POCO F9 Pro Review: Way Better Than I Expected

Quick summary: The POCO F9 Pro is fast, powerful, has great speakers and a bright 185Hz screen, and charges really fast. The cameras are passable rather than flagship-level. From $699 ($649 early bird), it’s a great value.

Specs

• Chip: Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 V-series, with 12GB of RAM.
• Display: 6.59-inch AMOLED at 185Hz, up to 4,500 nits peak.
• Battery: 6,330mAh, per POCO.
• Charging: 100W wired and 50W wireless. Only a USB-C cable is in the box, with no charger.
• Cameras: a 200MP main camera and a 50MP 2.5x telephoto.
• Audio: Sound by Bose speakers.
• Build: a glass back with a metal frame, per POCO.

Cameras

The camera app has 200MP and Pro modes, plus video, portrait, document scanning, slow motion and time-lapse. The rear cameras shoot 4K 60, and the front camera does 4K 30. One annoyance: in 4K 60, the ultra-wide button disappears until you switch to 4K 30, which should be fixed. 5x zoom looked pretty good and 15x was okay. The front camera got a bit wobbly in low light, and the rear cameras did really well. I’d give the system a 7 out of 10, below Samsung, Apple and Pixel flagships.

Performance

Geekbench gave me 1,945 single-core and 8,704 multi-core, roughly Snapdragon 8 Elite territory. It’s not the very best, but close. I haven’t noticed any lag. The default animations feel a bit long, more iPhone-like than snappy like Pixel or OnePlus, but you can shorten them in settings.

Fortnite on Epic ran at about 60fps, even while jumping, and looked amazing. The back got a little warm despite the liquid cooling.

Design and software

It doesn’t look like a gaming phone. The under-display fingerprint sensor works really well. There are some preinstalled apps like WPS Office and Prime Video, but they uninstall. There’s a full theme store (lots of free themes, widgets, wallpapers, ringtones and fonts) and plenty of display controls. I set the refresh rate to 185Hz permanently. It offers more customization than a Pixel, closer to Samsung.

Display and speakers

The screen is clear with nice colors, and the Bose-tuned speakers are loud and boom pretty well.

Pricing

• 12GB/256GB: $699, or $649 early bird. In Europe, €899.
• 12GB/512GB: $769, or $699 early bird.

Verdict

A Pixel costs a few hundred dollars more and probably has a better camera, and you might prefer its software. But the F9 Pro is more powerful, less expensive and has a really nice, bright display.

• POCO F9 Pro on eBay