POCO F8 Pro Review – The Utility Player

Unboxing

The POCO F8 Pro arrives as the more compact sibling to the headline-grabbing F8 Ultra, but it doesn’t skimp on flagship-class internals. Do keep in mind that both of those devices do not use the same chip as this one is powered by last year’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Elite.

The included accessories are sufficient for getting the smartphone up to speed, including:
– USB-C charging cable
– 100W fast charging adapter (Europlug)
– SIM ejector pin
– Quick start guide & warranty card
– Safety & regulatory information
– Phone case
– POCO F8 Pro

Walkaround

Compared to its direct predecessor (POCO F7 Pro), the POCO F8 Pro now features even rounder edges, while the camera island now stretches the entire width, going back to the looks it once adopted with the F6 Pro, except this time with a ‘Sound by Bose’ text embedded in it. Like most phones, the aluminum frame is straight-sided but generously rounded at the edges, making it comfortable in the hand despite its seemingly squarish side profile. The smartphone tips the scale at 199 grams, which is substantial, but not unwieldy; the back is made from a single piece of milled glass with diffuse and reflective finishes.

Camera-wise, we’re looking at a pretty decent combination of hardware, involving a primary 50MP Omnivision OV50E “Light Fusion 800” sensor, though this isn’t the first time this sensor has appeared in a POCO smartphone (that title goes POCO F6 Pro). Accompanying it includes another 50MP sensor, this time for telephoto duties, while an 8MP ultrawide sensor completes the camera setup. The mirror-like portion on the camera bump has a hidden trick in that it can help frame selfies if you’re shooting with the rear cameras, but as with glasses, they smudge easily, so expect fingerprints to appear if you’re holding it wrong.

Above are the side profile views of the POCO F8 Pro, and it’s all pretty standard stuffs: tactile metal buttons line the right side, with the SIM slot positioned underneath (and good news, you can use eSIM now). IR blaster is located on the top side as usual, while there’s a whole lot of nothing on the left side, except for the antennas, which is bolstered by Xiaomi’s in-house Surge T1+ tuner that claims to boost radio performance on everything wireless (cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, you-name-it).

Specifications

POCO F8 Pro (2510DPC44G, 12GB + 256GB)

Full specifications available on product website.

Form Factor & Build	Smartphone (candybar) Corning Gorilla Glass 7i front Glass rear Aluminum alloy frame
Chipset	Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite (3nm, TSMC N3E)
CPU	8-core (2X+6P) Prime: 2x Qualcomm Oryon V2 Phoenix L @ 4.32GHz Performance: 6x Qualcomm Oryon V2 Phoenix M @ 3.53GHz
GPU	Qualcomm Adreno 830 (1536 ALUs) @ 1.1GHz
NPU	Qualcomm Hexagon NPU
RAM	12GB LPDDR5X-9600 (+12GB paging/swap)
Storage	256GB UFS 4.1 [As tested] 512GB UFS 4.1
Display	6.59″ HyperRGB “M10” AMOLED 2510×1156 (19.5:9, 419 PPI) 120Hz refresh rate Sampling rates: 480Hz standard, 2560Hz instantaneous Brightness: 3500 nits HDR peak (25% APL), 2000 nits HBM, 600 nits typical 100% DCI-P3 color gamut 12-bit (68.7B) color DC dimming support HDR10+ support Dolby Vision support TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light (Hardware Solution) Certified TÜV Rheinland Flicker-Free Certified TÜV Rheinland Circadian Friendly Certified
Audio	Symmetrical stereo speakers Sound by Bose, Dolby Atmos support No headphone jack (USB-C only)
Cameras	Rear: Triple cameras – 50MP Omnivision OV50E “Light Fusion 800” image sensor (wide, 1/1.55″, f/1.88, 6P lens, OIS) – 50MP telephoto camera (60mm equivalent, 2.5x optical zoom, f/2.2) – 8MP ultrawide camera (120˚ FOV, f/2.2) Front: Single cut-out camera – 20MP wide camera (wide, 1/4.0″, f/2.2)
Biometric sensors	Fingerprint scanner (under-display, ultrasonic)
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 7 (dual-band) Bluetooth 5.4 IR blaster USB 2.0 Type-C NFC
Cellular Networks	Dual-standby 2x Nano-SIM, Nano-SIM + eSIM or 2x eSIM 5G SA: n1/3/5/7/8/20/28/38/40/41/66(70M)/77/78/71/2/48/26 5G NSA: n1/3/5/7/8/20/28/38/40/41/66(70M)/77/78/71 4G LTE TDD: 38/40/41/42/48 4G LTE FDD: 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/18/19/20/26/28/66(70M)/71 3G*: 1/2/4/5/6/8/19 2G: 2/3/5/8 *3G network has been phased out in Malaysia.
Operating System	Android 16 (Xiaomi HyperOS 3)
Battery	6,210mAh silicon-carbon Li-ion battery 100W USB-C wired charging 22.5W reverse wired charging
Ingress Protection	IP68
Colors	Black Titanium Silver [As tested] Blue
Dimensions	157.49 x 75.25 x 8.0 mm
Weight	199g

Performance

System

At the heart of the POCO F8 Pro is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, and while it’s not the latest-and-greatest in 2026, it’s still one very potent chip for those seeking performance. As shown in the chart, the POCO F8 Pro scored 2.6 million points in AnTuTu V10 benchmark, and here’s where we should mention that the 3.2 million figure is tested on the newer V11 version, which is still very new and there’s not enough data at this time to make comparisons. Either way, the score represents a small bump over the POCO F7 Ultra using the exact same chipset, though much better than Samsung and HONOR’s equivalents.

In PCMark Work 3.0 test, the POCO F8 Pro matches our expectations as it’s essentially on par with the other Snapdragon 8 Elite devices. You can see how much better the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 performs but that shouldn’t damper your expectations as the standard Elite is still a powerful chip, easily beating out MediaTek-powered models in this test.

CPU

Moving on the CPU test, the POCO F8 Pro only lost to Samsung’s overclocked Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy and the newer Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 in Geekbench 6. The difference in performance between the three Snapdragon 8 Elite devices are negligible, and most consumers won’t be able to tell the difference when using it. Notably, despite the negligible score different in AnTuTu V10 test earlier on, the F8 Pro outpaces the F7 Ultra by a significant margin in both metrics.

GPU

Whatever POCO has done to its performance tuning or thermal engineering for the new smartphone, it certainly has worked in the GPU department given that it leads in virtually all tests we run, short for the more powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5-powered realme GT 8 Pro, and partially, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra that uses its custom Xclipse GPU. Again, big gains have been made against the POCO F7 Ultra, despite using the same chipset, and by extension, same Adreno 830 GPU.

Now, peak performance is one thing, but how about sustained performance? Here’s where the thermal engineering comes in, and POCO F8 Pro scored a 69.6% stability rating, which happens to be the best-performing among the flagship devices we have tested in this chart. Let’s just say avid mobile gamers are gonna have a field day when they got ahold of this smartphone.

Battery

The POCO F8 Pro houses a 6210mAh silicon-carbon Li-ion battery, which is a small upgrade from the F7 Pro’s 6000mAh cell. It managed a runtime of 14 hours and 43 minutes, a pretty decent figure to boot; the other half of the equation is charging, where its 100W wired fast charging should make quick work of filling up the juice. We measured a 0-100% time of roughly 45 minutes, which is a little slower than the 37-minute claim, but it’s still reasonable figures we’re talking about here. You do get three-quarters worth of charge in just 30 minutes, so you don’t have to rely on overnight charging much.

User Experience

Software

The POCO F8 Pro runs HyperOS 3 atop Android 16, where key feature additions includes HyperIsland a.k.a. Xiaomi’s take on Apple’s Dynamic Island, which provides interactive notifications around the front camera. Beyond this, the interface is familiar to anyone who has used MIUI or HyperOS before, offering deep customization but occasionally obscuring native Android features.

Now, the hidden price you pay for a budget brand like POCO is that ads and bloatware are pretty much a given. Apps like Booking.com, Temu, and puzzle games come preinstalled, while the Xiaomi’s app marketplace (App Mall) aggressively pushes notifications. While these can be disabled, it’ll be quite the hassle, and you’ll likely end up playing a game of whack-a-mole to silence all of them. POCO promises four years of OS updates and six years of security patches, which is adequate, although not quite as long as more premium brands.

We also spotted one rather odd design choice, or perhaps more likely, an oversight of sorts. Given that POCO advertises this smartphone with Bose-tuned speakers, you’d think that means the sound is tuned and ready to go right out of the box – but that is not the case. We were surprised with the rather bad quality it initially presents, only for us to look into the settings and realize that you must activate “Immersive Sound” mode to get Bose’s audio tuning as intended. Why was this not made default in the first place?

Camera

The POCO F8 Pro’s telephoto comes with 2.5x optical zoom – a first for a POCO F-series Pro device – with an additional 2x sensor crop on its 50MP sensor to provide 5x effective zoom. This gives the smartphone more flexibility in terms of shooting objects up close, although the resulting quality can very due to post-processing and camera metering issues, sometimes pushing vibrancy to unnatural levels. Notably, the ultrawide shot also looks a fair bit washed out compared to others.

In terms of low-light performance, admittedly it’s not the most usable. You’ll probably need to use manual mode to get a proper shutter speed out of specific scenes to get the most out of this sensor’s capabilities. As given with the example above, the dynamic range is completely crushed in higher zoom levels where the background is simply all darkness.

In terms of zoom range, it’s pretty decent, capable of retaining most details even up to 10x effective zoom (which is 4x zoom over the telephoto’s 2.5x native optical zoom). Once you go past that, there will be plenty of sensor noise, as seen with the 30x zoom example – not that you’ll be using this zoom level much, but just so you know.

Other things to point out in our tests: Macro mode is poorly implemented, requiring a 50cm minimum focus distance, though the main sensor performs better for close-ups. Portrait Mode delivers pleasing artificial bokeh, adjustable before and after capture. Overall, it’s far from horrible but it’s also not the greatest either. For most users, it should work just fine, and you can see it for yourself with additional shots we’ve taken as follows:

The Good

As with the usual convention for POCO F-series models, the Ultra gets the latest and greatest in terms of chipsets, and the Pro gets the previous gen equivalent. In this case, it’s the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite (as opposed to the SD8E5 found in the F8 Ultra model), which is still no slouch by any means if you’re looking for plenty of performance, gaming or otherwise. The 6.59-inch AMOLED display is also something heavy multimedia users will appreciate (despite with lower resolution), with its brightness, motion, and color capabilities great enough to punch way above its weight class.

And then we have the star of the show, the Bose-tuned stereo speakers. Provided that you got the correct settings selected, it’s one of the best smartphone speakers you’ll find out there, and certainly a no-brainer at the kind of price bracket this smartphone is positioned into. Generally, it’s quite pleasing to hear with its punchy bass despite the somewhat narrow soundstage, though audio quality starts to suffer as it gets to max volume, particularly in the treble frequency range.

While not a major upgrade, the slightly bigger battery is still a nice bonus to have, and the addition of a new dedicated telephoto lens has brought this smartphone’s imaging capability up a notch.

The Bad

While the addition of a new telephoto news is great, as a mid-range smartphone, some corners are bound to be cut one way or another. That usually involves cameras, and in this case, the sensors do struggle under low-light conditions, with not-so-great color consistency and reproduction. Consider how affordable this smartphone is, can’t say we’re too surprised with this, but it’s worth pointing out.

Then there’s the matter of the bloatware and baked-in ads, which naturally degrades the user experience. Again, coming back to the pricing argument, this is one of the ways manufacturers employ to subsidize the hardware costs, especially as everyone is moving towards more premium materials and higher-end hardware over time. On the subject of software pitfalls, we should also point out that requiring users to manually configure in order to get the advertised Bose-tuned audio is certainly counterintuitive, if this is not an oversight of some sort.

Finally, while the display is great, we do wish it came with the LTPO tech to further extract the power savings out of this smartphone. In current state, it can only change between 60Hz and 120Hz refresh rates, whereas an LTPO AMOLED panel is capable of driving refresh rates down to 1Hz, making features like always-on display much more viable without sacrificing too much battery life.

Verdict

Unlike the predecessors, the POCO F8 Pro doesn’t just rely on affordable performance as a primary selling point, this time getting Bose onboard to get the audio side of things properly tuned, and it’s genuinely good enough for us to say that this will be one of the unique selling points that no other midrangers will have, at least in the short term. These two upgrades, along with the addition of a telephoto lens, should make even the relatively recent owners of POCO phones pretty enticed to upgrade right away.

If you’re feeling enticed to make the purchase, POCO’s official pricing for this smartphone is just RM2,499 (+RM200 for the 512GB version), which is insane value if performance is what you prioritize above everything else. As a whole package, it’s still offering solid value for the sum of its parts, but do keep in mind that it does have its shortcomings in order to make a Snapdragon 8 Elite-powered smartphone as cheap as it is.

Special thanks to Xiaomi Malaysia for providing the POCO F8 Pro smartphone for this review.