Review of the Poco X6 Pro
Our Verdict
The Poco X6 Pro excels in some areas, such as its performance and display capabilities, while occasionally underwhelming elsewhere. Marketed as a premium gaming phone, the Poco X6 Pro is deceptively simple. With a brilliant battery and charging, and ultra-smooth performance while running demanding games, this budget option has the potential to be a crowd-pleaser while also catering to all your basic needs for a mobile phone. The compromises come in the quality of the design, the unimpressive camera, and the lack of wireless charging, which prevent the Poco X6 Pro from truly being on the same tier as the newest releases from prestige brands. If you don’t care about that, though, the Poco X6 Pro offers incredible value for money… if you can get your hands on it.
- Excellent value for money
- High performance levels can handle even the most challenging games
- Crisp display is as good as any competitors
- Strong battery life and ultra-fast charging
- IP rating for dust and water protection is lower than you'd expect
- No wireless charging option
- Hard to get in US market
Covering Xiaomi's live Poco X6 Pro launch, I couldn't help but be intrigued by the promise made: a very inexpensive phone with the greatest specifications that can run even the most demanding mobile games—a quarter of the cost of Samsung's S24, which is unquestionably Apple's iPhone 16. What was the catch, I wondered? A few weeks later, I had the opportunity to evaluate the Poco X6 Pro by holding the phone in my hands.
Now that I've had the Poco X6 Pro by my side for a good amount of time, I've dissected the phone down to every feature that matters to you, compared it to the competition, and determined whether it lives up to the claims that it is the best gaming phone and the new best Xiaomi phone. Although there is plenty to talk about, we will keep things simple and to the point so that you only learn what you really need to know.
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Cost and accessibility
One of the most significant and first complaints about the Poco X6 Pro is that its US price is unavailable due to its non-availability in the US. You'll need to invest the time if you're in the US market and want to get the X6 Pro. Having said that, the phone costs £369, or around $465, in the UK, Europe, and India, where it is available. This costs less than half as much as the Samsung S24 Ultra, which is a reasonable comparison given that it is also a recent release with superior specifications.
It goes without saying that, on the surface, that's a pretty amazing offer. If you're looking for a gaming phone with decent specifications, you really can't pass up the Poco X6 Pro, which is available in three colors (black, gray, and yellow). It's an outstanding bargain if you can get your hands on it. You can get the somewhat more basic Poco X6 for £50 ($63) less.
Details
Features
Simplicity is the goal with the Poco X6 Pro, which comes with the sleek new HyperOS operating system on top of Android 14. You'll be met with a very smooth, iOS-lite system that is highly customisable based on your tastes as soon as the phone boots up with its default settings. Everything is sleek and easy to use, and while everyone can relate to the feeling of needing some time to get used to a new interface when they pick one up, the X6 Pro should make the adjustment process go quickly for those who are picking it up for the first time. It strikes the perfect mix of being new and sharply polished, while yet feeling familiar and cozy.
The phone comes with a ton of unneeded and unpleasant preloaded applications, including games you've never heard of, bulky apps like Netflix and TikTok, and Xiaomi's own homebrew management software. Though not unusual, this doesn't make it any less annoying. Most bothersome of all, I was unable to determine who this was intended for or addressed. Since the X6 Pro is positioned as a gaming phone for enthusiasts, you would think that its intended user base would be at ease enough to choose what apps to install and remove from their phones. On the other hand, customers with less tech knowledge a) aren't the intended audience in this case and b) can get overwhelmed by the sheer number of applications available on the device. It says volumes that I want my phones to be highly customized with little to no effort, therefore I decided to start over by uninstalling everything.
There isn't much more to say about the features exclusive to the Poco X6 Pro now that my tirade is done. The phone is mainly simply what you're accustomed to, but slicker and speedier. It's versatile enough to be tailored to your own tastes, but it lacks any notable new capabilities like the S24's AI. It is not a terrible thing.
Design
Having a Gorilla Glass 5 layer covering its screen, the Poco X6 Pro is a robust gadget that ought to be able to survive the rigors of everyday use. It's not an extremely tiny, delicate product, and you really don't have to worry about your thumb pressing too hard on the screen while you're playing. Everything will work out. The phone seems more expensive than its price would imply because of the big, brilliant screen that is protected by that covering, which reaches the phone's corners. The standard USB-C port and the speakers are located on the bottom, and the fingerprint scanner—which, in contrast to some other, older devices, is very dependable and quick—is located above that.
Regretfully, the Poco X6 Pro's finer points do let it down a little bit and are a sign of the simplified design that makes it possible for its cheap cost. For instance, its dust and water resistance IP54 rating is less than what you would normally anticipate from a new model and is nowhere near the top of the spectrum. In the rain, everything will be OK, but not much more. Please avoid submerging it in water or dropping it in any deep puddles—I've done this with prior phones—in the bathtub. This rating also implies that if you keep the phone in your pocket for an extended period of time, dust may start to accumulate behind the screen.
Display
With an astounding resolution of 1,220 x 2,712 pixels and the surprising inclusion of Dolby Vision, the 6.67-inch screen on the Poco X6 Pro is very bright. Its sharp clarity and brightness allow you to watch movies on the fly with no effort. Its brightness may even light up a room.I had no issues at all regarding the quality of what the X6 Pro had to offer, whether I was gaming or streaming, inside or out. This display can compete with any other mobile device. I watched a significant portion of 2021's Dune—or at least, I was astonished by how soon I forgot I was watching a movie in my hands—to properly test the phone's display. Although it's not an IMAX, it's still much better than you could hope for from a phone.Naturally, you can adjust all of this in the options, customizing the default to meet your own requirements. However, I never had the need to since, in my experience, the Poco X6 Pro's display was sufficiently adaptable. All of this is excellent and one of the phone's main advantages.Cameras The Poco X6 Pro is not the phone for you if you're searching for one that's specifically made for taking pictures. Not that I'm saying this; if you're walking along the beach and want to take a picture of the waves, you won't be disappointed and will get a nice blend of range and detail. It works well for taking pictures of landscapes, close-ups of people (or your pet dog), and the occasional shameless selfie. Simply said, the cameras don't provide a compelling enough incentive to purchase the phone on their own. It seems to naturally try to make the color palette of the picture a bit warmer than it is to the eye, and it suffers a little in lower light.However, you should be OK unless you're expressly searching for a phone that can also function as a camera. It's not that the cameras are awful—quite the contrary—they're excellent! They met my basic requirements quite well, but they're not particularly noteworthy on their own and can't hold their own against alternatives from other manufacturers.Performance The Poco X6 Pro is a specialist gaming phone aimed at aspiring professional mobile gamers. Its performance level is one of the areas that warrants close examination, and this is one example of the phone meeting up to expectations. Even with the most demanding games, the phone will load quickly thanks to the Dimensity 8300 Ultra processor. Genshin Impact serves as the standard for me personally. This is a demanding game for the hardware, particularly if you desire optimal performance.It feels like you're in the game in an instant, loads back in just as quickly, the phone won't get uncomfortable or even noticeably warm in your hand even after hours of gameplay, and the frame rate will remain consistently high and fluid even in the most taxing gameplay situations. I'm happy to say that the Poco X6 Pro handles it better than any other phone I've used. As strong of an endorsement as we can offer it is that, really, it doesn't feel too different from what you would expect from Genshin Impact, say, if you were to play it on the Switch (which will come eventually, right?).Naturally, the non-gaming experience is as smooth, considering how well it handles games like Genshin Impact. The phone has excellent responsiveness, and you won't experience any annoying micro-lag or pushback even after using it for many hours. It effortlessly manages daily tasks and can do almost any task you throw at it.
