POCO F9 Ultra review: the best-equipped POCO ever is no longer cheap, but it's worth it

For years, the POCO brand was sold with one sentence: flagship performance for half the price. POCO F9 Ultra rewrites that sentence. It no longer costs half, with prices starting at 21,499 CZK. In return, however, you get an 8,050 mAh battery, a periscope telephoto lens, wireless charging, and Bose speakers with a subwoofer. After testing, I’m clear: it’s a brutally well-equipped phone. Just not cheap anymore.

The main thing is missing from the box

The packaging is modest: phone, cable, transparent case, and SIM ejector tool. POCO does not include a charger, which is doubly disappointing for a phone that supports 100W wired and 50W wireless charging. Fast wireless charging also requires an original stand, so anyone who wants to use everything the phone can do will have to spend a few more hundreds or thousands in the store.

Dark Cherry: a shade that even the iPhone wears this year

I have the Dark Cherry variant, which Xiaomi translates as Red Cherry on its Czech website. In reality, it’s a muted burgundy with a hint of purple. Next to my iPhone 18 Pro Max in Burgundy, it looks almost like a relative, and I mean that as a compliment. Those who prefer a calmer look can opt for black with a red power button.

Last year’s denim experiment is gone. The back is made of matte fiberglass-reinforced laminate, fingerprints are not visible on it, and the frame is aluminum. The camera module spans the entire width, so the phone doesn’t wobble on the table. Next to the lenses sits the subwoofer grille with a white LED ring that can flash during calls, notifications, or to the rhythm of music. It’s a gimmick, but a decent one.

Weight is harder to evaluate. 235 grams is 17 grams more than the POCO F8 Ultra, and the thickness has increased from 7.9 to 8.74 mm. In hand, it’s a brick that you won’t hold for long with one hand. It features IP68 rating, an IR blaster, and an ultrasonic fingerprint reader, which is fast and reliable.

185 Hz on paper, 120 Hz in practice

The display has a 6.9″ diagonal, 2,608 × 1,200 pixel resolution, 12-bit colors, and Dolby Vision support. The main attraction is the 185 Hz refresh rate, but you’ll only see that in selected games. The system runs at 120 Hz and drops to 60 Hz when idle. It’s not an LTPO panel, which is a shame for a phone costing twenty thousand.

It’s similar with brightness. The marketing 10,000 nits applies to one percent of the area in HDR. In normal operation, the panel shines at 850 nits with manual adjustment, automatic settings boost it to approximately 1,300 nits in sunlight, and to 4,200 nits in a small peak area. For a summer garden, that’s more than enough. The calibration is also excellent. The panel is covered by Gorilla Glass 7i and has a pre-applied protective film from the factory.

Same chip as last year. And also as in the most expensive Samsung

Inside works the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which is exactly the chip that the POCO F8 Ultra already had. Therefore, there is no intergenerational leap. On the other hand, it still belongs to the fastest chips put into Android phones, and for example, the Galaxy S26 Ultra has the same one. It is accompanied by 12 or 16 GB of RAM and UFS 4.1 storage, which writes at a speed of around 1,140 MB/s.

Geekbench 6	POCO F9 Ultra	POCO F8 Ultra	Xiaomi 17T Pro	Galaxy S26 Ultra
Single Core	2,798 points	3,210 points	2,907 points	3,733 points
Multi Core	9,841 points	10,003 points	9,083 points	11,444 points

In practice, you won’t find anything that slows the phone down. Games run at maximum details at 120 frames per second, and supported titles even at 185. The VisionBoost D8 auxiliary chip can interpolate frames, but currently only in five games.

Heat is a weakness. During normal gaming, the back heats up to about 40 °C, which is fine. However, under prolonged full load, the phone gets unpleasantly hot and noticeably throttles performance. The aluminum frame, meanwhile, sends heat directly to your fingers.

A subwoofer in a phone is no joke

The sound was tuned by Bose and it’s a 2.1 system: two symmetrical speakers and a separate bass driver on the back. In my experience, it’s the best sound you can get from a phone today. The bass has volume, voices remain clear even at high volumes, and the stereo adapts itself to how you hold the phone. It won’t replace a Bluetooth speaker, but for videos in bed or podcasts in the kitchen, you don’t need anything better.

A battery that flagships usually don’t have

The silicon-carbon cell has 8,050 mAh, 24% more than its predecessor and a thousand more than the Xiaomi 17T Pro. The phone lasts approximately 30 hours of web browsing or over 13 hours of gaming, and in a mixed active use test, 24 hours and 35 minutes. In my experience, this means two days of heavy use and even three days with lighter usage.

Time	15 minutes	30 minutes	54 minutes
Level	32 %	61 %	100 %

For such a large battery, these are decent times, even though the Galaxy S26 Ultra or Xiaomi 17T Pro are fully charged about ten minutes earlier. Additionally, there’s 50W wireless charging and reverse charging at 22.5W wirelessly or 27W wired. Those who want to preserve the battery can set a charging limit to 80% in the system. With such capacity, it doesn’t hurt.

200 megapixels on a smaller sensor

The main camera was upgraded from 50 to 200 Mpx, but the sensor size decreased from 1/1.31″ to 1/1.56″. It’s a sideways step, not an upgrade. Nevertheless, it takes excellent photos during the day: plenty of detail, wide dynamic range, and colors that aren’t overdone. A 2x crop, suitable for portraits, also turns out well. At night, it keeps highlights under control, but images come out a bit darker than I’d expect. Full resolution only makes sense in good light, and one photo takes up 30 to 70 MB.

What brings me the most joy is the periscope telephoto lens with 5x optical zoom. It has 50 Mpx, a 120mm focal length, and optical stabilization, and in daylight, it’s sharp enough that even 10x zoom can be used without hesitation. 30x is an emergency, 100x is marketing. However, in very low light, the phone sometimes uses a crop from the main sensor instead of the telephoto lens, and it’s noticeable.

The 50 Mpx ultrawide camera is the weakest link. It lacks autofocus, the 102° field of view isn’t particularly wide, and images soften at night. The 32 Mpx selfie camera also lacks autofocus, but this isn’t an issue at normal distances. Video capabilities include 8K at 30 fps from the main sensor and 4K at 60 fps from all three rear cameras, including log recording. Only 4K at 120 fps is missing.

HyperOS 3: fast, but you have to clean it up

The phone comes with Android 16 and the HyperOS 3 overlay. The system is fast and stable, but after the first boot, you’ll find a bunch of pre-installed games and third-party apps, and occasionally system ads pop up. This shouldn’t be the case for a phone costing over twenty thousand.

HyperConnect, which shares files even with iPhone and Mac, and the HyperAI suite for transcriptions and translations are useful. Xiaomi promises four major Android updates and six years of security patches. This is decent, but Samsung and Google offer seven years.

The features are complemented by Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0, NFC, and dual eSIM support. The USB-C connector supports fast USB 3.2 and can output video to a monitor, but the system does not offer a desktop mode. The only things missing from a complete flagship feature set are the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi and a UWB chip for precise item tracking. Most people won’t mind, but at this price point, you’re allowed to ask for it.

Price list increased, stores have already adjusted it

The recommended price is 21,499 CZK for the 12/256 GB version and 23,999 CZK for the 16/512 GB version. The higher variant thus increased in price by two thousand compared to last year. The introductory discount ended on September 20th, but prices in stores have since dropped on their own: the base version can be purchased for around 17,900 CZK, and the higher one for 19,600 CZK.

POCO’s biggest competition is at home. The Xiaomi 17T Pro with 512 GB starts around 16,300 CZK, is lighter and has Leica optics, but a smaller 7,000 mAh battery and a slower chip. Last year’s POCO F8 Ultra costs from 18,800 CZK, has a larger main sensor and weighs 218 grams, but only has 6,500 mAh. With such a small difference, I would choose the new model. And for those who don’t need a telephoto lens or a subwoofer, the POCO X8 Pro Max with an 8,500 mAh battery can be had for roughly 12 to 13 thousand.

Verdict: the best-equipped POCO ever created

For me, the POCO F9 Ultra is a brutal phone. Two-day battery life, unparalleled sound, top-tier performance, a telephoto lens that compares to more expensive brands, plus wireless charging and IP68. A few years ago, this would have been a wish list, not a phone from POCO.

But it’s not without flaws. It’s heavy, gets hot under prolonged load, the ultrawide camera lags behind, and F8 Ultra owners have no reason to upgrade. At its recommended price, it would compete against established flagships and would be harder to defend. For under twenty thousand, where it’s actually sold today, I recommend it without hesitation.

Editor’s rating: 90 / 100

Would you pay twenty thousand for a POCO, or is it still a brand of cheap phones for you?