A budget of Rs. 6,499 is not considered ideal for a decent smartphone in 2025. More so, when some feature phones 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 out there with really tight budgets who want to upgrade from a feature phone with buttons to their first smartphone. And for these buyers, the Poco C71 may be the perfect fit.
Poco C71 Design
Credit where it’s due, Poco does attempt to glamourise the entry-level segment by giving the C71 a dual-tone design. It’s not as snazzy or loud as the 
Poco C71 primary camera samples (tap images to expand)
The primary camera captures passable photos with low detail in daylight. Colours are a bit saturated, and dynamic range is a bit limited, with the camera struggling to expose the sky and the foreground despite switching on the Auto HDR feature. The binned camera samples lack sufficient detail and sharpness, with most samples showing textures that look like oil paintings. Close-ups of objects come out clearer but are still low on detail when you pixel peep.
Portrait photos (top) from the rear camera have overexposed backgrounds. Even the edges of the subject have clipped highlights. The same applies to selfie Portrait photos (bottom) that show soft facial detail. (tap images to expand)
Low-light photos from the primary camera come out with low detail and dynamic range and are very noisy.
Video recordings max out at 1080p 30 fps. The footage packs very little detail and comes out quite shaky, especially when walking or panning the camera. In low light, recorded videos are barely usable as image quality dips even further with added noise. The camera takes its own sweet time to focus even under bright street-lit conditions.
The Poco C71’s 5,200mAh battery capacity sounds like a lot, but barely lasts a day with heavy usage
Battery life easily lasts a whole day with heavy use. Casual users who don’t place too many calls or have limited app usage will see this phone last a bit longer than a day, but nothing more and this is mainly down to the use of the 12nm Unisoc chipset. Our HD video loop test lasted 14 hours and 32 minutes, which is a bit low as far as budget smartphones go. Xiaomi’s own Redmi A4 5G lasted a better 19 hours and 32 minutes in the same test, which plays an HD video on a loop till the battery drains completely. Charging the 5,200mAh battery is also very slow, with the device managing a full charge in 2 hours and 21 minutes using the bundled 15W charger.
Poco C71 Verdict
The entry-level smartphone segment isn’t yet fully stocked with choices, indicating that interest in this category has only started to pick up this year. Poco’s C71, at Rs. 6,499, packs everything under the sun for a basic entry-level smartphone. It’s just that at an additional Rs. 1,000, you can get a 5G-ready device with better specifications and more future-proof software, given that the C71 is running a rather basic Go Edition version 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 the C75, but we have reviewed the Redmi A4 5G (now from Rs. 7,999). which is identical in terms of hardware. Both phones will need you to be hooked up to Reliance’s Jio network because they only support 5G bands provided by this operator.
Another solid option is Motorola’s G35 5G, which offers better-performing hardware compared to the phones mentioned above. Priced at Rs. 9,999, it will go over your entry-level budget, but gets you a much better vegan-leather design and near-stock Android software with Hello UI.
If you just cannot afford to stretch your budget over Rs. 7,000, grab the 6GB RAM version of the Poco C71 that’s available with 128GB storage at Rs. 6,999 instead.
