POCO F7 5G review: Gaming-focused smartphone with a marathon battery, but

Business Standard

4 days ago

The POCO F7 5G could have been an all-round smartphone if it had better imaging hardware, rich acoustics, efficient thermal system, and optimised operating system
Chinese smartphone maker POCO expanded its F-series in India with the launch of POCO F7. The performance-focused smartphone boasts specifications aimed at catering to gamers. The smartphone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chip, paired with 12GB of RAM, and packs a 7,550mAh battery. Moreover, it has a 'IceLoop Cooling System' to deliver sustained performance even during the most intense usage, the company claimed. Available at Rs 31,999 onwards, the POCO F7 5G seems to be a lucrative deal. Is it? Let us find out:
Design and Build
We received the POCO F7 Cyber Silver edition for review, which exudes an appearance of a gadget from a sci-fi movie. The back panel is divided into two parts with the upper part sporting a black glass look and the lower featuring a silver glossy mirror finish. The design on the top of the back panel comprises contrast elements that strike a perfect balance with the shiny black finish. Be it the red inverted triangle at the top, the black stripes, the Qualcomm Snapdragon branding, the little copper strip, or the subtle green glimmering accents on the camera module, they all come together to make the device look like a premium gaming smartphone. Despite packing so many elements, it manages to retain the sophisticated feel, which acts like a cherry on top.
I have no complaints whatsoever about the upper part of the back panel. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about the lower part, though. The lower part features a classy silver mirror finish with the POCO branding resting on the bottom right corner. It does complement the black part well and looks really good, but the mirror finish has turned it into a fingerprint magnet. Even if you touch the back lightly, it will retain your fingerprint. If the fingerprint and smudge retention issue had been resolved, then it would have stood out tall as probably the best-looking smartphone that I have reviewed in quite some time.
The right frame of the design panel features volume buttons and a power button, complemented by three thin off-white coloured stripes, which somewhat give it an iPhone-like feel. The left frame sports a clean and almost spotless look except for the little stripe. The bottom frame houses the SIM tray, a USB-C port for charging and data transfer, and a speaker grille. The top frame sports a clean look, complemented by two stripes.
The metal casing makes the POCO F7 a sturdy and dependable smartphone, which will easily endure a few drops here and there without any scratches. The durability of the smartphone is further enhanced by the Corning Gorilla Glass 7i protection on both front and back sides, and IP66, IP68, and IP69 ratings.
The POCO F7 has a 6.83-inch 1.5K pOLED display (2772 x 1280 pixels) of a 120Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of up to 3,200 nits. As mentioned before, the screen is protected by the Corning Gorilla Glass 7i. The colour reproduction of the display panel was satisfactory with vibrant and punchy colours, but you can tune it for natural tones for close to accurate colours. Be it the reds, purples, golden, or the blacks, the colour output seemed satisfactory. The brightness of the screen was apt to be used even in harsh daylight conditions.
The presence of thin bezels and a flat display made the POCO F7 stand out as a premium smartphone, and it also delivered an impressive multimedia watching experience. The experience of binge-watching movies and web series in well-lit as well as dark environments was good. Additionally, the device features an in-display fingerprint scanner that offers fast and convenient access. Unlocking is accompanied by fluid animations, adding to both usability and visual appeal. Overall, the display did impress me.
As for the audio department, I was really disappointed with the POCO F7. The smartphone is supposed to be 'the phone' for gaming, but everything falls apart without the presence of a loud audio output. Until and unless you wear earphones, you'll barely be able to hear minute details like footsteps of enemies in games like BGMI. It will be as if you're flying into the battle while being deaf. Despite turning the volume to the max, the audio output was not even close to the adequate bar. Yes, the speakers do retain clarity of the audio, but without apt loudness, it is of no use. I thought that maybe this is only an issue with BGMI, so I tried it in multimedia. Even while watching movies or listening to music, the audio output was not satisfactory. You will be able to hear music, but the extra punch that smartphones priced much less than the POCO F7 pack is missing in this smartphone.
The POCO F7 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4, paired with 12GB RAM and up to 512GB onboard storage. This combination gives the phone enough muscle to handle just about anything you throw at it – be it day-to-day multitasking or more demanding, resource-intensive workloads. Whether you're browsing with multiple tabs open, switching between apps quickly, or editing videos on the go, the device doesn't stutter. It easily adapts to varied use cases, making it versatile enough to be your daily driver and also your go-to gaming phone.
I found the overall performance to be fluid and consistent. I played high-demanding games like BGMI and Call of Duty Mobile with graphics cranked up to the highest settings, and the phone held up without any frame drops. I did not notice even a single lag while playing these games. Animations stayed smooth, app launches were snappy, and transitions felt seamless. Even heavier apps like video editors and large games opened quickly and ran reliably.
Overheating is something that I encountered a number of times while using the POCO F7. Despite featuring a big 3D IceLoop system with AI temperature control, the smartphone did end up heating up significantly while transferring data from my old phone to the new phone, charging, and even while playing games. Playing BGMI or CODM for more than an hour or two at maximum settings would end up making the smartphone heat up. The maximum heating that I observed during my usage was when I was transferring all data from my old smartphone to the POCO F7.
The POCO F7 focuses significantly on gaming, due to which it also comes with Wild Boost 4.0 gaming optimisation mode. This mode optimises the device and makes it push past its limit to deliver an unmatched gaming experience. Notably, no matter what I did, I was never able to achieve 120 frames per second while playing these games. The maximum fps that I got while playing such high-demanding games was around 71 fps. Overall, the gaming experience was good however, the overheating issue did disappoint me.
The POCO F7 boots on HyperOS 2.0 based on Android 15 and comes with a significant amount of bloatware; however, it can be cleaned. Apart from the bloatware, the user interface is pretty smooth and fluid. Animations while opening the menu or any app is impressive and facile. The presence of LPDDR5X RAM further enhances the performance of POCO F7. Multitasking between apps like YouTube, Chrome, Camera, Gallery, Phone, KineMaster, BGMI, CODM, and more, felt like a breeze. The POCO F7 handled everything thrown at it effortlessly.
The POCO F7 comes with a few on-device AI tools which enhance productivity for users. Here's a list of on-device AI features of POCO F7 and a quick review of how they performed:
Circle to Search: If you are browsing and you come across a picture of an object, say flower for example, then you can draw a circle around that flower and the artificial intelligence will give you more information about that. It is one of the most classic features now and the presence of it in POCO F7 makes it a good offering.
AI Writing: A writing tool that expands, polishes, proofreads, summarises your writing on the basis of the prompts that you give. If you are a lazy person, then this is one tool that you will love. It can even write your resignation emails for you in as savage tone as you like.
AI Speech Recognition: If you're recording an audio somewhere and you want to have a look at whether the transcription will be accurate or not then this feature will let you view transcripts of the recording in real-time while it gets recorded. If it identifies different speaker then it will distinguish them and even label them for clarity. It can even summarise and translate the audio for you.
AI Translate Conversation: Gone are the days when we needed a separate translator while visiting a foreign country. POCO F7's on-device AI translate can interpret face-to-face conversation between supported language and translate them for you on-spot. This feature works like a charm.
AI Interpreter: This is sort of like AI translate conversation but for calls. Imagine you are on call with someone from customer support of a company who is speaking in a foreign language that you are unable to understand. The POCO F7 will translate it for you in real-time to bridge the communication gap.
AI Subtitles: This feature will transcribe video calls and meetings for you. Basically, this is the subtitles of VLC Player while watching movie but applied in real-life for our work meetings or video calls.
Camera
The Poco F7 features a dual-camera setup on the back, headlined by a 50MP Sony IMX882 primary sensor with optical image stabilisation (OIS). This sensor is capable of delivering consistently good results in daylight and well-lit environments. Images shot at 1x and 2x (in-sensor zoom) come out with balanced colours, decent sharpness, and a respectable dynamic range. While there's no dedicated telephoto lens, the 2x zoom is usable in good lighting. The colour reproduction, especially with reds and greens, feels natural and doesn't lean into aggressive saturation. The 8MP ultrawide-angle sensor, on the other hand, does the job in ideal conditions but often lacks detail, and there's noticeable softness around the edges.
In low light, the story is mixed. The main sensor holds up surprisingly well with night mode kicking in automatically and keeps noise under control without blowing out highlights. But you still need some ambient light to get workable shots, and darker scenes expose the camera's limitations. The ultrawide struggles in poor lighting with poor dynamic range and lack of clarity.
On the front, the 20MP sensor performs reliably across lighting scenarios, and for video calls or casual selfies, it's more than capable. Video output is good, too.
What makes the overall camera experience more rounded is the software layer POCO has packed in paired with AI tools. There's motion tracking autofocus, audio and gesture-based shutter triggers, and a Pro Mode that gives full manual control over ISO, white balance, shutter speed, and focus.
As for AI tools, the phone comes with AI image enhancement, AI image expansion, AI magic eraser pro and AI sky replacement. The AI image enhancement does a remarkable job of improving the images that got captured poorly due to some reason. For me, it was easily able to turn blurry and hazy shots into a clearer picture. The AI image expansion allows you to extend the image around the sides if it got a bit too zoomed-in than desired. However, it does have its own limitations, so if you captured an object while zooming-in or making it a close-up shot and now you want to extend it but the object was a bit complex or asymmetrical then the artificial intelligence will struggle to expand the picture accurately. It is highly possible that it might even change the surroundings a bit while expanding the image. The AI magic eraser pro does a fair job. As suggested by its name, with this tool, we can remove those unwanted people from our pictures who decided to photobomb us. As for the AI sky replacement feature, I wouldn't say that it always excels but it does a decent job in most of the cases. If you start experimenting with it then one thing that you will feel that while replacing the sky, it often tampers with the edges of the objects near the sky which end up giving the picture an edited feel, rather than looking perfectly natural.
It's clear the Poco F7 doesn't aim to be a camera phone for serious mobile photography, but that's not the point. For general users, social media, and everyday moments, this setup works just fine.
Battery is one department where POCO F7 really surprised me. The smartphone maker packed a massive 7550mAh battery in this smartphone without making it extremely thick, thanks to the Silicon Carbon battery technology. The battery backup that I got from this smartphone was really impressive.
With moderate day-to-day use with a mix of social media, browsing, camera, hardcore gaming and a bit of video editing, it comfortably lasts a day and a half, putting most rivals to shame. Even with long hours of gaming or heavier tasks, the phone manages to power through nearly 75 per cent of the day without giving up.
It supports 90W wired fast charging and even packs 22.5W reverse charging, so you can juice up other gadgets on the go. That reverse charging bit may sound like a minor feature, but it's genuinely useful once you start relying on it. The lack of wireless charging is one thing that stops the battery from excelling in my view. If it would have been present then the POCO F7 would have been the top contender in my view in terms of battery. As for the charging time, the adapter in-box can fully charge POCO F7 in around 80-90 minutes.
After a really long time I came across a powerhouse smartphone that handles multitasking like a breeze, extensive gaming like its anything, casual photography with ease, features a massive battery and even comes with on-device AI tools. The POCO F7 to me is a power packed smartphone that really exceeded my expectations.
The aspects where I felt that the POCO F7 didn't meet my expectations was in audio and heating. POCO has indeed compromised on audio in order to deliver the rest of the things and it is quite noticeable. The heating issue is there but for the performance that it delivers, I think we will have to make peace with it. To be fair, I have used phones that get far more heated than the POCO F7 but it seems like my expectations with the 'All chill. No sweat,' claim of POCO was slightly misplaced.
If you are someone who is looking for a smartphone with a marathon battery without compromising on performance then POCO F7 could be your pick. If you are a gamer then this is an excellent choice for you however, earphones while gaming are recommended. However, if you want an all-in-one smartphone, then there are better options in the market.
First Published: Jul 02 2025 | 12:54 PM IST