Review: Xiaomi Poco X6 and X6 Pro Phones

If you’re in the market for an affordable Android smartphone, the latest midrange Poco duo from Xiaomi should be on your radar. Available now in the UK, Europe, and India, but not the US, the Poco X6 (£319) and Poco X6 Pro (£369) offer stacked spec sheets with few weaknesses. You can expect excellent displays, good battery life, and solid performance from both, though there are a few cons lurking here.

Xiaomi offers a truly gargantuan line-up of smartphones. Not content with its budget Redmi sub-brand, it launched the midrange Poco sub-brand in 2018. There is considerable overlap, with many phones released under the Redmi name in China being tweaked and rebadged as Poco for the European market. The X6 and X6 Pro fall into that category. If you are wondering, the word poco means “a little” in Spanish and Italian.

The Poco brand has taken off as a value phone. The X6 and X6 Pro sit at the bottom end of the midrange, undercutting much of the comparable competition. With so much in common, the Poco X6 will be the better choice for bargain hunters, but I will lay out the differences so you can decide whether the X6 Pro is worth digging deeper for.

At first glance the Poco X6 and X6 Pro are very similar. The X6 is a teensy bit taller, slimmer, and lighter, but the differences are paper thin. Both have plastic frames with a volume rocker on the upper right side and the power button below. Only the X6 has a 3.5mm headphone port. The in-screen fingerprint sensors are responsive, with camera cut-outs at the top of the near bezel-less screens. Both phones score an IP54 rating, so rain is fine, but dunking is not.

Turn them over, and they are much easier to tell apart because the X6 Pro has a slightly curved back and a camera module that includes four equally sized lenses (though one of them is actually the flash). The X6 has two pronounced lenses on the left with a smaller third lens and flash. The camera modules are the only design element that stands out, unless you opt for one of the more "interesting" finishes. The Poco X6 Pro colors are black (like my review unit), gray, or, for the brave, striking bright yellow in a fake leather finish. The Poco X6 comes in plain black or blue, or white with a marble effect.

The same 6.7-inch AMOLED screen graces both phones offers a sharp resolution of 2,712 x 1,220 pixels, up to 120-Hz refresh rate, and high brightness of 1,200 nits (with peak brightness of 1,800 nits). The Pro has a slightly better version of Gorilla Glass, but you won’t be able to spot any differences here. These are lovely, crisp displays, and I had no issues with legibility outdoors. There is Dolby Vision and HDR10+ support, which is ideal for video streaming. Blade Runner 2049 looked great on these phones, and the speakers are decently loud and balanced, though inevitably short on bass.

Both versions boast an ample 12 gigabytes of RAM in the UK, and the X6 Pro comes with 512 gigabytes of storage, while the X6 makes do with 256 gigabytes. The processor in the X6 Pro is the Dimensity 8300-Ultra, while the X6 has Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7S Gen 2. I didn’t feel any difference in day to day basics, but make no mistake, the Dimensity offers significantly more raw power. It is snappier when you pile up the tasks and smoother for graphically demanding games.

One surprising difference is that the X6 runs Xiaomi's MIUI 14 interface, while the X6 Pro gets Xiaomi’s newer HyperOS, which are both skins that sit atop Android 14. The changes are subtle, but HyperOS has slicker animations, more customization options for your lockscreen, and leans further into minimalism. I found the quick settings, now shorn of text labels, confusing. Xiaomi says the security has been beefed up, and there is now a common font across languages.

Both UIs still have elements that remind me of Apple’s iOS, and it took some tweaking to get them the way I wanted, though it was doable thanks to a wealth of customization options. The Poco X6 will get HyperOS in an update.

You can expect three major OS updates and four years of security patches for these phones.

Although Poco phones have Play Store and other Google apps out of the box, they also come with a ton of bloatware installed. It's packed with unneeded apps like Facebook, Netflix, and TikTok, Xiaomi apps like Mi Mover and Mi Remote, and trashy games like Block Puzzle Guardian and Crazy Juicer. You can uninstall them, but you shouldn’t really have to. The phones should ship without all this crap.

Xiaomi includes a 67-watt charger and a USB-C cable in the box that can fully charge the phones from zero in about 50 minutes. Weirdly, the X6 has a slightly bigger battery at 5,100 mAh to the X6 Pro’s 5,000 mAh, but their battery life feels roughly equal. Playing 20 minutes of Asphalt 9: Legends drained 5 percent of the battery on both phones. On an average day with a mix of calls, web browsing, gaming, and video streaming, these phones had between 20 and 40 percent left in the tank at bedtime—about standard these days.

Despite appearances, the X6 and X6 Pro have a trio of lenses in the main camera, a solid 64-megapixel main shooter flanked by a disappointing 8-megapixel ultrawide and 2-megapixel macro lens. This is not Xiaomi’s best camera system, but most folks will be happy with the daytime shots. The main camera captures plenty of detail, but photos are sometimes on the warm side, and overexposure is occasionally a problem. Although they are the same on paper, the X6 Pro delivers more depth, color accuracy, and less noise. The difference is more noticeable with low light shots, so the X6 Pro is the one to go for if you take photos at night.

The ultrawide lens is handy when you want to pack a lot in. Some photos appear cooler than those taken with the main shooter, but it mostly matches the colors and captures enough detail to deliver pleasing shots. The macro lens is best avoided. It's limited and tends to produce noisy photos.

The front-facing camera is 16-megapixel and will suffice for selfies. The portrait mode is flaky and struggles to apply the bokeh shallow depth-of-field effect correctly. Portraits with the main camera are much better, as are shots taken on the X6 Pro. On the video front, both can capture 4K at 30 frames-per-second and 1080p at 60 fps (frames per second), but only the Pro supports 24 fps and HDR for a more cinematic feel.

There are some magnificent mid-priced phones nowadays. Google’s Pixel 7A (8/10, WIRED recommends) is a bit pricier and looks weaker on paper but benefits from Google’s software smarts and great cameras. The more affordable Pixel 6A (8/10, WIRED recommends) is still worth considering, too. I prefer Google’s user interface, and the Pixel is a natural pick if you use Google apps.

The Samsung Galaxy A54 5G (8/10, WIRED recommends) is also more expensive than the X6 Pro, but has a better camera and IP67 water resistance. If money is tight, check out the Samsung Galaxy A14 5G (9/10, WIRED Recommends). You might also consider one of the cheaper Motorola phones, or some of the other suggestions in our best cheap phones and best Android phones guides.

Despite an abundance of choice, there is a niche at this particular price, and it is tough to find anything this cheap that's better than the Pocos. If you don’t mind tweaking its interface, the screens are especially good for the money, but choosing between the Poco X6 and X6 Pro is still tricky. Gamers and photographers should stretch for the X6 Pro, but most folks should lean into the affordability of the X6.