 5G battery saver, boost charging and more features in the battery settings. Since the phone has support for 90W fast charging, it can charge up to 50% in about 20 minutes and up to 100% in about 45 minutes. The phone now shows charging cycles. It promises 1600 times of four-year durable long cycle, ultra-long service life.
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs. 27,999, the POCO X7 Pro is another value-for-money offering from POCO, making it a performance powerhouse. There are upgrades in the SoC, battery life and the waterproof ratings has also improved. The front camera and low-light camera performance from the rear camera are decent, but could have been better.
Alternatives
The POCO F6 at a less price with offers is a better deal if you can compromise on the battery life since the gaming performance is better. The realme GT 6T is also a good option, and the iQOO Neo 10 series is also expected soon.
Pricing and availability
The POCO X7 Pro is priced at Rs. 27,999 for the 8GB + 256GB, and Rs. 29,999 for the 12GB + 256GB model. It is available from Flipkart.
Pros
- 1.5K 120Hz AMOLED display with HDR10+ and Dolby Vision is brilliant
- Smooth performance and good gaming performance
- Good build, IP66 + IP68 ratings and IP69 support
- Android 15 with a promise of 3 OS updates
- Excellent battery life with 90W fast charging
Cons
- Bloatware
- Gets heated quickly on intensive gaming