Poco F9 Pro and F9 Ultra launch today with smaller batteries than the Redmi phones they are built from

Poco will later today unveil the F9 Pro and the F9 Ultra. The online event that starts at 20:00 Beijing time, which is 3pm in Nairobi, 1pm in London, 2pm in Central Europe and 5:30pm in India. Xiaomi is streaming it from its own launch page on mi.com.

Poco is a Xiaomi sub-brand. Most Poco phones are Redmi models sold outside China under a different name, and these two follow that pattern. The F9 Pro is the Redmi K100 Pro and the F9 Ultra is the Redmi K100 Pro Max. Xiaomi launched both in China on 11 August. We went through everything Poco had confirmed about the two phones last week.

The battery gap

The Redmi K100 Pro has an 8,580mAh silicon-carbon battery. The Redmi K100 Pro Max has 9,070mAh. Both charge at 100W wired, 50W wireless and 27W reverse wired.

The Poco versions get less. Xiaomi’s launch page already lists 8,050mAh for the F9 Ultra, which is 1,020mAh or about 11% below the Redmi K100 Pro Max. Poco has not published a figure for the F9 Pro. A tipster on X, kacskrz, put it at 6,330mAh. If that holds, the F9 Pro loses 2,250mAh, or 26% of what the Redmi K100 Pro carries, while keeping the same 100W wired charging.

The Pro is the one worth watching at 3pm. A 6,330mAh cell is ordinary for a 2026 flagship. An 8,580mAh cell is not, and it is most of the reason to want the Redmi version. Redmi has been pushing capacity hard this year, and the Redmi Note 17 Pro Max shipped with 10,000mAh last week.

This isn’t the first time Poco is reducing battery sizes from Redmi variants in China. The Poco F8 Ultra shipped with 6,500mAh in November 2025. The Redmi K90 Pro Max it is based on has 7,560mAh. Poco has not explained why its global models carry less than the Chinese originals.

What Poco has confirmed

On 25 August Poco named the two processors. The F9 Ultra runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. The F9 Pro runs the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 V Series.

Those are different chips. The processor cores are identical: two Oryon cores at up to 4.6GHz and six at up to 3.62GHz. The graphics processor is not. The V Series has 8 compute units against the standard chip’s 12, and 12MB of dedicated graphics memory against 18MB. The F9 Pro should match the Ultra in everyday use and sit behind it in demanding games.

Poco has also named one colour per phone: Aurora Green for the F9 Pro, Dark Cherry for the F9 Ultra.

What the Redmi originals carry

• Screens: 6.59-inch 1,156 x 2,510 AMOLED on the Pro, 6.9-inch 1,200 x 2,608 AMOLED on the Pro Max. Both run at 185Hz and peak at 4,500 nits.
• Cameras: a 200MP f/1.7 main camera with optical stabilisation on both. The Pro adds a 50MP 2.5x telephoto and an 8MP ultrawide. The Pro Max adds a 50MP periscope with 5x optical zoom and a 50MP ultrawide. Both take 32MP selfies.
• Memory: 12GB or 16GB of LPDDR5X, with 256GB or 512GB of UFS 4.1 storage. The Pro Max also comes in 1TB in China.
• Audio: Bose tuning on both, and a rear subwoofer on the Pro Max that makes it a 2.1 system.
• Build: aluminium frame, glass front, IP68 and IP69 ratings. The Pro weighs 218g, the Pro Max 238g.
• Software: Android 16 with HyperOS 3.