Poco is launching its first “Ultra” phone today – the brand felt this was the right branding as the Poco F7 Ultra is the first to come out with the current flagship chipset, instead of the top chip from last year. Indeed, the F7 Ultra is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite.
Poco F7 Ultra
This is two generations ahead of the Poco F6 Pro, which featured a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, and it leaves a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 sized hole in the lineup – this hole is filled by the Poco F7 Pro, which we will cover in a separate post.
Compared to the 8 Gen 3, the Elite has a 45% faster CPU and 40% faster GPU. Compared to the 8 Gen 2, the performance uplift is even more massive. But Poco wasn’t satisfied with this.
The Poco F7 Ultra is equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Elite
The F7 Ultra is the first in the family to bring a dedicated graphics chip, the VisionBoost D7. This 12nm chip can do resolution upscaling, frame generation and Game HDR. It works in YouTube and Netflix too, by the way, not just in games.
But in games the Snapdragon and the VisionBoost combined can run Genshin Impact at 2K Super Resolution at 120fps without a drop in performance even after an hour of play time. Of course, the LiquidCool Technology 4.0 should get some of the credit for that – it has a dual-channel system with an extra-large heat pipe (5,400mm²) and promises to reduce the chipset temperature by 3°C. For comparison, the F7 Pro targets 90fps on Genshin Impact.
We’re not done with the custom chips yet. The Surge G1 takes care of the 5,300mAh battery while the Surge P3 handles the charging – the 120W HyperCharge can get the battery to 100% in just 34 minutes. There’s also 50W wireless HyperCharge, if you don’t feel like plugging in. Both chips help to stretch the battery life and it will have at least 80% of its original capacity after 1,600 charge cycles.
The Surge G1 and P3 manage the 5,300mAh battery and HyperCharge
The “Ultra” phone sets out to earn its name not just with performance, but with camera prowess too. This is the most advanced camera system that Poco has put together yet.
It features the 50MP Light Fusion 800 sensor (1/1.55”, 1.0µm pixels) with an f/1.6 lens with OIS. The camera app has toggles for several focal lengths like 35mm and 48mm, which are handled by this sensor.
Then there is the floating lens telephoto module, which has a native focal length of 60mm (2.5x) and can be toggled to 120mm (5x) thanks to its 50MP sensor. The tele camera also has OIS and can do tele-macro shots at 10cm. Then there’s the 32MP ultra-wide camera, which covers a 120° field of view. Finally, there is a 32MP selfie camera.
The Poco F7 Ultra has a 50+50+32MP camera
The Poco F7 Ultra is equipped with a 6.67” 120Hz OLED display with 1,440 x 3,200px resolution and 12-bit colors. The company has chosen own-branded protection for this display, Poco Shield Glass. Anyway, the display normally hits 1,800 nits but can peak at 3,200 nits. The High Frequency PWM dimming (3,840Hz) offers 16,000 brightness levels. The normal touch rate is 480Hz, which can shoot up to 2,560Hz when needed – smooth input tracking is assisted by the VisionBoost D7 chip.
Having mentioned protection above, this was a weak spot for older F-phones (e.g. the F6 Pro is rated IP54). The F7 Ultra is a proper flagship, so it gets proper protection with an IP68 rating. The phone measures 8.4mm thick and weighs 212g.
A few other specs worth mentioning are the ultrasonic under display fingerprint reader (another upgrade, F6 Pro had an optical reader), NFC, an IR blaster, dual-frequency GPS and stereo speakers.
Poco F7 Ultra in Yellow and Black
The Poco F7 Ultra is available in two colors, Black and (naturally) Yellow. There are two memory configurations to choose from, 12/256GB and 16/512GB, with LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.1 storage.
Pricing starts at $649 for the 12/256GB trim and $699 for the 12/512GB trim. Poco is taking early-bird orders ($50 discount) starting today.
PS. We already have the Poco F7 Ultra in for review, expect the full report soon. For now, you can check out the benchmark results from the Snapdragon 8 Elite (including a sustained performance test).