Editorials · Reviewer Insight
I spent two weeks with an 8,050 mAh phone, and mainstream flagships should be embarrassed
The Poco F9 Ultra has a battery that's larger than two iPhone 17 units… combined!
This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
The Poco F9 Ultra has a battery that most phones can only dream about. | Image by PhoneArena
For the past two weeks, I've been reviewing the Poco F9 Ultra for the purposes of the review I penned up.
It's the latest flagship by Poco, of ex-Xiaomi fame, which comes with all the high-end bells and whistles you can expect of a contemporary high-end smartphone coming from China. The highlight here is a massive 8,050 mAh silicon-carbon battery, which is fitted inside a svelte body below 9 mm.
And you know what? It's just so easy to get addicted to great battery life that using any other mainstream flagship device afterward feels like a downgrade. That's especially true when you compare it to some of the most popular and coveted devices out there, like the 5,000 mAh Galaxy S26 Ultra.
Samsung or Apple? Thanks, I'd rather get great battery life
Credit where credit is due. Both the Galaxy S26 Ultra and the iPhone 17 Pro Max are two-day phones. The Poco F9 Ultra is also a two-day phone.
The difference, however, is in the details. With the Samsung flagship, you have to micromanage your usage and be mindful of how much juice you have left. Push it too hard and your battery could be gone by the end of the business day.
The Poco F9 Ultra with its massive 8,050 mAh battery and exceptional battery life really treats you to an exceptional battery life that just lasts and lasts, lulling you into a state of exceptional comfort.
I've reached nearly 11 hours of screen-on-time over the span of two days, with some ~20% of battery juice left, with my usage consisting of heavy gaming for an hour, binging three episodes of The Sopranos, doom-scrolling on Instagram and Reddit, catching up on e-books, general browsing, and some music over the excellent 2.1 sound system.
You know––the whole nine yards.
With other phones, I wouldn't have had enough juice to finish this daily bullet list of tasks with a decent enough amount of remaining battery juice.
An example of a pattern
To be completely fair, the Poco F9 Ultra isn't the only phone hailing from China with exceptional battery life right now. Most of the best Chinese phones you can get out there are more likely to wow you with their battery endurance rather than disappoint. That's due to a combination between fast, efficient chipsets and large silicon-carbon batteries, which are widely used by most Chinese manufacturers.
This is a disruptive strategy that has been netting manufacturers like Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and Poco a ton of positives for years now. Even before silicon-carbon batteries rolled out, most Chinese phones were exceptional in terms of battery endurance thanks to very tight optimization.
Anecdotal evidence, but I've always experienced great battery life when using a Chinese phone, which is something I can't say about any Samsung device. The iPhone is a mixed bag: the larger Pro Max models have always had outstanding standby battery life for me, but push them too hard at maximum brightness and 5G network, and their batteries won't be too happy to see you.
While not the best battery life we've measured historically, the Poco F9 Ultra delivers an excellent result, but the key takeaway here is the consistency you can expect out of this device.
Yet another piece of anecdotal evidence: I went out on an extensive photo walk around the city starting with 35% battery and came home with 20% remaining. This walk included taking a solid amount of personal photos and a few 4K videos, some basic browsing, and a bit of Waze navigation on the way back, which is quite a solid battery performance for all intents and purposes.
Had I been using a Galaxy, I wouldn't have felt comfortable to rely on the battery not dying on me.
An affordable Ultra flagship that feels like one
Devices like the Poco F9 Ultra might never achieve the same level of worldwide recognition and become household names like the top iPhones or Galaxies. Yet, the importance of affordable devices of the type is unquestionable, as these always show just how much better you could have it if you move away from the well-established market leaders and try something a little more adventurous.
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