Poco X6 Neo 5G First Impressions

Poco added a Neo phone to the X6 lineup today, and it brings some impressive features at its price. According to the company, this is the slimmest Poco smartphone ever. The most interesting feature on the phone, at least the one that caught our eye, was the display. It's got uniform and slim bezels all around, which is not something you'll find on a phone that costs under Rs. 20,000. We've been using the Poco X6 Neo 5G for a couple of days, and here's our first look at the phone.

Starting with the design, the front of the Poco X6 Neo is better than the rear. Poco has managed to slim down the bezels uniformly on all sides, which means that there's no thick chin here. The company is advertising a screen-to-body ratio of 93.30 percent, which is quite impressive. The left and right bezels are just 1.5mm thin, whereas the top and bottom are 2mm and 2.5mm, respectively.

The display offers 120Hz refresh and full-HD+ resolution. It's a 6.67-inch AMOLED panel that's protected with Gorilla Glass 5. You get a hole-punch cutout at the top for the selfie camera. For content consumption and gaming, this is an excellent panel. We'll be testing out the display thoroughly in our full review.

Flipping over to the back, the rear panel is plastic and has a marble-like finish that looks unique when light hits it. We're using the Martian Orange variant of the Poco X6 Neo, and it appears that the pattern on the rear panel is supposed to resemble the surface on Mars (it doesn't).

There's a dual camera setup with a primary 108-megapixel sensor. I did try out the camera, and it appears to take good photos in daylight. Once again, we'll be testing the cameras in our full review, so stay tuned for that. The cameras are placed atop a rectangular module that's similar to what we've seen on the other Poco X6 series phones. The handset has flat sides with a slight taper that makes it comfortable to hold despite its large size. The frame also appears to be made from plastic.

As for connectivity, the smartphone has a USB Type-C port at the bottom, an IR blaster at the top, dual-band Wi-Fi, 5G dual SIM support, GPS, and Bluetooth 5.3. It also gets an IP54 rating for dust and water resistance. The volume and power buttons are placed on the right side of the phone, with the power button also acting as a fingerprint scanner. The scanner registered my fingerprint quickly and worked well. Poco has included a single speaker on the X6 Neo, but you do get a 3.5mm headphone jack at the top.

In terms of hardware, the Poco X6 Neo is equipped with a MediaTek Dimensity 6080 SoC that's paired with up to 12GB RAM and 256GB storage. In the few days we've been using the phone, things were mostly snappy, with the occasional lag. However, we'll have to run some games and benchmarks and use the phone more to find out how it performs in day-to-day tasks. Will it heat up during intensive gaming sessions? You'll have to wait for the full review to find out.

On the software side, the Poco X6 Neo comes loaded with MIUI 14, based on Android 13. The company is offering two years of Android updates and four years of security patches. When most phones, including the other phones in the Poco X6 series, are running Android 14, it's disappointing to see the Neo on Android 13. There's also plenty of bloatware on the phone, but we'll dive deep into or run away from them in the full review.

Poco has packed a 5,000mAh battery on the X6 Neo, which supports 33W fast charging. You also get the charger in the box, which is nice. The standout features at this price range—the phone starts at Rs. 15,999—are the display and the 108-megapixel rear camera. How will the phone fare against its competition? We'll find out in the full review, which should be out soon.