Xiaomi Pocophone F1 receives an underwhelming MIUI 11 update

The Xiaomi Pocophone F1 impressed us when we reviewed it just over twelve months ago. Garnering an 87% overall rating, Xiaomi released the device running MIUI 9, its in-house version of Android Oreo 8.1. The company then brought the Android 9.0 Pie-based MIUI 10 to the device by the end of 2018 and has included it on the first phase of its MIUI 11 release schedule. You can view the full list of devices receiving MIUI 11 at the bottom of MIUI.com, for reference.

The device has now started receiving MIUI 11 too, so you would be forgiven for thinking that Xiaomi has brought Android 10 to its affordable Snapdragon 845-powered handset. Unfortunately, the device remains on Android 9.0 Pie for the time being. The MIUI 11 that Xiaomi has pushed to the Pocophone F1 is not the same OS as the one it has released to the Mi 8, Mi Mix 2s and Mi Mix 3, nor the one that will hit the Mi 9 in Phase 2 of its rollout. Xiaomi has offered no indication of when Android 10 will arrive on the Pocophone F1, either.

Xiaomi has, to its credit, been releasing its OS on several bases of Android since MIUI 6 in 2014. However, it is disappointing to see fragmentation at the first phase of the MIUI 11 rollout, with the Redmi 7 also receiving Android 9.0 Pie builds. Moreover, the Pocophone F1 has effectively been downgraded to a second-tier smartphone, with other handsets receiving Android 10 versions of MIUI 11. We still expect the Pocophone F1 at some stage, but this version of MIUI 11 may not be the one for which many owners hoped.