POCO recently launched its POCO X6 series, which includes the POCO X6 5G and POCO X6 Pro 5G. Both models have received a lot of attention since their release. Recently, POCO introduced the youngest member of the X6 family in India: the POCO X6 Neo 5G. Price starts from ₹15,999; this smartphone competes in the highly competitive sub-₹20,000 segment.
DESIGN
The POCO X6 Neo is a well-designed smartphone, considering its price. Despite its plastic body, the phone looks impressive due to its slim profile, which gives it a sleek and refined appearance. In addition, the POCO X6 Neo is lightweight at just 175 g, making it comfortable to hold. The back design of the POCO X6 Neo phone looks great, especially in the Martian Orange colour that I received for review. The texture is beautiful, but it’s important to note that the back is made of plastic and can be scratched easily without a protective case. Thankfully, POCO includes a soft black rubber case to protect the phone, but it does hide its beauty. The POCO X6 Neo does not have a pre-applied screen protector. If you want to keep the screen scratch-free, you’ll need to purchase a screen protector separately.
Surprisingly, the device includes a 3.5mm audio jack located on the top. Only a few brands offer this audio jack nowadays. Additionally, there is an infrared blaster to control TVs, ACs, and other electronics. This feature is handy as it eliminates the need for multiple remotes for each electronic device in the house, making it easier to manage.
On the right side, you can find the power and volume buttons that are conveniently placed. At the bottom is a Type-C port that supports up to 33 watts of fast charging and a speaker grill.
The POCO X6 Neo features a flat 6.67-inch AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5. Upon first use, you will notice the thin bezel on the device. Reducing the bezels from all sides gives the phone a more premium and appealing look. POCO has done an impressive job in this aspect.
PERFORMANCE
The POCO X6 Neo is a budget smartphone priced at under ₹20000, and its specifications are decent. It runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 6080 processor, which offers reliable performance. Recently, budget processors have become so powerful that you won’t notice any lag in everyday usage. Scrolling menus, surfing multiple websites, watching 4K YouTube videos, and Netflix worked without noticeable lag. All thanks to its 12GB abundant RAM, multitasking was a breeze. I could open as many Chrome tabs, and it still performed smoothly.
For those who are interested in benchmark scores, I have run tests on some popular apps. The Antutu Benchmark resulted in a score of 464489. The Geekbench score was 767 in Single-core and 2070 in Multi-core. Additionally, I performed the Wildfire Extreme Stress test, and the phone achieved the best loop score of 371. All of these scores indicate that the phone has a decent level of performance.
The POCO X6 Neo is powered by an MIUI 14 operating system based on Android 13. It features a POCO launcher with a clean and easy-to-use user interface. While there are no significant drawbacks to using Android 13, since it is a new smartphone, it could have been better to run on the latest Android 14 out of the box. However, the company has announced that it will release an Android 14 update for the POCO X6 Neo in the coming months. This means users can expect the device to perform even better with future updates.
One of the major issues with POCO phones is the presence of unnecessary pre-installed apps. Although some apps pre-installed on POCO X6 Neo were useful, many are unnecessary and can make the device feel cluttered. While removing most of these apps is possible, the process is often tedious and time-consuming, which can be frustrating when you’re trying to quickly set up your phone.
Playing games on the POCO X6 Neo is a lot of fun! I’ve tried many different ones, including my favourite BGMI, Call of Duty, and the racing game Asphalt 9. This budget-friendly smartphone runs on a mid-range MediaTek Dimensity 6080 processor with a Mali-G57 MC2 GPU. The games run smoothly at an average of 30fps, enough for a decent gaming experience.
The POCO X6 Neo supports up to 120Hz refresh rate, making the device feel smoother when scrolling through your social media feeds on Instagram or Facebook. The phone comes with a 5000mAh battery and supports up to 33-watt fast charging, which can charge the phone fully in approximately 2 hours. With medium usage, the battery lasted a whole day. However, if you’re a heavy user, using intensive games or the camera for extended periods, expect to charge the battery by evening.
During our testing, we performed a battery drain test on the POCO X6 Neo while playing 4K YouTube content on the phone. We monitored the device’s battery level and found that it went from 28% to 20% within a 30-minute period of playing 4K video.
CAMERA
The POCO X6 Neo boasts a dual-camera setup on its back, with a primary sensor of 108 MP and a depth sensor of 2 MP for portrait mode. However, it lacks an ultra-wide or dedicated telephoto camera sensor, which can be expected for this budget.
The 108 MP camera sensor functions as a telephoto and can digitally zoom up to 10X. This phone’s camera can take above-average pictures in various lighting conditions, whether in low-light or well-lit environments. It captures decent shots with reasonable levels of detail and vivid colours. However, the dynamic range can sometimes be inconsistent, making some highlights overexposed and hard to manage. Despite this, it still takes photos that are overall decent. When it comes to close-up photos, the sharpness can be hit-or-miss, resulting in occasional slightly soft images. Overall, the camera does a decent job producing satisfactory images but may struggle in more challenging lighting conditions. Portrait photos are mediocre – the edge detection is not the best, and detail retention could be better. Additionally, the phone tends to overexpose the entire photo in harsh light.
Selfie pictures are of good quality in daylight, but their quality quickly degrades in low-light conditions. Low-light pictures taken with the primary camera often have a lot of noise and lower sharpness.
VERDICT
Overall, the POCO X6 Neo offers a sleek design and lightweight build, making it ideal for everyday usage. Its slim bezels and bright AMOLED display ensure an immersive visual experience. However, the phone falls short in certain areas, such as having average cameras and pre-installed bloatware apps that can be bothersome. Nonetheless, the question remains: Is the phone worth its price? The answer is yes. This beautifully designed smartphone offers decent performance and supports fast charging, making it a great choice in this price segment.
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