I decided to switch mobile phone brands, how hard was it?

This is exactly how I felt when I first started looking at alternatives to Samsung for my next Android phone. I’d been with Samsung for well over a decade, but things were starting to get stale. So, when a work colleague suggested a blind date with his old flagship Xiaomi phone, I tentatively accepted, and the more it grew on me, the more I realised that I’d quite like to spend a couple of years with one and see how things went from there.

Since my first date with my colleague’s Xiaomi, the Chinese giant released a new range of phones under the POCO sub-brand. One of these was the POCO F7 Pro, described by TechAdvisor.com as “the new mid-range phone to beat”.

So, I’ve now bitten the bullet and I’m going steady with my POCO F7 Pro. We’ve even been on our first family holiday together.

Here’s my verdict.

Design and Build Quality

The POCO F7 Pro’s looks certainly matched up to the profile pictures when I took it out of the box. Its sleek glass front looks and feels just as sophisticated as my Samsung S22 and my wife’s S23FE. Turning the F7 Pro over, the rear is even more pleasing on the eye, with a glossy top third, frosted lower section, and a circular triple-camera setup; all framed in aluminium that feels solid and comfortable in the hand. Size wise, the F7 Pro is a tall and slender 160.3 x 75 x 8.1 mm and weighs a reassuring 206g.

But looks aren’t everything, and I’ve fallen foul of good-looking phones before, especially ones that aren’t rugged enough to keep up with my reasonably active lifestyle. So, I still retained a few anxieties about how the F7 Pro’s IP68 rating would hold up on our first holiday together. Luckily, the F7 Pro is far more robust than my ageing body and survived being dropped in melting snow, filming in the surf at Biarritz, and a full day in a waterpark, happily coming on all the waterslides with me and the family. The only time I took the precaution of drying the phone with a towel afterwards was when I was in the sea filming my son surfing, since seawater isn’t particularly kind to any electronics. In short, the POCO F7 Pro’s IP68 rating was flawless, and I had none of the dreaded nagging about water ingress that I’ve had on some previous IP68-rated phones.

Display and Sound

As with many profiles on dating apps, phone profiles like to talk up their talents and abilities. The F7’s profile boasted about its 6.67-inch OLED display with peak brightness of 3200 nits. I had no idea what number of nits was good or bad, and still don’t, if I’m honest. But what I can say about the POCO F7 Pro is that even on the sunniest days, the screen remained clear and readable. When we were skiing in the Pyrenees, we could barely keep our eyes open without ski goggles, yet the POCO F7’s screen remained bright and clear under the intense glare. Watching Netflix or playing games on the vibrant 2K display was an enjoyable experience, and the stereo speakers delivered crisp sound to accompany this.

Storage, Battery, and Performance

A new phone might be okay for me, but would it be compatible with the family, specifically, my son and daughter? Luckily, with 512GB of storage (a 256GB option is also available), my F7 Pro was able to put up with some of my ten-year-old daughter’s worst habits, like making hour long videos of herself cartwheeling in the garden. These home movies can often be several gigabytes in size and really ate into my previous phone’s 128gb capacity, not to mention depleting my battery. But my POCO F7 Pro was more than happy entertaining my daughter’s quirky habits and still had plenty of energy and space left for me afterwards. She happily navigated us the length of France too, without any adverse effect on the 6,000mAh battery at any stage. I wish I could say the same of my ex-phone, who regularly demanded plugging in after relatively short periods of navigation. In fact, the F7 Pro’s battery capacity was so good that I started to forget to charge it overnight after a week or so. Luckily, the 90W fast charger took it from 0% to 100% in about 37 minutes.

So far, so good. The POCO F7 Pro was compatible with my lifestyle and my daughter’s. But what about my thirteen-year-old son? Luckily, he has his own Google Pixel 8a, which he’s very happy with. The only complaints I’ve ever heard from him about his own phone is that it’s sometimes “laggy” when playing Roblox or Xbox Game Pass cloud games on his phone. Typically, for a thirteen-year-old boy, he can become rather expressive when this happens, and usually lets the entire household, and adjoining neighbours know about the “lag”. So, how would the F7 Pro fit in around his eccentricities? Well, since it uses the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset that Samsung’s latest flagship phones are powered by, paired with an Adreno 750 GPU, it delivered “lag-less” performance in his hands, much to the delight of my ears. It handled all his Roblox games with the graphics set to the highest levels and Xbox Game Pass titles perfectly when we were using wi-fi or in areas with good 4G or 5G coverage.

Software and User Interface

Any new relationship requires some adjustment, especially getting used to one another’s habits, some of which can be a little annoying. Switching to a new operating system is no different, but Android-based operating systems rarely differ too much. Xiaomi’s HyperOS 2.0 was smooth, with a clean, intuitive interface, and both my kids adapted quickly, despite being used to Google and Samsung phones. I’m a little more stuck in my ways than the kids though, so I have one or two very minor differences that I still need to re-adjust to. One of these is having to open a scanning app to use QR codes. It’s a minor inconvenience, but I did like the fact that my Samsung S22’s camera app used to automatically read them. Apart from that and some other very slight differences, we’ve really adjusted to life together.

Camera

For me, one of the most important aspects of a phone is the camera. I’ve grown so used to my S22 taking amazing photographs that I felt that any other phone would be a step down. Being completely honest, while the POCO F7 Pro does take great images, it doesn’t quite match my Samsung S22. The triple-camera system produces sharp, vibrant photos with solid dynamic range in daylight, but the ultrawide lens struggles in low light and lacks autofocus. There’s no dedicated optical zoom, like my Samsung S22, and the POCO F7 Pro relies on digital cropping instead. That said, it’s hardly alone in this respect, and even the iPhone 16 does the same, unless you opt for the Pro version. Anyone serious about photography might want to opt for the POCO F7 Ultra model instead, as this comes with an optical zoom, better all-round camera specs and other premium features, for an extra £100 or so.

The 8K video recording on the POCO F7 Pro’s main camera is exceptional, with great detail even in low light. The ultrawide and selfie cameras are less impressive but adequate for casual use. For its price, the POCO F7 Pro’s camera system is commendable, especially for video.

Pricing and Value

Priced at around £399 on Xiaomi’s website and £499 on Amazon, the F7 Pro competes in the same price bracket as Samsung and Google’s A-series phones. Tech Advisor ranks it third among 2025’s top mid-range phones, ahead of the Samsung A56 (fifth) and Google 8a (eighth), so it’s fair to say that you’re getting a lot of phone for your money with the POCO F7 Pro.

Unlike Xiaomi and their other sub-brand Redmi, finding a POCO phone as part of a contract can be tricky, so this might limit contract options, but outright buyers get incredible value for a near-flagship experience.

Verdict

I’m glad I finally broke free of brand loyalty and dipped my toes into the wider world of Android phones. Not having to worry about battery life has been even more liberating than I thought. I do wish I’d gone with the Ultra model, for the improved camera quality, but in every other respect, I haven’t looked back at my old relationship at all. The POCO F7 Pro is a fantastic choice for families, gamers, and budget-conscious users seeking premium features. For the price, it’s hard to beat.