It’s been six years since POCO first stepped into the Indian markets. The aggressive pricing mentality and performance-focused phones are what set it apart from other players. While it hasn’t been able to replicate the craziness of the POCO F1, the POCO X6 Pro is as close as it can get in this competitive market.
POCO X6 Pro
Rs 26,999What Is Good?
- Gorgeous and sharp display
- Good battery life
- Loud stereo speaker setup
- Decent primary camera performance
- Excellent performance for gaming
- HyperOS is snappy
What Is Bad?
- Ultra-wide and macro cameras are sub-par
- Riddled with bloatware
The POCO X6 Pro is an easy recommendation for most people, especially gamers. It gets a lot of things right, like its hardware, software, and mainly, the price. It also feels like a more polished phone from last year. But, should you buy it? Let’s find out in this review.
POCO X6 Pro Pricing and Availability in India
The POCO X6 Pro is available in two storage variants. As of writing this review, you can buy the phone from Flipkart. You can get the phone in three different colour variants: Spectre Black, Racing Grey, and POCO Yellow. The latter comes with a vegan leather finish at the back, while the others have a glossy plastic material.
| Variants | Pricing |
| 8GB RAM and 256GB Storage | Rs 26,999 |
| 12GB RAM and 512GB Storage | Rs 28,999 |
POCO X6 Pro Review: Design and build quality
The POCO X6 Pro might not be the most attractive phone in the market, but it gets the basics right. The entirety of the phone is made out of good-quality plastic, and despite a few drops, it has held its own. The glossy back panel is a massive fingerprint magnet. The frames are painted matte, which helps with the grip.
| Design | Specifications |
| Weight | 190 grams |
| Thickness | 8.25mm |
| IP Rating | IP54 |
| Port and button placements | Top: Secondary microphone, speaker grille, and IR blaster.
Bottom: USB Type-C port, SIM tray, speaker grille |
The compact form factor, paired with rounded edges, helps with the ergonomics of the device. This is further aided by its lightweight nature. Unlike the POCO X5 Pro, it now has a black rectangular camera module at the top. This adds a bit of colour contrast to the otherwise bland grey colour. The module does not protrude at all, so don’t worry about table wobbles.
The IP54 rating should help you against accidental water drops and a bit of dust. In a nutshell, splashes are fine, but dunks aren’t.
POCO X6 Pro Review: Display and audio
Unlike most other phones that opt for a curved panel, the POCO X6 Pro sticks to a flat panel. It’s an upgrade over the POCO X5 Pro, with a 1.5K resolution display. Content legibility under direct sunlight is also quite good, and the 120Hz refresh rate aids a smoother experience throughout the UI.
| Display | Specifications |
| Size | 6.67-inch |
| Type | pOLED |
| Resolution | 1220×2712 pixels |
| Refresh rate | 120Hz |
| Peak brightness | Claimed: 1800 nits, Tested: 1781 nits |
| Screen-to-body ratio | 94.27% |
| Display protection | Corning Gorilla Glass 5 |
The bezels on all sides of the phone are quite thin, giving a good experience when consuming content. The display is tailor-made for gaming and content consumption. Colours in the original “Pro” preset look the most realistic, with no specific emphasis on a certain shade.
The display also has good viewing angles, and watching movies on it was fun. Darker scenes in Ragnarok were also portrayed well. You also get support for Dolby Vision and HDR10+ in Netflix out of the box, which is always good to see.
The POCO X6 Pro’s display also comes with a feature that helps prevent accidental touches because of water. While this works flawlessly with sweat on your fingers during intense gaming sessions, it cannot handle heavy water droplets from the shower. The stereo speaker setup on the POCO X6 Pro works well and gets quite loud, with decent bass.
POCO X6 Pro Review: Performance and software
The Dimensity 8300 Ultra-powered POCO X6 Pro is one of the best-performance focussed smartphones you can buy under Rs 30,000. POCO also does not skimp out on the RAM and storage tech, ensuring its priority lies with performance and gaming.
| Hardware | Specifications |
| Processor | MediaTek Dimensity 8300 Ultra |
| RAM | Up to 12GB LPDDR5X |
| Storage | 512 GB UFS 4.0 |
| AnTuTu v10 | 1355216 |
| Geekbench 6.1 | Single core – 1443, Multicore – 4328 |
| CPU throttling test | 81 per cent of its max performance |
| Storage Test (AnTuTu) | 1,88,104 |
| Software version | Xiaomi HyperOS based on Android 14 |
| Connectivity details | Wi-Fi 6, 5G, Bluetooth 5.4, GPS, NFC |
The synthetic benchmarks didn’t disappoint me with the POCO easily hitting the 1.3 million mark. It swiftly beats its brother from another mother — POCO F5, which comes with a Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 and a score of 932855 (AnTuTu v9).
The POCO X6 Pro also does not shy away from other gaming-focused phones such as the iQOO Neo 7 Pro and the OnePlus Nord 3, both of which will cost you north of Rs 30,000. All these scores are reflective of my daily usage, without a single hint of stutter.
Gaming on the POCO X6 Pro, as you might have guessed, is a breeze. The phone easily handles intensive games such as Genshin Impact, BGMI, and Call of Duty: Mobile. While you can easily get 60 fps on all these games, the latter two also allow you to reach as far as 90 fps and 120 fps, respectively.
The POCO X6 Pro is the first phone to come with Xiaomi HyperOS, even beating the Redmi Note 13 series. In essence, the software looks the same, but it’s extremely smooth with faster animations when compared to MIUI.
The usual barrage of bloatware apps is still here, and you are often greeted with spammy notifications. HyperOS mainly focuses on customisation options and eating a lesser chunk of the storage.
It’s still not perfect. The control panel has relocated the settings button, which is now tough to find among other icons. The screen timer option which is usually found under the display tab is nowhere to be found. The POCO X6 Pro promises three years of software and four years of security updates.
POCO X6 Pro Review: Cameras
Compared to the outgoing model, the POCO X6 Pro comes with a 64-megapixel primary camera, but the drop in megapixel count is adjusted with OIS support. The rest of the camera module remains the same with an ultra-wide angle camera, and a 2-megapixel macro camera, which could’ve been skipped.
| Cameras | Specifications |
| Primary camera | 64-megapixel, 1/1.2-inch, f/1.79, OIS + EIS |
| Secondary camera | 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera |
| Tertiary camera | 2-megapixel macro camera |
| Selfie camera | 16-megapixel |
| Video recording capabilities | Up to 4K at 30fps and 1080p at 60fps |
Despite skipping out on a higher resolution camera, the POCO X6 Pro can capture good photos. It’s true when they say only megapixels don’t matter.
Images captured in daylight are sharp with good details, colours and a balanced dynamic range. The shutter speed is also fast, so you won’t miss fast-moving objects. However, the image processing tends to over-sharpen human subjects in certain situations, especially in low-light conditions. The 2x lossless zoom also retains most of the details. Portrait mode works well with human subjects, as well as flowers with good edge detection.
The obvious drop in quality is visible with the ultra-wide angle camera. While it provides a wider perspective of the landscape, some images tend to invite a bunch of noise around the corners. Photos captured in low-light conditions also came out well. OIS helps with minor shakes during dimly lit conditions. Images have decent details, but zooming in reveals a few grains, especially around the edges. Regardless, the photos are usable.
The selfie camera also does its job well in most conditions. Portrait mode also works well here, even if you have multiple people in the image. However, the POCO X6 Pro softens the facial details, despite having all the beautifications off.
POCO X6 Pro Review: Battery and charging
The 5,000mAh battery inside the POCO X6 Pro easily lasts for a day with moderate to heavy usage. My usage included a bit of camera work, gaming, and mostly content consumption. It has a reliable battery and should help fight battery anxiety. In fact, the POCO X6 Pro was one of the winners in our recent extreme battery test video.
The included 67W charger also fills up the battery quite fast. It takes about 43 minutes to charge fully from the dead, which is impressive.
POCO X6 Pro Review: Verdict
Like I said at the start, the POCO X6 Pro is a very easy choice for gamers looking for a phone under Rs 30,000.
It outperforms other gaming-focused smartphones such as the iQOO Neo 7, OnePlus Nord 3, POCO F5, and even the iQOO Neo 7 Pro. This is a commendable feat at Rs 27,000. However, we’ll have to wait to see what 2024 has to offer in this regard. The battery life is impressive, and more importantly reliable. The 67W charger also fills up the battery quite quickly. The upgraded display also goes under our pros list.
The adaptation of HyperOS has been fruitful with smooth animations and a snappier experience. However, it’s still plagued with a bunch of unnecessary apps. While the primary camera performs well, the ultra-wide camera is okay. The macro camera is something I’ll just ignore. The selfie camera will need a software update that helps with fixing the facial details, rest it works well.
The Rs 26,999 price tag of the POCO X6 Pro makes it an amazing choice, especially if gaming is a priority on your list.
