PROS:
- Bose-tuned speaker remains a genuine standout
- big , bright 185Hz display
- Huge 8,050mAh battery
- Great performance
CONS:
- Relatively large and heavy body will not suit everyone
- Ultrawide still does not feel especially wide
RATINGS:
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
EDITOR'S QUOTE:
The F9 Ultra feels like Poco growing into its strengths, with Bose-tuned sound still leading the experience.
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.
Main Camera, 1x
Portrait mode, Main Camera, 3.1x
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.
Telephoto Camera, 5x
Telephoto Camera, 10x
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.
Main Camera, 1x
Telephoto Camera, 5x
Telephoto Camera, 10x
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.
Ultrawide Camera, 0.7x
Main Camera, 1x
Telephoto Camera, 10x
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.
Night Shot, Ultrawide Camera, 0.7x
Night Shot, Main Camera, 1x
Night Shot, Telephoto Camera, 5x
Night Shot, Telephoto Camera, 10x
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.
Connexion
