POCO Used to Be a Bargain. Why Is It Suddenly So Expensive?
News Desk
POCO built its reputation on a simple promise: flagship-level hardware without the flagship-level price tag.
For years, that formula made the Xiaomi-owned brand a favourite among consumers looking for powerful processors, large batteries and capable displays without paying Samsung, Apple or Google prices.
But with the launch of the new POCO F9 Pro and POCO F9 Ultra, that bargain-era identity appears to be fading.
The two latest models still deliver the kind of specifications that made POCO famous. They feature large, high-resolution displays, flagship-class Qualcomm processors, versatile cameras and enormous batteries. What has changed dramatically is the price.
The message from POCO’s latest F-series is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore: premium specifications now come with a premium price.
From a €289 bargain to a €1,100 flagship
The transformation becomes clearer when looking back at where the F series began.
In 2019, POCO introduced the POCOPHONE F1 with a Snapdragon 845 processor, up to 8GB of RAM, a 6.18-inch Full HD display and a 4,000mAh battery.
It was not perfect. The phone used a plastic body and its cameras were hardly class-leading. But at €289, those compromises were easy to accept.
The F1 was precisely the kind of phone that could make buyers question why they should spend hundreds of euros more on a traditional flagship.
Over the following years, however, POCO gradually moved upmarket. Build quality improved, cameras became more capable and the company introduced Ultra models aimed directly at the premium segment.
The prices followed the same trajectory.
The POCO F7 Ultra, launched in early 2025, started at €749. That was already more than twice the launch price of the original POCOPHONE F1, although the phone also offered considerably more, including a major improvement in camera performance.
Then came the POCO F8 Ultra at €849.
Now the POCO F9 Ultra has pushed the starting price to around €1,100, while the F9 Pro has climbed to roughly €900.
For a brand whose identity was built around giving consumers more phone for less money, that is a significant shift.
The smartphone bargain is disappearing
POCO’s changing prices are also part of a much bigger transformation taking place across the smartphone industry.
The era of ever-cheaper hardware is under pressure as manufacturers face rising component costs, particularly for memory.
The artificial intelligence boom has dramatically increased demand for memory chips and other computing components. DRAM, SSDs and related hardware have experienced steep price increases, putting additional pressure on electronics manufacturers.
RAM is particularly important because it can represent a substantial portion of a smartphone’s overall manufacturing cost.
That pressure eventually reaches consumers.
The result is a smartphone market where genuinely affordable devices are becoming harder to find, while mid-range phones increasingly make compromises in processors, cameras, displays or storage.
At the same time, manufacturers are pushing premium features further down their product lines, but often at significantly higher prices.
POCO still has the hardware
Ironically, the F9 series demonstrates why POCO’s reputation was built in the first place.
The new phones offer specifications that would have been considered extraordinary in a flagship just a few years ago.
The F9 lineup brings large displays with high refresh rates, Qualcomm’s latest high-end processors, cameras reaching 200 megapixels and huge batteries. The Ultra model reportedly packs an 8,000mAh battery, putting it among the most ambitious battery offerings in the segment.
On paper, there is little doubt that these are powerful smartphones.
The problem is no longer whether POCO can deliver flagship hardware.
It is whether POCO can still deliver that hardware at a price that makes the brand meaningfully different from the competition.
When the “flagship killer” becomes a flagship
That may be the biggest irony of the F9 generation.
POCO once succeeded by making consumers feel as though they had discovered a loophole in the smartphone market: flagship performance for a mid-range price.
The F9 Pro and F9 Ultra increasingly look like conventional premium smartphones — powerful, feature-packed and expensive.
That does not necessarily make them bad phones. In fact, their specifications suggest the opposite.
But it does change the question consumers will ask before buying one.
If a POCO costs close to €1,000 or more, buyers are no longer comparing it only with other value-focused brands. They are likely to compare it directly with Samsung, Apple, Google and Xiaomi’s own premium offerings.
And that is a very different battlefield.
POCO may still offer plenty of performance for the money. But the era when its biggest selling point was simply “why pay more?” appears to be coming to an end.
The POCO F9 series may mark the moment when the bargain smartphone brand finally became what it once tried to disrupt: a premium phone maker.
