Bose's 2.1 speaker configuration, first introduced on Poco's F8 Ultra, is back inside the F9 Ultra, this time with a small LED ring mounted around the subwoofer and visible from the rear of the device. Xiaomi's spinoff Poco has extended its Bose audio partnership into a second consecutive year, placing the branded hardware across both the F9 Pro and the F9 Ultra, the company's flagship phones.
The generation-over-generation hardware changes are narrow. Poco upgraded each of the two main speakers while carrying the same subwoofer forward from the F8 Ultra. The structural change goes to the mount: Poco redesigned it to include a small LED ring around the subwoofer unit, making the component glow from the phone's back panel. The company characterizes the overall hardware revision as slight.
The 2.1 arrangement pairs those two main speakers with the dedicated subwoofer for bass. That configuration was introduced by Poco on the F8 Ultra; the F9 Ultra continues it with the same subwoofer and upgraded main speakers. The F9 Pro also ships with Bose speakers. Poco has not specified the Pro's speaker architecture relative to the Ultra, and the LED ring appears reserved for the Ultra tier.
Display, battery, and cameras
Poco is framing the F9 line as a full hardware update, with audio as the headline specification. The phones carry what the company describes as extremely bright displays and enormous batteries. On cameras, Poco says the F9 series should represent the best imaging the F lineup has delivered to date. No benchmark figures accompany that camera projection.
The second consecutive Bose deal positions audio as a structural feature of the F-series rather than a one-time experiment. The LED ring around the subwoofer converts an internal speaker component into a visible design element on the rear panel, the most tangible mechanical change Poco made to the audio hardware this cycle.