I tried the Poco F6 and Poco F6 Pro right after reviewing the Google Pixel 8a. It was difficult to know which phone to try first, so I used them both.
Poco isn’t a smartphone brand many may have heard of, but those who have will mostly associate it with bright, colorful gaming phones. That’s not the case for the Poco F6 and Poco F6 Pro, Poco’s two latest devices that are surprisingly mature in appearance, yet still furnished with some of the customary design flair expected from the brand.
However, despite sharing a name, the two F6 phones are really different. It’s quite hard to work out which one is the real star just from looking at the specification sheets, as there are interesting things about both. When they arrived, I had my SIM card in the Google Pixel 8a, so which new Poco phone should replace it? I used them both to find out.Poco F6
I was very intrigued to try the Poco F6 due to it using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor, which is one I’ve not experienced yet. The slightly misleading name indicates it’s a high-end chip, but it’s really a mishmash of various old Snapdragon 8-series chips assembled like a “greatest hits” version for reasonably priced Android phones. This actually sounds pretty good. So, is it?
I’m using the 12GB RAM Poco F6 model, and it’s a great performer. Playing Asphalt 9: Legends on the highest in-game settings, at full brightness and in Poco’s Ultimate gaming mode setting, didn’t cause any issues, and the game was smooth, fast, and exciting. It’s capable of running the 3DMark benchmarking app’s ray tracing-infused Solar Bay Stress Test, and it looked flawless on screen. It certainly made the phone warm to the touch, but not hot, and it sailed through the test. My first experience with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 is a very positive one, and the Poco F6 seems to be a great mobile gaming partner.
The lightweight plastic body (just 179 grams) and big 6.67-inch AMOLED screen help boost its gaming credentials, and the dual speakers sound great, too. Encased in the sparkly rear panel are two cameras — a 50-megapixel Sony IMX882 main camera with optical image stabilization and an 8MP wide-angle camera. The Poco F6 isn’t a camera superstar. Coming from the Pixel 8a, which has an excellent camera, I found the F6’s photos inconsistent, as they often showed dull or inaccurate colors, while the noisy, pixelated wide-angle camera was an inevitable disappointment.
