As opposed to the Poco F1, which was an all-in-all original, the company’s revival and positioning as an independent brand in 2020 seems to be centered around rebranding Redmi phones announced in China. The Poco brand garnered mass appeal across the globe with the ‘true & original’ flagship killer, Poco F1. It’s now leaning on the same to bring more premium products, including its successor- Poco F2 Pro, to the market.

  • Design

In contrast to the polycarbonate build of the Poco F1, the Poco F2 Pro brings along a more premium glass sandwich design with an aluminum frame. The massive notch is gone for good and has been replaced with a fullscreen bezel-less experience on the front. The selfie camera is housed in a pop-up assembly, the same as the Redmi K20 Pro.

Design

Display

Poco F2 Pro leaves behind the massive notch of its predecessor and offers a bezel-less fullscreen experience to the users. This does mean that you lose access to the safer IR-based face unlocking feature, but I prefer an unintrusive viewing experience over the same.

Pop-up Selfie Camera

Poco F2 Pro, as mentioned above, includes a pop-up selfie camera. It’s a 20MP sensor and you have features like video recording up to 120fps and vlog mode. The highlight, however, will have to be the RGB notification light baked into the pop-up module. You can pick custom colors for different apps or functions.

Internals

Being a flagship phone means Poco F2 Pro is powered by the Snapdragon 865 chipset from Qualcomm. It also has 5G connectivity support, thanks to the Snapdragon X55 modem on board. The chipset is coupled with up to 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. Poco F2 Pro supports read and write speeds up to 777MB/s.

Software

The smartphone runs MIUI 11 for Poco based on Android 10 out-of-the-box. The features on offer are exactly the same as the standard MIUI 11, which includes dark mode, always-on display, and more. You still have the Poco Launcher on top, giving users access to a clutter-free app drawer. That’s all.

Cameras

Poco F2 Pro includes a quad-camera array in the circular cutout on the rear. It includes a primary 64MP Sony IMX686 sensor, along with a 13MP (f/2.4) ultra-wide-angle lens with 123-degree FOV, a 5MP telephoto macro camera (a first-of-its-kind macro camera that lets users get even closer to subjects), and a 2MP depth sensor.

The primary camera aboard this smartphone is the same as Poco X2 but with upgrades such as larger pixel size, 7P lens, and more. You can check out the camera quality right here on YouTube. Poco F2 Pro lets you capture 8K videos, portrait videos, slow-mo selfies, and a lot more.

Connectivity

The one thing that sets the Poco F2 Pro apart from the plethora of flagships out there is, let’s say, choice. The device still includes a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top. You can choose to plug in a headset or connect your TWS earphones over Bluetooth.

Battery & Charging

Poco hasn’t changed anything about this device. Finally, Poco F2 Pro comes packed with a 4,700mAh battery pack and supports 30W fast-charging. You will get the fast charger in the box, allowing you to juice up 100% of the battery in 63 minutes.

Poco F2 Pro comes in two configurations – 6GB+128GB and 8GB+256GB and has been priced starting at 499 euros (around Rs. 40,750). You will need to shell out 599 euros (around Rs. 48,900) for the 8GB+256GB variant. It is now up for sale on Gearbest and AliExpress but should make its way across global markets very soon.