Ever since the POCO X6 series was introduced in the Indian market, most of the limelight was hogged by the Pro variant. The fact that the Pro handset in this range is the first in India to feature MediaTek Dimensity 8300 Ultra chipset helped it grab a lot of attention. On top of this, the phone also became the first from POCO to run the all-new Xiaomi HyperOS out of the box, instead of MIUI. While these distinguishing factors did sway a lot of people in the direction of POCO X6 Pro, the regular variant in the series is undeniably a solid offering. That’s why when I received the phone, the first question that popped into my mind was whether the price difference between the standard and Pro models was worth the trade-off of these features. Having spent around two weeks with the POCO X6 5G, I now have my answer. But it is not as easy as a simple yes or a no. To figure out what I mean by this, read my detailed review below.
Verdict
The POCO X6 5G is one of the best phones you can buy around the Rs 20,000 mark right now in India. The handset offers solid performance, a brilliant display, and fast charging speeds. While it doesn’t carry the bells and whistles that come with the POCO X6 Pro, this is a worthy handset in its own right and ticks almost all the right boxes. While the low-light camera performance leaves you wanting for more, this phone is easy to recommend due to its performance prowess.
Design and Display
The POCO X6 5G comes with an eye-catching design, sporting a large rounded rectangle cutout for the camera sensors at the back. To just say that the rear camera sensors protrude out from the phone’s body would be an understatement as the modules noticeably stick out.
This results in excessive wobbling if the phone is lying on a flat surface, especially when you’re not using a case. Thankfully, the brand has included a pretty good case in the retail box itself. However, this is the main conundrum here. You would want to use the phone without a case too, as the phone looks amazing in the Snowstorm White colour with its sand-like texture at the back.
Here, you don’t get as sleek a body as say Infinix Zero 30, and the phone’s thickness sits at 7.9mm. With a 6.67-inch display and this thickness, the phone might come across as bulky for some users. But to get the best idea about how it sits in your hand, it would be good to get a hold of it in person. I have reasonably large hands so I didn’t face any issues using the phone even with one hand and carrying it around.
Moving on to the display, the 1.5K Flow AMOLED CrystalRes panel comes with a pixel density of 446ppi and 1800 nits of peak brightness. While these specs give a lot away, in regular usage, I found the display to be crisp and easy to use even outdoors under direct sunlight. The viewing angles are pretty good too. What adds further value here is that the display offers a maximum refresh rate of up to 120Hz, and a touch sampling rate of 240Hz, which provides a smooth scrolling experience and a great response time to enhance the overall navigation experience within the UI. Even in games, the higher refresh rate gives you an added advantage and results in a fun gaming experience.
The phone’s display comes with Gorilla Glass Victus protection and should survive an occasional drop or two.
Cameras
The POCO X6 5G comes with a 64MP primary camera with f/1.79 aperture, an 8MP ultra-wide camera with f/2.2 aperture, and a 2MP macro camera with f/2.4 aperture. The phone also features a 16MP front camera with f/2.45 aperture. While the brand claims that the comprehensive refactor camera architecture and integrated hardware and software create a new POCO image engine for amazing camera performance, I found the camera on this phone to be quite inconsistent.
On certain occasions when the lighting was ideal, it managed to capture details really well and produced some great images. However, in the absence of ideal lighting, the images lacked detail and even colour reproduction suffered to a certain extent. In low-light conditions and at night, this issue presented itself again and the images turned out quite grainy for me. Have a look at the camera samples I clicked with the phone and you’ll get a better idea.
The selfie camera on the phone managed to capture facial details and skin tone really well. One of the areas where the cameras on the phone performed well was edge detection in portrait shots.
As far as video recording is concerned, the rear camera on the POCO X6 5G is capable of recording videos in 4K resolution (3,840 × 2,160 pixels) at 30fps, 1080p (1,920 × 1,080 pixels) at 30fps/60fps, and 720p (1,280 ×720 pixels) at 30fps. The front camera can record 1080p videos at 60fps/30fps and 720p videos at 30fps. The video quality, even in 4K resolution, is decent but not something to write home about. However, with the combination of OIS and EIS, the handset did produce noticeably stable videos even when I was recording with just my hand and no stabilising equipment.
Performance and software
With the Snapdragon 7s Gen 2 chipset (developed using a 4nm fabrication process), the POCO X6 5G flies through most tasks with ease. The phone comes with up to 12GB RAM and 512GB storage. With the Memory Expansion 3.0 feature, the phone’s memory can be expanded by up to 12GB to 24GB total RAM to extract maximum performance.
In everyday use, I didn’t face any app crashes or stutter issues within apps or navigating through the UI. Even multitasking felt smooth and even when I had multiple apps opened in the background, I didn’t feel like the phone slowed down even slightly. Even in benchmark tests, the phone performed really well for its price range. It scored 593702 on the AnTuTu benchmark test. The handset got a single-core score of 1025 and a multi-core score of 2951 on Geekbench.
To test out the phone, I played graphically intensive games such as Battlegrounds Mobile India, NBA 2K, and EA FC 24 on the handset. In every game, I was able to max out the graphics and enjoy lag-free gaming. Even while playing for more than half an hour, I didn’t face any heating issues with the phone.
Moving to software, the X6 runs MIUI 14.0.2 out of the box. The phone boots up with some pre-installed apps such as Netflix, Snapchat, Bubble Shooter, Spotify, Opera browser, etc. It is a mixbag of the apps that you would anyway install later on your phone and the ones you would never use. In its current state, the MIUI is a functional OS that brings along some convenient features. If you have used MIUI before, you know exactly what to expect here and as we found some issues with the Xiaomi HyperOS on the POCO X6 Pro, in some ways, it is a good thing that the brand has stuck to the tried and tested formula of MIUI for the standard variant of the phone.
Battery and charging speed
The POCO X6 5G ships with a 5,100mAh battery that supports 67W fast charging. You would be glad to know that, unlike some other brands, POCO is still including the 67W charger in the retail box. In our testing, the phone managed to charge from 0 to 100 percent in just around 45 minutes. To ensure battery health, the phone also offers a Smart Charging feature, which has to be enabled from the settings section, to ensure that the battery deteriorates at a slower rate than usual.
In our PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test, the phone managed to last 12 hours and 47 minutes, which is an impressive duration. In regular use, I found that I had to plug in the phone for charging after a day and a half after unplugging it at 100 percent. On heavy usage, you can still expect the phone to easily last you a day with ease.
Final verdict
POCO X6 5G is a no-nonsense, performance-oriented phone that is ideal for gaming, watching videos, or multitasking. With 67W fast-charging support, the phone refuels in no time and is ready to go again, with its 5,100mAh battery keeping the lights on beyond a day with ease. The phone also manages to click decent pictures but it does have some consistency issues in this department. While I like the design of the phone, if you hate using phone cases, you’d have a problem here as the protruding camera sensors cause wobbling issues while the phone is lying on a flat surface. In this price range, I cannot think of a phone that offers better performance, so I’d say that if you are looking for a phone that delivers on this front, the X6 is a no-brainer. However, if you’re looking for a better camera phone, you can go for other options such as Moto Edge 40 Neo, Realme 11 Pro, and Samsung Galaxy F54.
Editor’s rating: 8.5 / 10
Reasons to buy
- The phone offers solid performance across the board
- The display looks great and feels responsive due to the 120Hz refresh rate
- 67W fast-charging support is really convenient
Reasons not to buy
- Camera performance is inconsistent
- Protruding camera sensors make it hard to use without a case
The post POCO X6 5G review: performance, performance, and performance first appeared on 91mobiles.com.
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