Poco X7 Pro

When it comes to tech products, I'm always inclined to search for the best value for money in the product I'm buying. It's like a natural hunting instinct, looking for the biggest payoff for the lowest cost. That's why I've been somewhat of a fan of Xiaomi over the years, a brand that usually offers a lot of features at a lower price point. Poco is a lesser-known sub-brand of Xiaomi that's officially available in a number of European countries, including the UK, Germany, and France, but not in the Nordics, for example. In my search for affordable phones, I've bought myself a Poco F5 and Poco X6 Pro previously, so with the new Poco X7 Pro coming out, I was keen to know what has been improved on this latest model and which elements are still compromises to balance the lower price and available features.

For this review, I received the yellow version of the Poco X7 Pro, which has a pretty outstanding design. The back of the phone is made of faux leather. One half is black with a leathery touch to it, and the other half is bright yellow with a striped texture. The black-and-yellow backside is complemented by gold accents around the two camera modules on the back, and a golden power button on the side. To me, it's clearly making a statement that this is a fun and cheeky phone, and I feel it's a nice break from the dull and more serious design of other phones. If you're like me and always use a case, I was happy to find that a clean, matte black phone case is included in the box.

While the phone has a unique back, the front is undoubtedly its highlight. The Poco X7 Pro has an excellent CrystalRes 1.5K 120Hz AMOLED display, which wouldn't feel out of place on a real flagship phone. In some ways, like the 120Hz refresh rate and peak brightness, it's even better than what much pricier competitors like the iPhone 16 have to offer. I've tried out some gaming on the device, loading up Genshin Impact, War Thunder, and Ark: Ultimate Mobile Edition and these simply looked great. With 446 pixels per inch and the high refresh rate, images are always crisp and fluid. Poco has also added Dolby Vision and HDR10+ support, which benefits apps like YouTube or when looking at photos. The excellent display is certainly a big reason to pick the Poco X7 Pro if you're out for a phone on a budget, but still want a high quality experience when gaming, browsing the web or watching videos.

A great display by itself doesn't guarantee a great viewing experience, though. For that, an equally good chipset is required. And like the Poco X6 Pro, the Poco X7 Pro packs enough power to match the screen, in my experience. The MediaTek Dimensity 8400-Ultra on the inside makes the phone feel snappy at all times. Games like Genshin Impact and War Thunder ran smoothly without any hiccups during my testing, though I wasn't always able to hit 120 fps. I've tried some video editing as well using the DJI Mimo app, and a two minute video at 4K and 30 fps takes around 35 seconds to render. The phone heats up a little during prolonged rendering or gaming, but never gets really hot. With the display all cranked up with 120 fps and all AI enhancements enabled, browsing and scrolling through apps feels incredibly smooth. Overall, Poco delivers an outstanding visual experience for a budget-friendly price.

Coming to the cameras on the Poco X7 Pro, the device has dropped one sensor compared to the Poco X6 Pro and now features two on the back. The main attraction is the 50MP Sony IMX882 sensor with a larger f/1.5 aperture, which improves light intake compared to the X6 Pro. In my experience, the Poco X7 Pro shoots great photos during daylight or well-lit indoor environments. I shot some images in Amsterdam's financial district on an overcast day, and got some nice images of the buildings. In my experience, the Poco X7 Pro takes excellent photos in daylight or well-lit indoor environments. I shot some images in Amsterdam's financial district on an overcast day and got detailed, sharp shots of the buildings. Optical image stabilisation (OIS) ensures that most photos come out blur-free. At an outdoor market, I captured colourful and vivid images of fruit stalls, with punchy colours and a generally warm tone. The main camera is more than capable of delivering social-media-worthy photos, but I'd avoid digital zooming too much.

The secondary 8 megapixel ultrawide camera is nearly always a noticeable downgrade from the main camera. When there's less light in the evening, it becomes completely unusable as it captures only smudgy details with a lot of noise. The same goes for the 20 megapixel selfie camera. It's decent for casual selfies, but it feels like a step down from the flagship-grade experience that the screen and chipset give you. Thankfully, the main camera holds its own as long as there is enough light and seems to perform slightly better than the one on the X6 Pro. A big improvement I found was in the portrait shots. When the Poco X6 Pro was my daily phone, I hardly used the portrait mode, as the bokeh effect often randomly blurred parts of the image. On the Poco X7 Pro, the blurred background in the portrait shots is much softer and there's a much better distinction between the subject and background.

Video capture on the Poco X7 Pro is similar to the photography experience. The main camera on the back shoots good video under most lighting conditions, with support of up to 4K at 60 fps using the optical image stabilisation. When it gets darker, video is still very usable, though I did notice some occasional stuttering and shakiness in high-contrast scenes. The selfie camera can only shoot in 1080p at 30 fps, and while usable during the day, video becomes grainier and has less detail in lower-light conditions. This is a common issue in most phones, but on the X7 Pro, it's especially noticeable and makes you aware that this is a mid-range phone.

As a daily smartphone, the Poco X7 Pro is a smooth device to use. It has enough power to last a full day under typical use. It supports 90W charging, though no charger is included in the box. Using my 67W charger from the X6 Pro, charging was fast enough to only require a top-up in the morning for around half an hour to last the rest of the day and night. Call quality and connectivity were fine during my testing. While there was some bloatware in the form of pre-installed games, these can easily be removed. Xiaomi's HyperOS, which runs on Poco devices as well, is also very pleasant in my experience. I've been using Xiaomi phones for almost ten years now, and go back and forth between Android brands, so I have no issue navigating Poco's slightly different UI. Most of the things in HyperOS can be changed to more vanilla Android settings anyway, so any initial differences shouldn't be an issue for anyone. Lastly, the phone supports NFC, so adding your bank cards to Google Wallet shouldn't be a problem, but unfortunately there's no eSIM support.

Concluding, the Poco X7 Pro is a great device for the price. It will currently set you back between €350 and €400 and offers a lot of value for money. Most of this value is undoubtedly in the excellent 120Hz AMOLED display, which makes anything you're watching a joy to behold. Whether watching videos or playing games, the screen makes sure it's a flagship-grade experience. The excellent, fast chipset ensures everything from gaming to video rendering is snappy and smooth. The main camera experience has been improved slightly compared to the X6 Pro, including an improved portrait mode, and both photos and videos shot with the main camera are perfectly usable. Low light performance is less good, though. Also, both the selfie camera and the ultrawide camera feel like compromises to maintain a lower price. But taken together, if you're after a mid-range phone with a top-tier display and performance, you should definitely consider the Poco X7 Pro, provided it's available in your region.