// THE VERGE — GAMING
Poco’s F9 Ultra pairs an ultra-bright display with a glowing Bose subwoofer
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The cheaper F9 Pro packs the same screen, but simpler stereo speakers.
The cheaper F9 Pro packs the same screen, but simpler stereo speakers.
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Xiaomi spinoff brand Poco has partnered with Bose for the second year in a row for its flagship F9 Pro and Ultra phones. The F9 phones double down on amped up audio, with a light-up subwoofer built into the Ultra, along with extremely bright displays, enormous batteries, and what should be Poco’s best cameras yet.
The F9 Ultra sees the return of the Bose-branded 2.1 sound system introduced on last year’s F8 Ultra. Poco has only slightly tweaked the hardware, upgrading each of the two main speakers while using the same subwoofer as before, but has changed the structure of the subwoofer mount to include a small LED ring around it. It’s only white, with no choice of color, but can be used for call and notification lights as well as rhythmic lighting during gaming or music, unlike the extremely limited HiLight feature in the new Pixel 11 phones.
This must be the loudest phone I’ve ever tested, but quality is also genuinely pretty impressive considering the size of the speaker involved. This won’t match the quality of a good Bluetooth speaker, but it’s good enough that I’d happily rely on this for playing music in a hotel room, and it’s a definite upgrade for audio while gaming or watching TV. There are a couple of audio profiles designed by Bose, plus a full customizable EQ. New to the F9 Ultra is support for Bose’s game audio engine, which can do things like accentuate the sound of enemy footsteps in an FPS.