POCO F2 Pro Review : A hyper- competitive flagship challenger

Following on from the highly sought after Poco F1 almost 2 years ago, Poco has returned with another flagship challenger, the F2 Pro and we at TechStomper couldn’t wait to review it.

I’ve had the phone for a while now, so it’s the perfect time to give my review of the Poco F2 Pro and see how it measures up to the competition.

For around £399 on Amazon UK(at the time of writing), you get a phone with 6GB of Ram, Snapdragon 865, 128GB of storage, quad-camera set up on the rear – which is reminiscent of the setup on the One Plus 7T -and a full uninterrupted 6.5 inch AMOLED screen thanks to the pop-up selfie camera. 

Thanks to the 1080p AMOLED screen, we have a fingerprint sensor on the screen. It’s not the fastest you’ll ever use, but it works perfectly fine. The OS on the POCO F2 Pro is Android 10 with Xiaomi’s own MIUI OS slathered on top. MIUI is far from the best OS on the market, but thankfully MIUI 12 has launched which comes with a host of privacy and user enhancements. 

Specs

POCO has become renowned for jam packing their F-line of devices with the latest specs for just a fraction of the cost when compared with the competition. While the F2 Pro may not be the same unbelievable value as its predecessor, the price for performance is still better than 99% of the competition.

So, what’s it packing that makes the F2 Pro such an appealing option? Under the hood, we’ve got the flagship chipset namely Snapdragon 865. This chip is usually reserved for the high-end Samsung OnePlus and Huawei devices.

We also have the Adreno 650 GPU and an octa-core KYRO 585 CPU. What’s just as crucial as a powerful chipset, is the amount of RAM that Xiaomi decided to put in the F2 Pro.  As we all know RAM is expensive so you’ve to choose at two different prices. There’s a 6GB and an 8GB option. The 6 uses LPDDR4X RAM while the 8GB uses the newer LPDDR5.  

The 6gb model which I have is super snappy switching between different apps or opening a bunch of tabs. Going from Youtube to the camera to checking twitter is silky smooth so you shan’t be disappointed. I f you want your phone more future-proofed then maybe go for the 8GB model. 

128GB of storage comes with the 6GB model while it doubles to 256 with the 8GB. Unfortunately, there is no expandable storage so you’ll have to really think before you buy as to how much storage you’ll need.

Build quality and screen

There’s been a big leap in build quality from the F1 to the F2 Pro. There’s a nice premium-feeling aluminum frame that is covered front and back in Corning Gorilla Glass 5. While it’s great to have that protection, it does mean that it’s quite a slippy phone. Thankfully you get a hardened clear plastic case that protects the phone nicely. 

One of the many great pints of the POCO F2 Pro is the OLED screen. Unlike most phones these days, there’s no punch hole or tear drop. Camera taking up screen real-estate. High refresh rate screens are all the craze these days, but the POCO F2 Pro sticks with the traditional 60hz screen. A smart move by POCO that really helps the 4700 mAh last for over a day. 

The Super AMOLED 6.67 inch screen is nice and bright in direct sunlight and is perfectly readable those conditions thanks to the 500 nits screen. It also has HDR10+ with a screen resolution of 1080 by 2400. While it is an OLED screen, it isn’t the same quality as Samsung and the like.

Blacks do appear kind of greyish and colour banding is noticeable. With POCO F2 Pro having an AMOLED screen, it means that you’ll have an in-screen fingerprint sensor. It’s not the fastest you’ll ever use and does sometimes not recognise my fingerprint. However, that may have something to do with the screen protector that comes with the phone.

Camera

There was a trend a year or so ago of pop-up selfie cameras but it seemed to disappear almost overnight. With POCO F2 Pro having a pop-up selfie camera, not only is it kind of unique, but it also gives you an uninterrupted experience on your 6.67-inch screen.

There are some neat customisation options with that pop-up selfie camera. You can change the colour it flashes as it pops out and you can also change the noise the motor makes. Just don’t open the selfie camera 8-9 times in very quick succession as you will get a warning on the screen about overheating the motor.

The selfie sensor is 20 MP and does feature HDR. However, the options for recording are limited to 1080p at 30fps or 720p at 120fps.

The rear camera has far more options as you’d expect. Its quad-camera set up is led by a 64MP Wide sensor along with a 5 MP telephoto macro, 13 MP Ultrawide and a 2 MP depth sensor. I have noticed that it does struggle a bit with focus.

Overall thoughts

POCO introduced itself to the world in a similar vein to Oneplus all those years ago. The F1 offered incredible value and performance. With POCO F2 Pro, we’ve seen a similar offering with a flagship-level chipset and plenty of RAM, but it does cost considerably more than its predecessor. Sacrifices have been made to get this phone a decent price such as the 60hz display, lack of IP rating and average-enough camera. However, you will struggle to find a phone at this price with a Snapdragon 865 chip and a fairly decent AMOLED screen. Overall, while it’s more expensive than it’s predecessor, there’s been enough improvement over the F1 to justify the increase.