Budget of rupee. 6,499 is not considered ideal for a decent smartphone in 2025. More than this, when some feature phones from HMD or popular Android-wide dumbfone, Cat S22 flip cost higher. However, a set of smartphone manufacturers believes that there are really tight budget there are buyers who want to upgrade to their first smartphone with a feature phone button. And for these buyers, Poco C71 can be correct fit.
Poco C71 Design
Credit where this cause, Poco tries to glamorce the entry-tier segment by giving C71 a dual-tone design. It is not snazzy or loud as the design of Poco C75, but is a subtle.
The rear panel has a very art deco vibe, with a pattern of straight flowing lines overlap to each other, carrying about half of the rear panel. A capsule-shaped camera island, with two cameras, combines glamor with its polish gold finish on half-bewatt.
Poco C71 has a good art deco theme around the back, and it also manages a basic IP52 rating for dust and water
The cool blue finish we found for reviews have a frame and rear panel made of polycarbonate. The frames are flats and the rear panel is a matte finish, which makes this large phone very slippery.
Something that attracted my attention was the lack of a lower-firing speaker. For my surprise, it is placed on top, and I believe it is the same speaker who doubles in the earpiece or other way.
The receiver speaker of Poco C71 doubles as its primary speaker
At 193 grams, the phone looks a bit on the heavy side. It is slightly larger for the use of one-hand. However, it is good to know that the design is IP52-rated for both dust and water. This is quite basic, but appropriate, given the price level of the phone.
Flip the phone, and you will look at a quite large and flat 6.8-inch HD+ LCD display with 120Hz screen refreshed rate. There are thick boundaries around it, especially at the bottom and top of a water-drop style. This, with its smooth nature, is very obvious that Poco C71 belongs to the entry-level section.
Poco C71 Performance
Continuing along its display, the screen is set by the refresh rate default to the battery-saving 60Hz. There are only two settings to choose, so I chose 120Hz for a smooth view, as strip-down hyperose software interface, is operated by Android 15 (Go Edition), stutter and does a little interval. You can definitely get smooth work and more future-proof software by spending a few thousand more.
Poco’s C71 Android is powered by a extremely trimmed-down version of the hyperos of Xiaomi, Android 15 GO version
The POCO website claims that the phone has an ambient light sensor, but it is not. It uses a front-faceing camera to keep an eye on its surroundings and determines the glow level required to deal with it.
Although it looks like a cool “juggad”, the phone checks only using the camera for ambient light, the moment it is unlocked and sets the required glow level at that time. If you suddenly get out of the shade of the tree and go into the bright sun, it will not recur until you turn off the screen and unlock the phone again.
The display outdoor of Poco C71 is not very bright, and you have to squint in the performance while looking at direct sunlight. Inside the house, the angles of viewing are civilized because the level of brightness falls when it is seen off-center.
The text and the icons appear sharp, which is a surprise to see the low screen resolution that is spread on a large display. The color is not bad with the performance of nature (or natural tone) by default. The phone only supports Widavin L3DRM, which means that it will only be the playback material in OTT apps in the standard definition (SD). This means that videos in OTT apps like Netflix and even video streaming apps like YouTube will also appear soft and will not be as crisp on a budget smartphone.
Coming on the basics, a fingerprint reader in the power button is embedded, and it works fine. One can store up to 5 prints which is good. There are two slots for Nano SIM card and a dedicated slot for expandable storage (MicroSD card up to 1TB). In addition, there is a 3.5 mm headphone jack available, which is essential for the underlying radio app.
The performance of Poco C71, in addition to its thick boundaries, is also a waterdrop knot
The quality of the call is decent, but the call volume could have been loud because I often felt a little soft to the caller. The speaker volume is also slightly soft when calling, and not enough loud while watching the video. The speaker also accidentally blocked when the phone is blocked when playing horizontally and games, or watching movies.
The phone has an UNISOC T7250 chipset and therefore my expectations about its performance were not very high, even considering the price of its entry level. The processor app is capable of launching and handling basic software navigation properly. However, it struggles when remembering the apps from memory, so be constantly ready for the app restart.
| product | Poco C71 | Redmi A4 5G | Moto G 35 5G |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chipset | Unisoc T7250 (12Nm) | Snapdragon 4S General 2 (4Nm) | Unisoc T760 (6Nm) |
| Display resolution | HD+ | HD+ | FHD+ |
| Antutu V10 | 2,68,767 | 3,87,157 | 4,70,387 |
| Pcmark work 3.0 | 8,509 | 8,782 | 11,755 |
| Geekbench v6 single | 440 | 839 | 741 |
| Geekbench V6 Multi | 1,481 | 1,919 | 2,290 |
| GFXB T-Rex | 37 | 55 | 55 |
| GFXB Manhattan 3.1 | 20 | 28 | 29 |
| Gfxb car chase | 11 | 15 | 16 |
| 3dm Slingshot Extreme Opengl | 1,268 | 1,560 | 2,629 |
| 3dm slingshot | 1,885 | 2,409 | 3,603 |
| 3dm wild life | 575 | 647 | 1,351 |
| 3dm wild life unlimited | 568 | Fer | 1,335 |
Given the poor CPU and GPU score shown in the above table, I still managed to play asphalt 8: Airbourne. For my surprise, the game was playable in default settings, but with a lot of skipped frames and random examples of the lag. Most high-end games were not available for download from Play Store itself.
Poco C71 has only one user-solid rear-faceing camera
Poco C71 has a single 32-megapixel rear-faceing camera, which Poco calls a dual-camera setup. When combined with another camera, it acts as a depth sensor used for portrait mode. The selfie is controlled by an 8-megapixel camera.
Poco C71 Primary camera samples (tap images to expand)
The primary camera captures passive photos with low details in daylight. The colors are slightly saturated, and the dynamic range is slightly limited, in which the camera is struggling to highlight the sky and the foreground and is the foreground despite switching to the auto HDR feature. Bin camera samples have adequate expansion and lack of sharpness, with most samples shown the texture that looks like oil paintings. Close-ups of objects become clear, but even when you pixel pipes are less than detailed.
Portrait photos (top) from the rear camera have overtake the background. Even the edges of the subject have clipped highlights. The same selfie portrait applies to photos (below) that shows the extension of the soft face. (Tap images to expand)
Pictures of low-light from primary camera come out with less expansion and dynamic range and there are very noise.
Video recording maximum 1080p 30 fps. The footage packs in very little detail and is quite unstable, especially when walking or pan. In low light, recorded videos are barely useable because the image quality is also further immersed with added noise. The camera takes its sweet time to focus even in the conditions of Bright Street-Lit.
The 5,200mAh battery capacity of Poco C71 is very high, but with heavy use, it remains barely in a day
Battery life easily lasts for an entire day with heavy use. Casual users who do not make too much call or use limited apps will be seen a little more than a day, but there is nothing more than this and it is mainly below the use of 12Nm Unisoc chipsets. Our HD video loop test lasted for 14 hours and 32 minutes, which is slightly less as the budget smartphone. Xiaomi’s own Redmi A4 5G lashed out for a better 19 hours and 32 minutes in the same test, which completely plays an HD video on a loop to the battery drains. Charging a 5,200mAh battery is also very slow, the device has a full charge in 2 hours and 21 minutes.
Poco c71 decision
The Entry-Level smartphone segment has not yet been stocked with alternatives, showing that interest in this category has started only this year. Poco’s C71, Rs. 6,499, for a basic entry-level smartphone, packs everything under the sun. This is just an additional Rs. 1,000, you can get a 5G-Taiyar device with better specifications and more future proof software, given that C71 is running a basic GO version of Android 15.
Poco C75 5G (now from Rs 7,699) is a solid contender, even though it was launched earlier. We have not reviewed the C75, but we have reviewed Redmi A4 5G (now from Rs 7,999). Which is the same in the context of hardware. Both phones will need you to bow to Reliance’s Jio Network as they only support the 5G band provided by this operator.
Another solid option is Motorola’s G35 5G, which provides better performing hardware than the phone mentioned above. Rupee. 9,999, it will go on your entry-level budget, but you get a better vegetarian-leather design and near-stock Android software with Hello UI.
If you only your budget is Rs. 7,000, hold the 6GB RAM version of Poco C71 which is available in rupee with 128GB storage. 6,999 instead.
