'Poco M6 Plus' review: Decent performer for regular tasks

The 15k price segment has been really getting competitive in the 5G smartphones race in the past few months with the likes of Moto, Samsung and Vivo bringing out new offerings.

Poco has also launched its new M6 Plus at Rs. 13,499 for the base model and Rs. 14,499 for the higher model, and here’s how my experience with it has been.:

The M6 Plus is a large device that features a 6.79-inch (21:9 aspect ratio) display with unsymmetrical bezels around it as the bottom one (chin) is noticeably much broader than other sides.

The phone, weighing 205grams, has Gorilla Glass 3 protection on the front and a plastic frame. The back, which is divided into two parts for slight differences in colour shades, also has glass but doesn’t necessarily feel very premium just as the price tag.

The right side houses the volume buttons and power/lock key at the middle; while the dual SIM card plus microSD card hybrid slot are on the left side towards the top.

On the top, you get the 3.5mm audio jack as well as the Infrared port; and the primary mic, USB type C port and single outlet for loudspeakers at the bottom. It comes in Misty Lavender and Ice Silver (which I tried) colour options and is a IP53-rated dust and water-resistant device measuring about 8.2mm in thickness that feels okay in the hand, considering the price tag.

The 6.79-inch full HD+ (2460x1080) LCD display supports up to 120Hz refresh rates and is just about okay in terms of brightness to use outdoors. The display has decent viewing angles and isn’t bad in terms of details for watching YouTube videos or viewing high quality images.

On the back, there’s a dual camera setup – 108MP (f/2.2) main camera and a 2MP macro camera. The phone took sharp but grainy shots when used for close-up shots, but did better in terms of colours when used standing still and the subject is also not moving in daylight. You can set the side-mounted fingerprint reader to open the camera app quickly.

The front-facing 13MP (f/2.2) camera is okay for taking sharp selfies in decent to good daylight conditions but in low-light it can struggle to maintain details and low noise. The device is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 AE chipset (up to 2.3Ghz octa core processor, Adreno 613 GPU and x61 5G modem), 8GB LPDDR4X RAM and 128GB UFS 2.2 internal storage (base model has 6Gb RAM).

It is running on Xiaomi HyperoS 1.0.4 based on Android 14 with the June security patch. There are a lot of pre-installed apps on the device out of the box, which can be uninstalled, while you can disable notifications and things like Xiaomi’s own App Store if you want to.

The device can handle tasks such as watching a full HD video on YouTube, messaging over WhatsApp, Telegram, and scrolling through Instagram; having these open in the background and using the camera is just okay. This isn’t the smoothest Android phone you may have tried but it’s fine at handling these tasks on a day-to-day basis.

Equipped with a 5,030mAh battery unit, the phone lasted me a day quite frequently with about 15 per cent or so left by the end of the day. You get a 33watt fast charger in the box (along with a transparent protective case.

Coming to the single loudspeaker, it does an okay job for video and game playback.

GPS and WiFi performance on the phone didn’t show any glitches whole 5G reception was also okay when outdoors, you can reliably use It on the move.

All in all, the M6 plus is a decent performer for your regular tasks such as watching YouTube videos, using WhatsApp frequently, maybe clicking a shot when in daylight conditions and having 5G data on the go.

Anything more, and this phone might struggle a bit to keep up.