The Poco F8 Ultra felt like a turning point for Poco. Up to that point, the brand had always been easy to understand. You bought a Poco for speed, sharp pricing, and a bit of swagger. The F8 series added something new to that formula with Bose-tuned speakers, and that changed the feel of the phone in a way a faster chip or brighter screen usually does not.

It was not just about volume or clarity. The whole device felt more built around entertainment. Games had more punch, films had more room to breathe, and even everyday audio felt less like an afterthought. The denim-inspired rear panel helped give the F8 Ultra a bit of tactile identity too, even if the finish was more denim-adjacent than truly fabric-like, but the thing that stayed with you was the sound.

Designer: POCO

The Poco F9 Ultra takes that idea and pushes it further. Rather than treating the Bose-tuned system as a one-off flourish, Poco seems to be building on it with more confidence this time, wrapping that sound-first approach in a package that feels bigger, more polished, and more ambitious. If the F8 Ultra introduced a new side of Poco, the F9 Ultra feels like the phone that tries to make it stick.

Aesthetics

If the Poco F8 Ultra leaned young and fashionable, the Poco F9 Ultra leans sophisticated. It keeps the brand’s taste for visual confidence, but expresses it in a more restrained way, swapping tactile playfulness for cleaner lines, flatter surfaces, and a more polished sense of control.

That shift is obvious the moment you look at the back. The denim-inspired treatment from the F8 Ultra is gone, replaced by a finish that feels more metallic and more architectural. The overall silhouette is simpler, but it does not come across as plain. Instead, it feels like Poco has traded novelty for composure, letting shape and proportion do more of the work.

The camera island design remains largely the same as its predecessor, but it feels more resolved here. A large rectangular module sits across the top portion of the phone, housing three cameras and an LED flash in a neat 2 by 2 arrangement, with the speaker grille set off to the right. It is still a bold layout, but one that now feels less experimental and more like a defining part of the phone’s identity.

New to the F9 Ultra is a dynamic light ring built around the speaker grille. It supports personalized visual effects for incoming calls, games, and music. The effect itself appears to be fairly simple, closer to a clean white LED accent than anything overly flashy, but that may be exactly the point. It feels like Poco’s way of keeping a hint of gaming-phone energy alive without letting it overwhelm the more sophisticated direction of the design.

The two colors also tell slightly different stories. The Dark Cherry finish is the more expressive option, bringing warmth and a bit of drama without tipping into flashiness. The Black version feels more understated and technical, especially with the red side-button accent adding a small but effective point of contrast. Both work, but they speak to different moods. One is richer and more characterful, while the other is cooler and more controlled.

Ergonomics

That more sophisticated look does come with a more substantial physical presence. At 235g, the Poco F9 Ultra is about 15g heavier than the F8 Ultra, and you feel that extra weight immediately. It sits firmly on the heavier side, especially in one-handed use, where its size and mass are hard to ignore.

Its dimensions, 163.49 x 77.94 x 8.74mm, are broadly in line with its predecessor, so the overall footprint will feel familiar if you are coming from the older model. It is still a wide phone, though, and not the easiest to manage with one hand. The curved edges do help soften the grip and make it feel less severe than the numbers suggest, but this is still a device that feels more at home in two-handed use.

The matte finish does its part as well. It feels premium, pleasant to touch, and better at disguising smudges than a glossier surface would be. Add in the familiar button placement and unchanged in-display fingerprint scanner, and the F9 Ultra ends up feeling less like a phone you need to relearn and more like one you simply need to get used to carrying.

Performance

The F9 Ultra runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, the same flagship platform used in the F8 Ultra. Poco has also retained the VisionBoost D8, a dedicated chip aimed at improving gaming and video performance. In practice, that makes the F9 Ultra feel less like a leap in raw power and more like a refinement of an already capable performance formula.

The F9 Ultra pairs that gaming focus with a 6.9-inch 1.5K AMOLED display, and it is exactly the kind of panel you would want on a phone built around entertainment. It is large, sharp, and vibrant, with a refresh rate that gives the phone a clear performance edge in games that can actually take advantage of it. Outside of gaming, that same smoothness carries over into scrolling, animations, and general navigation, even if the practical difference becomes less dramatic in everyday use.

Brightness is another clear strength. Poco says this is the first global lineup to use the new M11 luminescent material, which helps the panel reach up to 4,500 nits in peak brightness and as high as 10,000 nits for HDR highlights. The numbers are extreme, but the more practical takeaway is that the screen stays very readable outdoors and gives bright scenes a stronger sense of punch and contrast without losing too much detail.

The F9 series is also Poco’s first to push to 185Hz, with support for 24 games running at a native 185fps. That sounds more dramatic than it always feels in practice, because the benefit depends heavily on the kind of game you are playing. In faster titles like Blood Strike, Crossfire: Legends, and Brawl Stars, the higher refresh rate does make a difference. Motion looks cleaner, visual updates come faster, and the game feels a little more immediate under your fingers. In slower games like Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, or Hearthstone, the gain is much smaller. You still get smoother animations and interface movement, but not the same kind of gameplay advantage.

In an hour-long session of Blood Strike at the highest graphic settings, the F9 Ultra was able to hold 185fps without any obvious frame drops. Just as importantly, it did not get uncomfortably hot, staying at around 40 degrees Celsius on the surface. There is clearly enough cooling here to keep performance from falling off over time, but the more important takeaway is that the phone stays consistent under load.

The F9 Ultra is the second phone to come out of Poco’s partnership with Bose, which makes the collaboration feel less like a one-off experiment and more like part of the series identity. The Bose-tuned speaker system remains one of its most distinctive features, and also one of the easiest to appreciate in daily use. Poco says it has redesigned the acoustic port and upgraded the dual speakers for clearer sound and richer bass. It also keeps the sound profile presets and 10-band EQ introduced on the F8 Ultra, which means there is still plenty of room to tailor the sound to your liking.

In use, the speakers are easy to like. Just like the F8 Ultra, the F9 Ultra delivers some of the best smartphone audio you can get. The sound is fuller and more open than what most phones manage, with enough bass presence to give games, films, and music a bit more body. Dialogue comes through clearly, and the overall presentation feels less cramped than the average smartphone speaker setup.

The F9 Ultra upgrades the main camera from 50MP on the F8 Ultra to 200MP here, though the sensor itself is smaller, dropping from 1/1.31-inch to 1/1.56-inch. That makes it less a straightforward upgrade and more a different kind of tradeoff. The rest of the setup remains familiar, with a 50MP 5x telephoto, a 50MP ultrawide, and a 32MP front camera.

Poco has also made a subtle but useful change to the focal lengths. The F9 Ultra uses a 24mm-equivalent main camera and a 17mm-equivalent ultrawide, compared with 23mm and 18mm on the F8 Ultra. The shift is small, and the ultrawide still does not feel especially expansive, but the added separation between the two lenses makes the jump from main to ultrawide feel a little more purposeful.

In use, the main camera captures photos with good detail, solid dynamic range, and vibrant color. The 5x telephoto is also capable, though it tends to produce images that look a bit more saturated and contrast-heavy. Video is solid too, with crisp footage and enough consistency to make the camera system feel dependable for everyday shooting.

Battery life remains one of the F9 Ultra’s biggest strengths. The 8,050mAh battery is enormous even by flagship standards, and it gives the phone a clear advantage in the kind of heavy use it is designed for. In my use, it was easy to stretch the phone across two days on a charge, which suits the F9 Ultra’s media-heavy, gaming-friendly character especially well.

Charging is just as capable, with 100W wired and 50W wireless support, plus 27W wired reverse charging and 22.5W wireless reverse charging. It is a battery setup that feels as well-rounded as the rest of the phone.

Sustainability

The F9 Ultra is not a phone that talks much about sustainability in the material-driven sense, but it does make a decent case for longevity. Its IP68 rating and Corning Gorilla Glass 7i should help it stand up to everyday wear, which is still one of the most practical ways a phone can stay useful for longer.

Poco also promises four major Android OS updates and six years of security patches, which gives the F9 Ultra a fairly credible long-term support story. That matters because software support plays a big role in whether a phone remains worth keeping. Poco may not be leading the conversation around recycled materials or repairability here, but the basics of durability and usable lifespan are in place.

Value

The F9 Ultra starts at $799 for the 12GB/256GB version, which puts it $70 above the F8 Ultra. That is still an increase, but not an especially aggressive one in the current climate, where similar phones have seen price jumps closer to $100. Some of that restraint may come from Poco reusing the same Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 platform, which likely helped balance out the rising cost of RAM and other components.

As an upgrade, though, the case is less convincing. If you already have the F8 Ultra, moving to the F9 Ultra does not make a lot of sense unless you specifically want the new design, the 185Hz display, or the 200MP main camera. As a fresh buy, however, it remains one of the best affordable flagship-level phones around. Poco may be edging upward in price, but it still knows how to deliver a lot of phone for the money.

Verdict

The Poco F9 Ultra feels like Poco settling into a formula that actually works. The design is more mature, the gaming side is still strong, and the Bose-tuned speakers remain one of the best reasons to care about the series in the first place. Add the huge battery and the 185Hz display, and you end up with a phone that feels very sure of what it wants to be.

If you already have the F8 Ultra, I do not think this is the upgrade to chase. The older phone is still good enough that the differences here feel more iterative than urgent. But if you are buying fresh, the F9 Ultra is still one of the better affordable flagship-level phones around, especially if you care as much about sound and gaming as you do about the usual specs.

The post Poco F9 Ultra Review: Great Sound, Grown-Up Design first appeared on Yanko Design.

Xiaomi has chosen an interesting moment to return to foldables. The company has not released a book-style foldable since the Mix Fold 4, which launched in 2024, and now it is back with the Xiaomi 18 Fold just as compact foldables are starting to get more attention. Samsung has also added a foldable in this compact format to its lineup, and Apple is widely expected to unveil its first foldable iPhone at its September 9 event with a similar form factor in mind.

That puts the Xiaomi 18 Fold in an interesting spot. It is not just Xiaomi coming back to foldables after a break. It is also arriving just as this smaller book-style format looks like it could become the next big thing.

Designer: Xiaomi

Xiaomi is positioning the 18 Fold as its first mid-size flagship foldable. It weighs 7.73 ounces (219g), measures 0.42 inches thick when folded (10.68mm), and opens out to just 0.20 inches thick (5.02mm), with a folded footprint of 4.64 x 3.29 inches (117.8 x 83.6mm). In person, it feels thin, though not unusually thin by the standards of today’s premium foldables. More importantly, it feels expensive in a good way. The matte texture on the back and frame gives it a softer, understated finish, while the rounded corners and flat frame help the phone look clean and modern.

The unit I handled was the deep red version, and it is a bold color in person. It stands out more than the usual black or silver foldable palette without feeling too loud. It also happens to echo the deep red finish rumored for Apple’s first foldable, which makes the comparison hard to miss. The 18 Fold comes in Black, White, Red, and a Ceramic Version.

In practice, though, this is still a two-handed phone whether it is folded or unfolded. Even closed, the body is compact in one sense but still broad enough that I did not think of it as something built for easy one-handed use. That is not really a criticism. It just comes with the territory.

The outer display is a 5.38-inch panel, while the inside opens up to a 7.58-inch main screen. Xiaomi says both displays share the same aspect ratio, which is meant to make the transition from one to the other feel more natural. I could not fully judge how well that works in daily use from a short demo, but one benefit stood out right away. Video felt more immersive than on squarer foldables because there was less black bar space above and below the image.

The software also looked well suited to the shape. Animations felt smooth in my brief demo, and I did see split-screen and floating window support in action. The unfolded UI felt more like a small tablet than a stretched phone, which is what you want on a device like this. Xiaomi has also placed one speaker on the top edge and another on the bottom edge on the opposite side, which should help give the phone a more balanced stereo effect when it is open.

The hinge left a good first impression too. I cannot really say whether it felt especially firm or especially smooth, because my time with the device was limited, but it did feel sturdy. The crease was handled well too. Looking straight at the display, I only really noticed it from certain angles rather than all the time. More importantly, I could barely feel it when running a finger across the center, which was better than I expected.

I also compared the Xiaomi 18 Fold side by side with Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8. Samsung’s device measures 4.88 x 3.22 x 0.38 inches when folded (123.9 x 81.9 x 9.7mm), 6.35 x 4.88 x 0.18 inches when unfolded (161.4 x 123.9 x 4.5cm), and weighs 7.09 ounces (201g), so it is a little lighter and a bit thinner than Xiaomi’s foldable in some areas. But the difference was not just about dimensions. Samsung’s inner screen was noticeably brighter to my eyes. At the same time, the Xiaomi 18 Fold had one practical advantage that stood out immediately. When placed on a desk, it did not wobble, while the Samsung did.

The biggest surprise for me was the camera. Xiaomi is using a 200MP Leica triple-camera system, led by a 200MP main camera and backed by a 50MP Leica periscope telephoto with an 80mm equivalent focal length. In my short time with the phone, the telephoto camera was the part that stuck with me most. I tried zoom, and the 3.5x telephoto setup immediately felt like one of the most interesting parts of the device. Stability also felt good even at higher magnification, which made the zoom feel more usable, not just more dramatic. The camera bump also did not seem overly large, and its oval-shaped, two-step raised design gives it some presence without taking over the whole back.

My time with the Xiaomi 18 Fold was brief, and this hands-on really only scratched the surface. Even so, the phone already feels like a polished return to book-style foldables. Pricing starts at RMB 10,999, or roughly $1,640, for the 12GB/256GB model, and Xiaomi said it will be available in China only for now.

The post Xiaomi 18 Fold Hands-On: Got Here Before Apple, Can It Beat Samsung? first appeared on Yanko Design.

After many teasers and demos, the Honor Robot Phone has finally and officially launched in China. It is also staying exclusive to the Chinese market for now, with Honor not planning an international release at this stage. That alone will make it a frustratingly out-of-reach device for many, because this is one of the rare smartphones that feels genuinely different at first glance.

Part of the reason the launch has drawn so much interest is that Honor first revealed the Robot Phone at MWC earlier this year, where it quickly became one of the event’s biggest conversation pieces. Even in a show packed with concept hardware and camera claims, this was the device that made people stop, stare, and ask how it actually worked. Now that it has moved from trade show reveal to commercial launch, the Robot Phone still feels just as unusual.

Designer: HONOR

Rather than chasing attention with another familiar camera bump or an incremental spec upgrade, Honor has built a robotic gimbal directly into the phone itself. The result is a camera system that can physically move, track, tilt, and stabilize in ways a conventional flagship simply cannot. After spending time with the device, it is clear the Robot Phone is not just trying to be another premium handset with a long feature list. It is trying to pitch a new idea for what a creator-focused smartphone can be.

The big story is movement, not just megapixels

The core pitch behind the Honor Robot Phone is easy to understand once you see it in person. Honor has integrated what it calls a 4DoF Titanium Agile Gimbal into the phone, effectively turning the camera into an active moving system rather than a static sensor setup. The company says the module is 65 percent smaller than traditional gimbal solutions while also offering a 200 percent increase in structural strength, allowing it to fit inside a premium smartphone body without turning the device into a bulky experiment.

That change in hardware philosophy is what makes the Robot Phone immediately stand out. In practice, the moving camera module is meant to deliver smoother stabilization and more dynamic motion than a normal smartphone can manage on its own. Honor is also building in multiple movement modes, including Tilt Lock, First Person View, FPV Vertical, and AI SpinShot, all of which are designed to make mobile footage look more deliberate and more cinematic.

Honor is aiming this squarely at creators

The second half of the launch story is imaging. Honor says the Robot Phone is the first major product from its Cinematic Imaging Partnership with ARRI, bringing selected elements of ARRI Image Science and professional cinema workflow ideas into a smartphone. That includes ARRI LogC3 recording in ARRI CINEMA mode on the main gimbal camera, alongside ARRI Wide Gamut 3 and ARRI Looks.

On paper, the camera hardware is also extremely ambitious. The rear setup pairs a 200MP Agile Gimbal Main Camera with a 1/1.28-inch sensor and F1.6 aperture with a 200MP periscope telephoto camera using a 1/1.4-inch sensor and 2.7x optical zoom. A 50MP ultra-wide camera completes the setup. Honor is also claiming AI noise reduction improvements, up to 14 stops of dynamic range, and a video pipeline designed to preserve more usable information for post-production.

That is a lot of technical language, but the broader message is straightforward. Honor does not want the Robot Phone to be seen as a novelty. It wants this to be taken seriously as a compact filmmaking and creator tool.

Hands-on: The Honor Robot Phone feels different right away

The most striking thing about the Robot Phone in person is that its main feature is visible. So many smartphone launches revolve around internal improvements that are difficult to appreciate without extensive testing. Here, the big idea is immediately obvious. The camera module moves. It tracks. It gives the phone a sense of physical intention that most handsets simply do not have.

That makes the Robot Phone more memorable than most new flagships before you even get into image quality. Instead of relying entirely on software stabilization and fixed hardware, Honor is trying to introduce actual camera movement into the smartphone experience. In a short hands-on session, that makes the device feel less like a standard phone with a flashy camera and more like a compact production tool that happens to fit in your pocket.

The tracking and movement features are also easier to appreciate in person than they are on a spec sheet. AI Live-Tracking, gesture controls, and voice-directed movement all sound abstract on paper. Once you see the phone physically following a subject or repositioning itself, the concept becomes much easier to understand. Whether that turns into something essential in everyday use is a bigger question, but as a first impression, the idea lands more convincingly than I expected.

Using the on-screen virtual joystick, I was able to adjust the gimbal with surprising precision. The interface crams in a lot of features, so it does take some time to learn. Even so, the gimbal feels very responsive, which helps the controls feel more intuitive once you settle in.

There is still a full flagship wrapped around the concept

Outside the headline camera hardware, Honor is still treating the Robot Phone like a proper premium device. It is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, backed by a custom cooling system that is meant to keep performance stable during longer recording sessions. There is also a 7060mAh silicon-carbon battery, with support for 120W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.

The rest of the hardware sounds suitably high-end too. Honor is using an all-metal unibody design paired with a 6.31-inch LTPO OLED display, an adaptive 1 to 120Hz refresh rate, and a claimed peak brightness of 6800 nits. On paper at least, this is not a concept phone built around one attention-grabbing trick. Honor is trying to package an experimental camera idea inside a full flagship experience.

China-only for now, and that is a shame

For now, the Honor Robot Phone is launching only in China, where it might be staying indefinitely. Honor is not planning to release the device outside China at this stage, which means this unusually creator-focused phone is set to remain a domestic-market curiosity rather than a broader global play.

That is disappointing, because the Robot Phone feels like exactly the kind of launch the smartphone market needs more of. It may not be for everyone, and there are obvious questions about durability, long-term usefulness, and whether creators will trust a built-in robotic camera system over dedicated gear. Even so, it is difficult to dismiss because the concept is so easy to understand once you see it in action.

Early thoughts

After a brief hands-on, my early take is that the Honor Robot Phone feels niche but genuinely fresh. The robotic gimbal is not just a visual gimmick for launch-day headlines. It changes the way the device presents itself, and potentially the way some people shoot with it. Whether that translates into a truly great camera phone will need more time to answer, but as a statement of intent, Honor has made one of the boldest smartphone moves of the year.

The bigger frustration is that, for now, it is a bold move that most of the world will only be able to watch from a distance. First teased at MWC earlier this year and now officially on sale in China for 9,999 yuan (roughly $1,483) for the 12GB+512GB variant and 12,999 yuan (around $1,928) for the 16GB+1TB variant, the Robot Phone is not about to become the next mainstream global flagship. Still, even as a limited-market release, it stands out as one of the most unusual and ambitious smartphones to arrive this year.

The post Honor Robot Phone Hands-on: Bold Phone With A Moving Camera Few Can Buy first appeared on Yanko Design.