Irrespective of whether or not you own – or have owned – a OnePlus device, the company’s smartphones have always been compelling propositions for their intuitive, user-friendly experience, and blazing fast performance. The same is the case with the OnePlus 6T.
The two smartphones have comparable specs, with the Poco F1 getting the additional option of 64GB storage to suit the consumer expectation in its price range. Here’s how both the phones compare in terms of specifications:
Design
For the price you pay, OnePlus 6T has a much more premium and attractive design than the Poco F1. No doubt the latter is more durable because of its plastic build, but the glass back on the 6T makes it visually more appealing.
Both the Poco F1 and the OnePlus 6T come with Full HD+ display but here again, the OnePlus 6T takes lead again with better dynamic range and more accurate colors. Further, the Optic AMOLED display on the 6T altogether makes texts look crisper with richer contrast. If you have an affection for dark mode, the OnePlus 6T will serve you well.
At the time of Poco F1’s review, I was stunned to see the camera performance of the Poco F1 which challenged the then leader of the affordable flagship segment – OnePlus 6. Considering that OnePlus 6T essentially has the same camera hardware as the predecessor, it is interesting to see how the two devices compare in terms of photography.
The camera on the OnePlus 6T offers good details and an appreciable dynamic range but it seems that the company has cut some corners, resulting in inconsistent performance. In my experience, the Poco F1 has very competent camera, especially because of its AI features, which enhance images on the fly.
The images taken by the OnePlus 6T are clearer and have more detail, but there’s extra warmth in the images which is not the natural color.
At dusk, the OnePlus 6T manages to capture more light and thus has slightly better detail reprodcution than the Poco F1.
At night, the difference is wider and the OnePlus 6T manages to capture much more light. The phone also has a dedicated Nightscape Mode which automatically determines the time for long exposure while you’ll have to turn to the manual mode on the Poco F1 to achieve this.
When it comes to portrait mode shots, both phones have nearly identical capabilities. While the OnePlus 6T has slightly oversaturated images in this case too, Poco loses the bet here, smoothing the details of my face with a beauty filter automatically.
Lastly, for selfies, the Poco F1 focus majorly on your face, ignoring the color composition of the background, thus making the image looks weird. The OnePlus, on the other hand, oversaturates the images while trying to even out the tones throughout the frame and honestly, while neither is impressive, I would pick the OnePlus 6T over Poco F1.
When it comes to videos, both – the Poco F1 and OnePlus 6T – can record 4K videos but the frame-rate is limited at 30fps for Poco while the 6T can capture UHD videos at up to 60fps. Secondly, Poco lacks any sort of optical stabilization while OnePlus 6T features OIS in the rear camera.
Both the Poco F1 and OnePlus 6T use the same processor and RAM configurations and while both the companies have boastful taglines themed around speed, OnePlus clearly does a better job of striping down the unimportant elements and making the interface noticeably faster.
OnePlus 6T also leads the Poco F1 in terms of numbers vouching for its superior performance. There is a noticeable difference in the benchmark scores of both the smartphones and that could be attributed to the bloated MIUI. MIUI 10 based on Android Pie seems to improve that slightly but OnePlus 6T is still doing a better job.
In terms of gaming, neither of devices get cold feet, but the screen makes gaming more enjoyable on the OnePlus 6T. The tiny notch, too, does not hurt the experience but if that does not matter to you much, the Poco F1 is equally adept. However, some ghost touches on the F1 might hinder your gaming experience.
Before I talk about the software experience on both the smartphones, let me tell you that this experience is purely subjective and your experience might vary from mine. In my experience, OxygenOS on the OnePlus 6T offers a more palatable experience because of its smooth animations and better RAM management.
MIUI for Poco has jitters because of the bloatware it carries thanks to the MIUI legacy. This can also be seen in the benchmarking scores in spite of identical hardware. Further, OnePlus also benefits from using Android Pie while Poco F1 is still stuck in Oreo. We have been promised an update by the end of the year and while Xiaomi is already developing MIUI 10 based on Android Pie, it is essentially the same as the version on Android Oreo. MIUI for Poco
The Poco F1 scores better in this category for a larger 4,000mAh battery compared to the 3,700mAh battery which was partly the reason that OnePlus dropped the headphone jack. But if we move past judging the book by its cover, OnePlus 6T actually performs better than the Poco F1 in terms of battery backup with a striking seven-and-a-half-hour-long screen-on-time.
The OnePlus 6T also fares only slightly better when it comes to charging thanks to its super-fast charging technology which charges at 20W.
Both the smartphones take almost two hours to charge fully and considering that the Poco F1, too, charges at 18W and has a larger battery, I am actually leaning in its favor.
We finally have a category where the Poco F1 objectively beats the OnePlus 6T. This is because the 6T uses an under-display fingerprint sensor, the technology behind which is still pretty much half-baked. While the fingerprint is zippy, it is nowhere as fast as a physical sensor on the Poco F1 (or OnePlus 6) as you can see in the video below.
Secondly, Poco F1 gets an IR face unlocking mechanism for 3D face recognition and it works admirably well, even without any light. I am sure that the Poco F1 is better in this case and the under-display fingerprint technology might make you question your purchase of the OnePlus 6T.
Both the smartphones come with LTE-A support and Bluetooth 5.0 with AptX for great audio delivery, especially while streaming music or videos. The OnePlus 6T loses here for its lack of the headphone jack but OnePlus feels confident that it’s a step towards the future. For the meantime, you get a headphone dongle in the box.
The OnePlus 6T has slightly better Wi-Fi performance thanks to MIMO support. We did notice slightly better speeds in our office but the variation is not big enough to mar your experience.
The biggest question here is which of the two smartphones offer better value for money and clearly Poco F1 aces this department for sure. This is because of its unbelievable price which is apt for the mid-range segment rather than that of affordable flagships. Yes, there are some trade-offs in terms of the quality of the display and the clunky and gimmicky dual speakers, Poco has hit the bull’s eye with its pricing scheme.
Poco F1 vs OnePlus 6T: The Affordable Flagship Face-off
Both OnePlus 6T and Poco F1 are masters of their trades and all that bashing from Poco is not groundless either. Poco took it a different level by putting billboards right outside the OnePlus 6T launch venue yesterday, and if value for money is the only criteria then Poco definitely has a point.
