Poco F7 Pro vs. Poco F7 Ultra

The Poco F series has taken a little shift in positioning this year, this time the Pro getting outdone by an Ultra, instead of having a vanilla model on its other side. That said, the F7 Pro retains all the goodness of the previous generation’s Pro – it’s just that the F7 Ultra now brings even more to the table.

We’ll do a thorough comparison between the two models to try and show you if the Pro is good enough, or now that there’s an Ultra, that one is the way to go.

Table of Contents:

For starters, you can compare the complete specs sheets or directly continue with our editor’s assessment in the following text.

Size comparison

There’s not a lot to separate the two models in terms of physical size. Both are built around 6.67-inch displays and have the exact same footprint, with the Ultra being marginally thicker – though we don’t think you’d be feeling that in the hand. The Pro is also a tiny bit lighter – again, not really tangibly so.

Poco F7 Pro (left) next to Poco F7 Ultra – you’ll have to trust us on this

Both phones have more or less the same build too – glass front and back, aluminum frame. The Pro’s display is covered by Gorilla Glass 7i, while the Ultra uses Poco Shield glass – obviously, we can’t be certain which one is better, or by how much.

Both devices are IP68-rated for dust and water resistance, though the Ultra should supposedly be good down to 2.5m underwater – it’s just 1.5m on the Pro, but we somehow doubt that makes a world of difference in practice.

One difference that’s plain to see is the color selection – the Ultra can be had in the classic Poco yellow livery in addition to black, while the Pro gets black, plus silver and blue.

Display comparison

Poco’s Pros have had 1440p displays for a couple of generations already and that’s also the case on the F7 Pro. Naturally, there’s no viable step up for the Ultra and it too has the same 6.67-inch QHD panel.

Both Pocos have essentially the same excellent maximum brightness, 120Hz maximum refresh rate and Dolby Vision support. Two great displays, with little to separate them.

Battery life

The F7 Pro receives a significant upgrade in battery capacity over the previous generation, the number now reaching 6,000mAh. The F7 Ultra, meanwhile, has a smaller 5,300mAh cell.

The Pro’s battery uses a graphite anode, while the Ultra’s is silicon-carbon, for a bit better energy density and extreme weather performance.

In our testing, the two phones posted virtually identical results in video playback and gaming. The Pro snatched a very narrow victory in web browsing and it has a somewhat more pronounced advantage in LTE voice calls. It doesn’t seem that battery endurance will be a deciding factor between the two.

Charging speed

There might be something to separate the two in the charging department, though it’s unlikely going to be charging speed. While the Ultra is specced to support 120W wired charging and the Pro ‘only’ gets 90W, in practice, the maximum speed is only slightly better on the Ultra.

If the retail package doesn’t include a proprietary adapter in your region, it will probably be worth getting one. And surprising as it may sound, our tests confirmed that a 90W Xiaomi brick will charge the F7 Ultra as quickly on the Ultra as a 120W one.

It’s a different story with aftermarket Power Delivery chargers – you can expect vastly different results from model to model, and between the PD ones and the Xiaomi ones – though you might be able to get close with just the right unit.

What does make a real difference here is wireless charging – the Ultra has it, the Pro doesn’t. It’s not just any wireless charging either, but one of Xiaomi’s above-standard varieties that can go up to 50W with proprietary peripherals (at additional cost, of course).

Speaker test

The two F7s have stereo speaker setups of the usual kind – one bottom-firing unit and an earpiece that’s also a speaker.

In terms of sound output, the Ultra maintains strict channel separation, while on the Pro, each channel also plays a slightly attenuated version of the opposite track too (the typical Xiaomi way). We don’t necessarily find one approach better than the other, but if you do, you should know that there’s a difference here.

In our testing, both phones earned ‘Very Good’ ratings for loudness. And the sound output is very similar between the two, each offering pretty nice quality with no real flaws.

Performance

High performance has traditionally been a large chunk of the Poco F series’ appeal and the F7 Pro and F7 Ultra don’t disappoint. While the Pro stays truer to the established order and uses last year’s flagship Snapdragon, the addition of an Ultra to the lineup means Poco can now offer the current flagship Snapdragon – so it’s the SD 8 Gen vs. the SD 8 Elite.

Either phone can be purchased with 256GB or 512GB of storage and, on both models, the base version comes with 12GB of RAM. The Ultra’s 512GB version has 16GB of RAM though – that just might make a difference if you’re enough of a power user. Though, can it, really?

Benchmark performance

Sure enough, in benchmarks, the Ultra is comfortably ahead of the Pro – it’s the generational divide in Qualcomm’s chip design, personified. The Ultra does have the upper hand in this part of the comparison, of course, but the Pro is also plenty powerful enough.

When it comes to software, both phones run more or less the same version of Xiaomi HyperOS (‘for Poco’). Both are promised 4 major OS version updates and 6 years of ongoing security patches.

Camera comparison

Alongside the chipset, the camera hardware is one of the major differences between the two models. The Pro continues in the footsteps of previous Poco F Pros and offers a relatively basic setup with a wide primary camera on the back and a modest ultrawide.

The Ultra elevates things a notch (or two). It does start with the same primary camera, but it adds a telephoto unit with 2.5x zoom and close focusing, plus it upgrades the ultrawide to a more advanced sensor.

Image quality

You’d expect the main camera photos to be identical from the two, but while both deliver very nice results, they do exhibit slight differences in processing.

When comparing the two, we’re seeing higher sharpening and occasionally higher saturation on the Ultra as opposed to a more natural detail rendition and marginally more conservative colors from the Pro in some scenes. Both have reliable auto white balance and wide dynamic range, so no complaints.

Daylight photo samples, 1x: Poco F7 Pro • Poco F7 Ultra

The Pro doesn’t have a telephoto camera, while the one on the Ultra is at 2.5x zoom, but both phones can do 2x from their main cameras. Whatever differences we were convinced there were at 1x, all but disappear at this zoom level.

Daylight photo samples, 2x: Poco F7 Pro • Poco F7 Ultra

We figured we’d go to the trouble of pinching to zoom to 2.5x and 5x on the Pro to see just how far behind the Ultra it is if you need to bring distant objects closer.

At 2.5x digital zoom, you could say that the Pro is holding in there – it’s clearly not as good, but let’s say it’s producing usable results. After all, the Pro performs quite well digitally zooming to 2x to begin with.

As for the 5x digital zoom, we are not fans of the Pro’s photos, while the Ultra’s digitally zoomed photos look good there.

Daylight photo samples, 2.5x: Poco F7 Pro • Poco F7 Ultra

Daylight photo samples, 5x: Poco F7 Pro • Poco F7 Ultra

Then there’s the F7 Ultra’s close-up shooting capability that the F7 Pro has no answer to.

Daylight close-up samples, 2.5x: Poco F7 Ultra

Comparing the ultrawides, you’d be looking at 8MP images from both phones, though the Ultra ones are coming from a 32MP Quad Bayer-type sensor that’s also larger than the Pro’s 8MP conventional one. That said, we are indeed seeing finer detail and better definition in the Ultra’s shots.

Daylight photo samples, 0.6x: Poco F7 Pro • Poco F7 Ultra

Selfies from either phone aren’t the best, but while pixel-level detail is questionable on both, perhaps the Pro’s noticeably wider coverage could be seen as a plus.

Selfie samples: Poco F7 Pro • Poco F7 Ultra

In the dark, main camera shots are quite similar between the two phones, but the Ultra’s images are that one bit cleaner and perhaps marginally sharper.

Low-light photo samples, 1x: Poco F7 Pro • Poco F7 Ultra

In the dark, neither phone can match the detail in its 2x shots that we saw during the day, but the Ultra holds up noticeably better.

Low-light photo samples, 2x: Poco F7 Pro • Poco F7 Ultra

Switch the Ultra to its telephoto camera and its 2.5x shots are noticeably better than its 2x results, and vastly superior to the Pro’s attempts at a similar zoom level. The dedicated zoom camera makes all the difference here.

Low-light photo samples, 2.5x: Poco F7 Pro • Poco F7 Ultra

The Ultra’s ultrawide typically does better in the dark than its Pro counterpart, bringing sharper images with better detail in the shadows. We had a couple of mishaps with its tendency to pick extra-high ISOs which resulted in some false colors like in the third scene below, but edge cases like that aside, the Ultra should get you nicer photos.

Low-light photo samples, 0.6x: Poco F7 Pro • Poco F7 Ultra

Video quality

Below, we have a few framegrabs from the videos taken by the two phones at each focal length so it’s easier to compare to one another.

Both phones can capture video up to 4K60 or 8K24 with their main cameras, and the Ultra can also do 4K60 with its telephotos. The ultrawides are capped at 1080p90. There are quite capable pro video modes on both and they can both record in HDR10+.

The Ultra has a minuscule advantage in video quality on the ultrawide, while the Pro is somehow marginally sharper at 1x – we’re talking negligible differences at unreasonable magnifications. It’s a toss-up at 2x, but the Ultra’s 2.5x is better than either 2x and is the logical choice for zoomed-in video.

Daylight video samples, Poco F7 Pro: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 2.5

Daylight video samples, Poco F7 Ultra: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 2.5

In the dark, the Pro is again marginally sharper at 1x, the Ultra’s tele holds up decently, and neither ultrawide is in its element.

Low-light video samples, Poco F7 Pro: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 2.5

Low-light video samples, Poco F7 Ultra: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 2.5

Verdict

The differences between the Poco F7 Pro and the F7 Ultra were fairly obvious from the get-go, but exploring them with a bit more deliberation revealed a few nuances on top of the apparent.

Yes, the Pro will get you flagship-level performance, and last year’s flagship performance is plenty for the next few years. The savings are also hard to argue with. The unusually wide selfies are probably more of an observation than a true selling point, but we can’t be sure we always understand what drives you. The other thing is that there’s no need to be paying for the extra camera prowess if you have no use for it, but the twist here is that the F7 Pro is doing quite well with the cameras that it already has so it’s not that big of a trade-off.

On the other hand, for what feels like a reasonable price premium, you could be getting better cameras indeed. Or, rather, one more camera that adds versatility for distant subjects and closeups alike. You’ll also be one-upping the Pro in performance and extending the period of trouble-free potential future you’d have with your phone. Then there’s the wireless charging.

All things considered, the Poco F7 Pro is the “good enough” option. Whereas the F7 Ultra feels more like the “let’s spoil myself a little” option.