Poco F9 Ultra review: Slaying flagships with a duller blade

Poco F9 Ultra – Flagship… killer?

It’s hard to forget Poco’s claim to fame, the Pocophone F1 (S$499, 256GB). That 2018 flagship-killer phone took the mobile world by storm because it was so affordable. Back then, it was up against flagship phones residing in the ~S$1,000 band, making it a true flagship killer.

A S$1,000 flagship is anachronistic by today’s standards, no thanks to the combined forces of inflation, component shortages, and broader supply-chain turmoil that have driven prices up over the past few years. Today’s affordable, yet powerful phones are not sparred.

This brings us to the S$1,199 Poco F9 Ultra, which faces off against today’s S$1,800+ ‘Ultra’ class phones (here’s a good summary of what Singapore currently has to offer).

While this option by Xiaomi’s sub-brand may be more cost-friendly than its peers, it’s still weighed down by pricing creep. What does an alleged killer of flagship rival phones look like in 2026? Here’s what we make of the F9 Ultra’s modus operandi.

Design, display, and audio features of the Poco F9 Ultra

If you’ve seen the preceding Poco F8 Ultra, then you’ve basically seen the F9 Ultra. The design is almost identical, with a large camera island on the back. Unlike the F8 Ultra, the new phone’s LED flash now replaces the dummy camera lens. What stayed was the subwoofer, taking the same spot next to the lens array.

A subtle tweak is the new LED light ring that wraps around the subwoofer unit. You can apply various effects, including a notification LED, audio-reactive responses, or in-game lighting (for PUBG and Call of Duty: Mobile). The feature set sounds thin, but it exceeds the Google Pixel 11 Pro series’ HiLight LEDs, which have only two use cases.

For this review, I set the Poco’s backlight as a notification LED because I’m a sucker for seeing previously widespread features get a second wind. Truthfully, it hasn’t been all that useful since I usually leave the phone face-up. I’d imagine it’d be more helpful for someone who needs that privacy.

Speaking of face-up placement, it’s made possible because the lenses are flush against the camera island. That’s not like the Poco F8 Ultra, which had protruding lenses in the way. I appreciated this, as I’d imagine the cameras are less likely to be damaged when they touch the desk.

Other handling perks come through in games. With the phone set on a surface, the phone becomes friendlier to certain rhythm game titles, since there’s less wobbling when you tap the display.

Another worthy design feature is the filleted edge (where the metal rail meets the rear matte glass). It’s a common element in smartphone design now (including the iPhone), but that doesn’t make it any less appreciated on the Xiaomi sub-brand’s flagship handset. This grip makes the Poco F9 Ultra easier to hold during long gaming sessions.

While I’m not a huge fan of large displays (and the F9 Ultra’s 6.9-inch panel is no exception), I found its 163.5 x 77.9 x 8.7mm dimensions easier to handle than expected. It has a stocky feel, and it significantly cut down the time it took to adjust from a compact phone. When gaming horizontally, my hands weren’t too far apart either. YMMV depending on your hand size, though.

What’s unavoidable is the phone’s hefty 235g body. That’s heavier than some foldables, and you can feel it. The camera block also makes the F9 Ultra feel a bit top-heavy, which takes time to get used to. The phone’s weight also comes from its 8,050mAh battery, which I’ll cover later.

The phone is also rated IP68 for dust and water resistance, and it has Corning Gorilla Glass 7i on the front. Unfortunately, my editor might drop me if I dropped the phone in water, so I did not.

Beyond its subwoofer, the phone looks normal in other ways. You get the usual power and volume buttons on the side. Notably, Poco advertises its rear as a “fibreglass back panel,” but it feels like regular matte glass with a mild metallic texture.

The whole package feels expensive in the hand, but I do find it unfortunate that the unique Denim finish from the F8 series didn’t carry over to the next generation. It was easily the most interesting-looking texture of last year’s phones. At least, we still have a Dark Cherry colourway (our review unit) which looked quite classy. That’s further bolstered by a newly launched, burgundy, Apple-ly phone.

Poco says the 6.9-inch HyperRGB AMOLED display supports up to 185Hz, but with a caveat. Poco said 185Hz is available in 20+ select titles, but it did not list them publicly. The usual refresh rate caps out at 120Hz, as verified by the phone’s built-in FPS counter in Developer mode.

You can, however, set frame rate caps on apps of your choosing, so you don’t have to waste precious battery on an e-reading app or schoolwork. Neat.

Poco marketed a peak 10,000-nit brightness figure, but that applies to only 1% of the screen’s surface area. Realistically, the phone’s full-display maximum brightness reaches 850 nits, ramping up to 2,200 nits in Sunlight Mode. For what it’s worth, I had no legibility problems under direct sunlight, although the glass is still mildly reflective.

The display’s vividness is nothing to write home about. The colours don’t particularly stand out, even though it’s not washed out or dull. It’s not a ding on the Poco F9 Ultra, as it shows how far phone screens have come these days.

To aid its visual output, the F9 Ultra has a display enhancement setting called “Dual Core Visuals” for video upscaling. Poco said it’s designed specifically for longer videos on Netflix and YouTube. To my eye, however, it doesn’t look like it’s doing much.

External audio output is a completely different tale here. Truth be told, I was initially sceptical that the subwoofer was reaching its full potential, since subwoofers usually need a bigger enclosure to deliver their intended acoustic performance. As it turns out, Poco F9 Ultra’s overall audio output is terrific to the ears.

Music in general sounds great (for phones) through the F9 Ultra’s speakers. With the subwoofer, percussion feels front and centre, although it may drown out mid-range instruments at times (including vocals and guitar). The high frequencies tend to come through well without sounding overly harsh or tinny.

Tiny phone speakers don’t need to be well-balanced; it just needs to feel lively, which the F9 Ultra achieves. It also helps that the F9 Ultra gets really loud.

HyperOS3: Still Android 16

Despite its September 2026 launch, the Poco F9 Ultra still uses the Android 16-based Xiaomi HyperOS 3.0. Android 16 isn’t a deal-breaker because security and performance updates roll in regularly, and many Android 17 add-ons are either cosmetic or irrelevant to the F9 Ultra’s day-to-day use (e.g., foldable gaming mode).

However, it’s still strange, especially when HyperOS 3.3 (on Android 17) has been publicly available since July 2026. It’s also unfortunate that Xiaomi released the F9 Ultra ahead of the public HyperOS 4; this puts the Poco F9 Ultra slightly behind other flagship rivals, since you’ll likely need a major firmware update as soon as you take it out of the box.

In any case, we covered HyperOS 3 extensively in our Xiaomi 17 Ultra review. Many past features also made it to the Poco F9 Ultra, and there’s nothing surprising (thankfully) in this regard. That’s also true of its Home Screen and preloaded apps, which had limited bloatware.

Worth noting: it has a preloaded Xiaomi-owned app store (and constantly sends notifications), and its weather widget clicks through to a secondary weather app with ads (not its default weather app). So, it’s not wholly innocent in this arena, but it’s not game-breaking.

The main software feature that separates Poco phones from Xiaomi phones, however, is WildBoost gaming optimisations, which we’ll cover under our review’s performance section.

Imaging Performance

The main camera is one of the biggest areas for improvement for the Poco F9 Ultra over its predecessor. It bumped the resolution up to 200MP. To shoot at 200MP, you use a different mode in the camera app, since the default options are 12.5MP (industry standard) and 50MP.

Here’s the list of rear sensors:

• 200MP main camera (f/1.68 aperture, OIS, 6P lens, 24mm equivalent focal length)
• 50MP periscope telephoto camera (f/3.0 aperture, OIS, 120mm equivalent focal length, approx. 5x optical zoom)
• 50MP ultrawide camera (f/2.4 aperture)

Aside from the main camera, the Poco F9 Ultra largely retains the same setup as the F8 Ultra.

When we took the F8 Ultra’s cameras for a spin last year, we found it performed well enough in daylight. Sharpness was a particular strength, especially at higher zoom levels. Contrast, however, was one of the F8 Ultra’s weaker points. Given how similar the F9 Ultra’s camera setup is and that it’s meant to be an upgrade from before, we’ll see how the new main camera fares this time.

I was pleasantly surprised by how restrained the F9 Ultra’s saturation looked in main-sensor photos. Colours don’t necessarily pop, and in fact, photos have the propensity to look a bit dull at first glance. This may be a flaw for some, but it can appeal to users who prefer mellow-looking photos.

The ultrawide sensor performs much like before. It tends to wash out colours in some scenarios and deviate from its main sensor’s interpretation. Certain hues, such as sky blue, can also get slightly exaggerated on the ultrawide sensor. As far as I can tell, there haven’t been any algorithmic updates to the ultrawide since the last generation.

The inconsistency is also prevalent on the telephoto camera. It sometimes compensates with oversaturation (see images 6 and 7 in the gallery above). The yellow bars and orange slide on the playground pop out considerably more than the ultrawide and main camera photos.

To be clear, it’s not just the Poco F9 Ultra. It’s expected for individual camera sensors on the same phone to have different colour reproduction. Good image processing is only one component of the F9 Ultra, but the software and tuning that account for differences between cameras aren’t quite there yet.

The telephoto lens is also likely to saturate more aggressively in colour-intense scenes. It can sometimes lead to photos where a strong light source overwhelms the rest of the scene. Look at the differences between images 9 and 10, where the orange of the setting sun dominates the telephoto picture. The telephoto can give you intense, high-contrast shots, but that’s not always desirable or done in a pretty way.

Detail retention is excellent. It didn’t matter which sensor took the shot; small details like leaf edges and individual bricks stayed sharp and clear. The phone also handled suboptimal lighting conditions well. Image #7 in particular is a difficult shot, as the camera has to prevent the sun from blowing out the photo without reducing the leaves to blobs.

Results can be inconsistent because of the phone’s contrast handling (more on that later), but details, even at 10x, were a strong player at retaining backgrounds (e.g. outlying branches from the farthest tree). For instance, the scales of the dinosaur in image #11 look detailed without being over-sharpened. In image 15, you can see almost see each individual splotch of dirt between each of the dragon playground’s mosaic tiles.

Yet, text shot on 5x optical zoom may appear mangled – see the ‘CCTV’ on the sign in image #5.

The Poco F9 Ultra stumbles with contrast handling. Even though we don’t have a like-for-like comparison shot with its predecessor, you can still spot some deficiencies when scrutinised.

As seen in image #2 above, the camera has to balance the sky’s highlights with the tree canopy’s shadows. As a result, the leaves in those shadows struggle to be recognised. The telephoto performs slightly better in this regard, enough that you can just make out the midrib on the leaves.

Shadows on the F9 Ultra’s cameras may be shaky, but it’s still capable of pulling some detail out of them. In images #4 and #5, the sunset’s cast didn’t stop the tree’s undercanopy from expression. Highlights do see a small improvement. The sand in the dragon playground images isn’t blown out into white blotches, despite being in direct sunlight. This was a surprisingly competent aspect of the phone’s photography.

200MP shots from the main sensor look slightly more vibrant than photos taken in the default 12.5MP/50MP modes. It doesn’t look artificial, though. In fact, I quite prefer how the 200MP mode balances its colours, compared to main camera pictures taken on the standard ‘Photo’ mode.

At 200MP, you also get a noticeable upward bump in detail retention. When you zoom in, subtle far-field details are clearer at 200MP compared to standard main camera photos.

Taken together, the Poco F9 Ultra certainly has its bright spots for imaging, but it’s not consistent enough to be a reliable companion for photography lovers, casual or otherwise.

Benchmarks

The Poco F9 Ultra ships with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, Qualcomm’s 2026 mobile chipset for premium-grade phones. A big caveat here, though: it’s the same chipset platform as the F8 Ultra because this year’s Poco came too early for Qualcomm’s 2027 offering. If you’re someone who buys budget flagship phones with a processor preference, this is a major decision-making factor (since there’s no harm in buying the predecessor if it’s good, too).

Our apps don’t show any huge modifications made to the F9 Ultra’s Snapdragon chip, too. It’s an eight-core CPU consisting of 2 prime cores running at 4.6GHz, and six performance cores running at 3.62GHz. There’s no indication of any hardware changes to the components on the system-on-chip.

That’s not a complaint. Qualcomm’s flagship chip has been a mainstay for gaming-forward users, and it usually spells great results for regular, day-to-day use as well. Since we’ve reviewed many of such flagship-grade handsets, running benchmarks on the Poco F9 Ultra is a courtesy and hygiene check at this point.

Weirdly deficient web-browsing results aside, there’s no reason to be sad that the F9 Ultra came too early. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is still more powerful than most Android phone processors out there. Against its predcessor, the Poco F9 Ultra goes toe-to-toe while edging out the competition. Our benchmarks are always done consistently, with no special preferences, so Poco users will be happy to know there’s an Ultimate mode for even higher performance (at the cost of heat and battery life).

It’s also worth noting that the phone topped out at around 40°C during repeated benchmarking. Despite the F9 Ultra’s 3D IceLoop cooling system, the phone still runs warm during use, especially when taking photos. Where the thermal management works best is during gaming. Some possible reasons could be that processing load for games is generally stable, unlike apps where you close and launch repeatedly.

You shouldn’t game with a phone that’s in the middle of fast charging, and Poco F9 Ultra is clear about that: after gaming for 20 minutes while plugged in, the phone became hot to the touch.

WildBoost Gaming

One of the Poco F9 Ultra’s main draws is WildBoost optimisation. It’s not one specific tweak, but a collection of different functions meant to make gaming more stable and to give you a slight competitive edge. 

The collection includes a one-tap memory cleaner, adjustable touch sensitivity, accidental-touch rejection, and a Wi-Fi optimiser that’s supposed to reduce network speed jitter. You also get a few display mode presets.

These are just the front-facing ones. Poco also said that WildBoost comes with four back-end enhancements. These help the F9 Ultra maintain a steady frame rate under heavy load. Namely, they are optimised frame rate scheduling, frame drop mitigation, dynamic thermal adjustment, and “IPA battery management”.

But we’re more interested in seeing actual gains itself. To do that, we game.

I mostly played Bang Dream: Girls Band Party on the Poco F9 Ultra (shoutout to the fellow uncs and aunts who still remember this game). After playing it on and off for 9 years, I can say it’s not the most optimised title out there, which makes it ripe for WildBoost to show off its optimisations. Some menus stutter if your phone isn’t powerful enough, and 3D background animations during the rhythm-game portions (which already demand your full attention focus) can cause lag.

The F9 Ultra did not struggle at all. By default, the game already caps the frame rate at 60 FPS in menus and 120 FPS during active play. Because of that cap, the Poco F9 Ultra hits the frame-rate ceiling almost all the time. While this game isn’t one of Poco’s 185Hz-supported titles, hitting consistent 120 FPS still grants a fluid gaming experience. I also don’t doubt the claims that the F9 Ultra can hit its promised cap on compatible titles. That just leaves me with wanting Poco to expand the list of supported 185Hz games.

Poco said that power consumption and thermals take a hit with WildBoost enabled. In actual use, it was harder to tell how much it affects battery life, likely because it has to do with the game you’re playing and the conditions you’re playing in. For instance, the network stabiliser may see heavier use in areas with more unstable connections.

In all, playing Bang Dream with WildBoost enabled for about 40 minutes (at 20% of the full brightness bar) used up 7% of the battery.

Battery Life

Our battery benchmark uses PCMark for Android’s Work 3.0 Battery Life, with results shown in minutes. This controlled benchmark simulates real-world usage, such as web and social media browsing, video and photo editing, parsing data with various file formats, writing, and more. The test starts at 100% and ends with 20% left on the device.

The Poco F9 Ultra features a silicon-carbon battery with a 16% silicon content. Battery life on the F9 Ultra is what you’d expect from a cell that’s 8,050mAh. However, you can probably see that battery mAh capacity doesn’t completely correlate with uptime. It ranks highly among the phones that we’ve tested, but other ‘Ultra’ phones are capable of surpassing the F9 Ultra. Again, this is in its default Balanced mode, per the above benchmarking.

In real-world use, I never got the battery down to empty (or even 20%) in a single day when I used the phone as my daily driver.

For charging, Poco said the F9 Ultra supports 100W wired and 50W wireless HyperCharge. Sadly, the phone doesn’t include a charger in the box, so that fast charging falls upon our own gear. 30 minutes on a third-party 65W charger topped up 19%. It doesn’t sound like much until you realise it’s trying to fill up 8,050mAh worth of capacity.

Conclusion

The Poco F9 Ultra picks and chooses which aspects to excel at, which makes sense for a budget flagship. By no fault of its own, choosing its strengths in the face of price hikes also means it’s no longer the flagship killer it once was.

When compared with previous models, the 16GB RAM + 1TB variant (also our review unit) is now S$350 more expensive, at S$1,699. This feels especially painful when the predecessor carried the same processor. Despite that, today’s context and landscape makes the Poco F9 Ultra one of the best value options we have.

Take, for instance, the Xiaomi 17 Ultra, which comes from Poco’s parent brand. Its starting price is higher than the F9 Ultra’s most powerful configuration. Other competitors like Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra and the Oppo Find X9 Ultra are heading towards (or surpassing) that S$2,000 mark. Suddenly, 1TB onboard storage on a 2026 flagship-grade phone for S$1,699 doesn’t seem that bad.

This also means the lower storage configurations are likely an easier recommendation for Poco’s core audience. Its 16GB/512GB option (S$1,399) seems like the sweet spot; you get Poco’s maximum RAM offering with just enough space to install Genshin Impact 12 times over. Yes, it’s S$200 more than its preceding 512GB model, but again, that’s by no fault of theirs.

We can’t say it was truly effective in helping Poco users cushion the impact of memory shortages and price spikes, though. It costs more, but the camera work and display polish still fall short of true flagship alternatives, even if the battery uptime is respectable. True premium-grade devices also don’t have suspicious ads.

To Poco’s credit, F9 Ultra maintained its performance-to-dollar ratio – which is the brand’s calling card that goes as far back as its debut Pocophone F1.

Put together, we have a clear idea about who the Poco F9 Ultra is best for. It pushes performance beyond reason, so regular mobile gamers have a cost-effective choice when faced with today’s expensive handsets. Other aspects are above average to passable, which is the trade-off you get when paying less than premium prices. Its flagship killer status still applies, but it’s a much narrower definition this time around.

Poco F9 Ultra Pricing and Availability

There are three configurations available for the Poco F9 Ultra:

You can get the Poco F9 Ultra now at mi.com, as well as on Poco’s official Shopee and Lazada stores. It’s available only in Black and Dark Cherry colourways.