Poco X6 Neo review

The Poco X6 Neo has a boxy design with flat surfaces and edges. The device is thin at 7.69mm and Poco says it’s the slimmest from the brand. The body is predominantly plastic, with a Corning Gorilla Glass 5 panel protecting the screen. The rear has a frosted glass design with a matte finish to enhance the play of reflections and the large dual camera lenses are perched on a glossy rectangular platform. To bring some symmetry to the design, there’s a circular element mimicking the LED light below it. The phone is available in Astral Black, Horizon Blue (Sky Blue, in my limited palette), and Martian Orange (Peach, to my eyes) colours.

The home and volume buttons are on the right-hand side, with the slot that accepts a single nano SIM along with a MicroSD card. On the top, you get a 3.5mm headphone jack and an IR blaster. The Type-C USB port shares the base with the mono speaker array.

The X6 Neo’s 6.67-inch, FHD+ (2400 x 1080) AMOLED thin-bezel display offers variable refresh rates up to 120Hz along with 240Hz touch sampling rate. We found it a bit laggy, however, it may not be that crucial for customers of a budget phone. The display offers 1000 nits of peak brightness along with 1920Hz PWM dimming and is capable of reproducing 100 percent DCI-P3 colour gamut. It comes with TÜV Rheinland certification for low blue light, flicker-free and circadian-friendly features. Considering the limitations of a budget phone, the display offers a competitive performance. You can change the colour temperature either with the included colour wheel or from the presets for warm, cool and default.

If we go by Poco’s narrative, the phone’s most valuable asset is its dual camera system with the 108MP main camera mated with a wide-angle lens. However, the second camera is, in reality, a 2MP depth sensor for portraits. Though there is no dedicated telephoto camera, the high-resolution sensor allows in-sensor zoom for competitive images even at 3x magnification. The camera is capable of producing sharp images including close-ups with good detail. Portraits were rendered with pleasing bokeh and natural tones. Overall, the system is capable of delivering excellent results without disturbing noise if you throw enough light at the sensor. The only flaw we found is the strong warm cast the camera produced indoors under mixed and difficult lighting. The front camera is a 16MP unit.

The Poco X6 Neo comes with ample RAM and storage with 8GB and 12GB RAM options and 128GB and 256GB options in storage. However, the performance is restricted by the underpowered MediaTek Dimensity 6080 SoC. Games run smoothly at low graphics settings. However, we never got any game to run above 63 fps. The device runs slightly warm most of the time.

The X6 Neo runs on Android 13 and the MIUI 14 interface comes with its share of bloatware as expected. Touch and scroll felt quite laggy even without many apps and games installed. Although not unexpected in a budget phone, the abundance of RAM and the display specs promise a lot more than it is intended to do. Although the FHD+ display offers an enjoyable visual experience, the single speaker takes some fun away, especially if you play games without headphones. The phone uses a 5000 mAh battery which lasts for over a day and a half on moderate use.

The Poco X6 Neo rides on the imaging capabilities of the camera, which we would consider brilliant, considering the price at which the device retails. The customers of these budget phones are looking for a device that handles their everyday activities without any glitches. Many of them may not notice the laggy interface or feel the inadequacies in audio. However, we are not sure how this will develop over time if this is what we experience on a fresh device. In short, a good buy for someone who needs a phone that takes good images and is ready to compromise on some other experiences.