A budget of Rs. 6,499 were not considered ideal for a decent smartphone in 2025. More, when some phone features from HMD or the popular Android-powered dumbphone, the Cat S22 Flip costs more. However, a set of smartphone manufacturers believes that there are buyers there with a really tight budget who wants to upgrade from a feature phone with buttons on their first smartphone. And for these consumers, the POCO C71 can be a perfect fit.
POCO C71 design
Credit where it should be, Poco attempted to Glamorise the entry level segment by providing C71 with a dual-tone design. It’s not as snazzy or strong as POCO C75 The design but it is a subtle acquisition with both.
The back panel has a very -art deco vibe here with a pattern of straight flowing lines overlapping each other, taking about half the back panel. An island-shaped capsule-shaped, with two cameras inside, adds to the attractive with glossy gold finishing in the non-textured half.
The POCO C71 has a beautiful Art Deco theme around, and it also manages a major IP52 rating for dust and water
The cool blue finish we received for the review had a frame and rear panel made of polycarbonate. The edges of the frame are flat and have a matte finish, like the back panel, making this big phone slippery.
One thing that caught my attention was the lack of a speaker firing underneath. To my surprise, it is placed at the top, and I believe it is the same speaker that doubles as an earpiece or other way.
POCO C71 recipient spokesman doubled as its main speaker
At 193 grams, the phone felt a bit on the heavier parts. It’s pretty big for a hand use. However, it is good to know that the design is rated by IP52 for both dust and water. This is quite primary but justified, given the phone’s entry-level level price.
Flip the phone, and you’ll notice a relatively large and flat 6.8-inches HD+ LCD display with a 120Hz screen refresh rate. It has thick borders around, especially underneath and a water -style style. This, with its smudgy nature, makes it clear that the POCO C71 belongs to the entry level segment.
POCO C71 PERFORMANCE
Continuing to show it, the screen refresh rate is set to a battery saving 60Hz by default. There are only two settings to choose from, so I chose 120Hz for better visuals, as the stripped-down hyperos software interface, boosted by Android 15 (go edition), avoids and somewhat somewhat. You can get better functioning and more software in the future-proof by spending a few thousand more.
POCO’S C71 is strengthened by Android 15 Go Edition, a super trimmed-down version of Xiaomi’s Hyperos
The POCO website says the phone has a surrounding light sensor, but no. It uses the front facing the camera to take a peek around you and determines the required level of brightness required to deal with it.
While it looks like a cool “juggad”, the phone just examines the surrounding light with the camera once it is locked and sets the required level of brightness at that time. If you suddenly move out of the shade of the tree and in the bright sunshine, it will not recalibrate until you turn the screen off and unlock the phone.
The POCO C71 display is not very bright outside, and you will need to quit on the display when looking at it in direct sunlight. Inside the house, the views of view are decent as the shine levels decrease when it looks outside the center.
Texts and icons appear sharp, which is a surprise given to the low screen resolution stretched out with a large appearance. The colors are not bad either, with the display set in nature (or natural tone) by default. The phone only supports the Widevine L3 DRM, which means it will only play the OTT content in the standard definition (SD). This means that video on OTT apps such as Netflix and even video streaming apps like YouTube appears as soft and not as fresh as on a budget smartphone.
When it comes to the basics, there is a fingerprint reader who is gem into the electric button, and it only works. One can store up to 5 copies that are great to have. There are two spaces for Nano SIM cards and a dedicated space for expanded storage (microSD cards up to 1TB). Also available is a 3.5mm headphone jack, required for the built-in radio app.
POCO C71’s display, in addition to its thick boundaries, also has a waterdrop notch
The quality of the call is decent, but the volume call can be stronger because I often find the caller a bit soft. The volume of the speaker is a bit too soft when placing calls, and not strong enough when watching videos as well. The speaker also gets an accidental -block often when holding the phone horizontally and playing games, or when watching movies.
The phone has a Unisoc T7250 chipset and so my expectations about its performance are not very high, even considering the entry level price. The processor can handle app launch and primary software navigating properly. However, there is a possibility of fighting when apps are remembered from memory, so be prepared for frequent app restarting.
| Product | POCO C71 | Redmi A4 5G | Moto G35 5G |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chipset | Unisoc T7250 (12nm) | Snapdragon 4s Gen 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 | Ftr | 1,335 |
Due to the poor CPU and GPU scores shown in the table above, I still managed to play Asphalt 8: Airborne. To my surprise, the game can be played in default settings but there are many skip frames and random opportunities of lag. Most high-end games are not available for download right from the Play Store.
POCO C71 has only one user accessible to the camera facing the rear
The POCO C71 has a single 32-megapixel facing the camera, which Poco calls a dual-camera setup. When combined with the second camera, it serves as a deep sensor used for photo mode. Selfies are handled by an 8-megapixel camera.
POCO C71 Basic Camera Samples (Tap photos to expand)
The main camera gets passed pictures with low detail in sunlight. The colors are quite saturated, and the dynamic range is quite limited, with the camera difficulty to expose the sky and the front despite the transfer to the auto HDR feature. Binned camera samples lack enough detail and sharpness, with most samples showing textures that look like oil paintings. Close-ups of objects come out clearer but are still low in detail when you peek.
Photo photos (top) from the back camera have overexposed backgrounds. Even the edges of the subject are clipped highlights. The same applies to the pictures of the selfie portrait (bottom) showing the soft detail of the face. (Tap images to expand)
Pictures with low light from the main camera came out with low detail and dynamic range and very noisy.
Video recording is max out at 1080p 30 fps. The footage packs are very small in detail and come out quite trembling, especially when walking or shining the camera. At the low light, the recorded videos are almost available as the image of the dips image even with extra noise. The camera takes its own sweet time to focus even under bright street light conditions.
5,200mAh POCO C71 battery capacity
Battery life can easily take a whole day with heavy use. Casual users who do not place many calls or have limited app uses will see this phone longer than one day, but nothing more and this is largely using the 12nm unisoc chipset. Our HD video loop test lasted 14 hours and 32 minutes, which is relatively low until smartphones go to the budget. Xiaomi’s own Redmi A4 5g take a better 19 hours and 32 minutes In the same test, performing an HD video in a loop until the battery completely collapsed. Billing 5,200mah batteries is also very slow, with the device managing a full charge for 2 hours and 21 minutes using the bundle 15W charger.
POCO C71 VERBICT
The entry-level smartphone segment has not been fully stocked with options, indicating that interest in this category has just begun to be taken this year. Poco’s C71, at Rs. 6,499, packing everything under the sun for a basic smartphone level at the level. This is only an additional Rs. 1,000, you can get a 5G-prepared device with better specifications and more software in future-proof, given that the C71 runs a rather basic version of the Go Edition of Android 15.
The POCO C75 5G (Now from Rs. 7,699) is a solid contender, even though it was launched earlier. We haven’t reviewed C75 yet, but we reviewed the Redmi A4 5G (Now from Rs. 7,999). Which is identical in terms of hardware. Both phones you will need to be able to hold up on the Jio Network of Reliance as they only support the 5G band provided by this operator.
Another solid option is Motorola’s G35 5Gthat offers better hardware performance compared to the phones mentioned above. Which is priced at Rs. 9,999, it will go to your entry level budget, but you will get a Better vegan-leather design and near-stock Android software with Hello UI.
If you can’t just stretch your budget to Rs. 7,000, Grab the 6GB RAM version of POCO C71 available with 128GB storage at Rs. 6,999 instead.