POCO M6 PRO REVIEW

POCO M6 PRO 5G DETAILED REVIEW

The POCO M6 Pro 5G has the title of being the cheapest 5G smartphone in India. Priced at ₹10,999, the POCO M6 Pro narrowly beats out the Redmi 12 5G (review) – which launched recently – to claim this title. Coincidentally (or not), the phone is a replica of the Redmi 12 5G, with the same specifications across the board – barring storage variants and some design elements. One could even call it a rebranded Redmi 12 5G? Rebranded or not, the POCO M6 Pro 5G is already making waves in the Indian market, having sold out its stock merely 15 minutes after the sale went live. Packed with the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 SoC, a 90 Hz display, and a 5,000 mAh battery, this inexpensive phone seems to be an appealing purchase on paper. But it is actually worth your money? It is the cheapest 5G phone in the market though, which already builds its case – since POCO is democratising 5G technology for the masses. In fact, you can even buy it for just ₹9,999 with a bank offer on select cards. However, let’s find out if you should consider spending your hard-earned bucks on this or not in my detailed review.

POCO M6 PRO 5G REVIEW: BUILD AND DESIGN

Sporting a sleek and lightweight design, the POCO M6 Pro 5G is quite an attractive phone for its price. The phone is 8.17 mm thick and weighs only 199 g, but the edges are slightly sharp, so it can get somewhat uncomfortable to hold over long periods. POCO has provided a glass back at this price point, which is extremely rare. It gives the device a premium look and feel – which I really appreciate under ₹10K.

The glass back and the display is Gorilla Glass protected as well. However, the glossy glass back does accumulate a lot of fingerprints and smudge marks. POCO has added a dual-tone design where the camera module has a more frosted glass look while the bottom part is just plain glossy. It is a nice separation and catches the eye immediately. There’s no raised camera module though, so the camera lenses jut out considerably which makes it rock on a flat surface.

the frame is polycarbonate but it sports a subtle metallic sheen – looks real nice for the price. The power and volume buttons feel a bit cheap, they’re just slightly janky. You get a 3.5 mm audio jack and a microSD card slot on this phone but stereo speakers are missing. As for the front, there’s a punch-hole cut out for the selfie camera and considerably thick bezels; especially the chin bezel. Redmi has also added IP53 dust and water resistance which is a nice touch.

POCO M6 PRO 5G REVIEW: DISPLAY

Packing a large 6.79-inch IPS LCD display with Full HD+ resolution and 90 Hz refresh rate, the POCO M6 Pro 5G is a good device for content consumption. Everything from YouTube to Netflix to Amazon Prime looked good on this phone. The phone comes with Widevine L1 certification, so you can view HD videos on OTT platforms. The display – at 396 PPI – looks sharp enough for the price, and the colours are nice and vibrant as well even though it may not be the most colour-accurate panel.

the display reached a peak brightness of 410 nits in our tests. Now, while this is decent enough for indoor and outdoor usage in most instances, you may face occasional difficulties viewing the screen under bright sunlight, especially like what we get here in sweltering Mumbai. 

the phone’s 90 Hz refresh rate means that scrolling feels quite smooth. Although not as path-breaking as 120 Hz, this does add a bit of fluidity to the motions compared to a 60 Hz display that is usually standard under ₹10K. The phone doesn’t switch to 90 Hz when scrolling through YouTube or Netflix though. The phone also has 240 Hz touch sampling rate, so the touch responsiveness in games is quite decent. 

POCO M6 PRO 5G REVIEW: PERFORMANCE

The POCO M6 Pro 5G is powered by the latest Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 SoC fabricated on a 4 nm process. The SoC has proved to be quite powerful in the budget segment and we’ve previously tested it on the Redmi 12 5G as well. The POCO M6 Pro sports up to 6 GB LPDDR4X RAM and up to 128 GB UFS 2.2 storage, which is expandable up to 1 TB. It runs Android 13 with MIUI 14 on top.

Starting off with benchmarks, the POCO M6 Pro 5G threw up impressive results in AnTuTu – beating out the Helio G88 processor on the Realme Narzo N55 and its own predecessor, the Snapdragon 4 Gen 1 on the Redmi Note 12. We saw a significant lead in GeekBench as well. However, the phone scored lower than the Redmi Note 12 in PCMark Work.