Beebom
Rating8.5
Poco X8 isn't a spec-sheet hero but a beacon of hope for mid-range buyers. The phone impresses with its sharp and vivid screen, durable build quality and a battery life that won't make you look for a charger constantly. It does have some obvious compromises like the bloated HyperOS and limited 1080p video recording. Yet, it comes out a winner in its segment where good options have dried up over the past few months.
Pros
- Unique design
- IP68/69/69K rating
- Smooth, punchy display
- Excellent battery backup
- Competant main camera
- Decent performance for the price
Cons
- Videos capped at 1080p @ 30 FPS
- Lots of pre-installed apps
- Selfies show a red tint on faces
Amidst the storm of smartphone price hikes that have swept away most good phones under 30,000, the Poco X8 seems like a ray of sunshine. It looks stylish yet familiar, has a sharp display, and packs a decent spec sheet for its price. But like most 2026 phones, there are caveats, and I tested the phone for a week to find out what they are. So in this Poco X8 review, I will discuss the positives, the negatives and a conclusion to answer whether it is worth the money or not.
Poco X8 Box Contents
The Poco X8 comes with all the essentials to get you started. Here's everything that you will find in the box:
- Poco X8 smartphone
- Silicone case
- 67W fast charging adapter
- USB-A to USB-C cable
- SIM ejector tool
- Paperwork
Poco X8 Key Details
Note: Our testing, opinion, and rating for this review are based on the phone's launch price. We recommend checking the current price before making a purchase decision.
Related Articles
Build and Design
- 8.6 mm thickness, 223 grams weight
- Plastic frame and back
- IP 68/69K rating for dust and water protection
I have been using the Frost White variant of the Poco X8 for this review, and when it first arrived on my desk, I mistook it for a Nothing Phone. Pardon my confusion, but the blame goes to the design. The back has these sections of different patterns, like a dotted portion and another with straight lines, with a few fake screws arranged on each side.
You can clearly see where Poco's design inspirations are coming from, and I am not complaining. The phone definitely stands out among the rest of its companions in the X8 series. The back and the frame are made of plastic, yet it doesn't cheapen out the in-hand feel. In fact, I had to double-check whether the back is glass or not, given how good and well-built everything looks and feels.
But it is a hefty phone, and I could tell whenever I was holding it or carrying it with me for long stretches. I must admit that the weight distribution is much better than the Redmi Note 17 that I reviewed earlier, and it also shaved off a couple of grams while packing a 10% bigger battery than that device.
I also like how the sides slightly curve on each end, which makes it a little easier to grip the phone, as I am not a fan of sharp, flat edges. The biggest cherry on top is the IP 68/69/69K rating, offering the peace of mind that the phone can survive an accidental or intentional swim in water and come out unharmed.
After using the Poco X8 for a week for this review, the design and build left the most lasting impact. Especially with the IP rating, as most of the good options we used to see in phones under Rs 30,000, like the Motorola Edge 70 and Edge 70 Fusion, have slowly crawled up in price after recent hikes.
Related Articles
Display and Audio Quality
- 6.83-inch (1280 x 2772) 1.5K AMOLED flat display
- 120 Hz refresh rate, 12-bit support
- 3,500 nits peak brightness (claimed by the brand)
The Poco X8 has a 6.83-inch 1.5K AMOLED display, which means that the colour reproduction is excellent. Poco phones have generally impressed with their display quality, and the Poco X8 continues that tradition. The black zones appear true to what they should be, and the picture quality is vibrant.
If I had to describe the display quality in a word, it would be "Punchy". But that's not a bad thing, depending on your preference. I typically enjoyed my time during the Poco X8 review period, spending hours scrolling Shorts and Reels while watching YouTube videos in between.
Since this is a 120 Hz display, most interactions felt smooth throughout my week of testing. However, I did encounter some hiccups while scrolling when I had locked the refresh rate at 120 Hz. Switching to automatic fixed the problem, but it is concerning that it occurred.
The brightness is spot on, as it was just enough that I could check the screen while outdoors in sunlight without shading it with my hands. The audio quality is good too, thanks to the dual stereo speaker setup on either end. It gets loud, and not just for the sake of it, as the audio quality is enjoyable.
Related Articles
Performance Tested
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 processor
- Up to 12 GB LPDDR4X RAM + 256 GB UFS 3.1 storage
Under the hood, the Poco X8 comes with a Snapdragon 6s Gen 4 processor. It is a respectable chipset and a meaningful step up from the Snapdragon 4 Gen 4 chipset seen on the Redmi Note 17. Especially in an industry suffering from the ongoing memory crisis. The base variant also starts with 6 GB of RAM, so the general experience doesn't feel bogged down. Here are its benchmark results.
In general, I didn't feel bothered by the performance. The phone runs well, even after opening several apps back-to-back. My daily roster of apps like Instagram, YouTube, Slack, WhatsApp, and Reddit ran without a hitch.
That said, the phone seems to struggle when using the camera app and recording videos. It is not a regular issue, but it does crop up from time to time. For context, I am using the 8 GB RAM variant of the Poco X8 during this review period.
For gaming, my verdict would be, "Manage your expectations". It is not a gaming phone and does not sport a high-end chipset. Still, I tested out BGMI and Call of Duty: Mobile; both games support 60 FPS on the lowest graphics settings. The gameplay was average, by which I mean you can have a fun experience playing both titles, but frame drops are a regular sight.
Running into gunfights, you would typically see FPS go from 60 to 50 and even 45 at times. Thankfully, there are no major heating issues that I had to worry about.
| Game | Settings |
|---|---|
| BGMI | Smooth + Extreme (60 FPS) |
| CoD Mobile | Low + Max (60 FPS) |
Related Articles
Software and Updates
- HyperOS 3 based on Android 17
- 4 years of software updates + 6 years of security patches
The Poco X8 comes with HyperOS 3 based on Android 16, and if you are familiar with the name, you know you are in for a bloatware-rich experience. There are several bloatware apps and games pre-installed that you might want to uninstall if your ADHD also triggers when seeing such clutter. `
Once that is out of the way, the software gets quite bearable. There are a bunch of customisation options, from themes to lock screen styles, wallpapers, fonts, and fingerprint animations, each accompanied by their own separate terms and conditions that need to be agreed upon.
If you have read my Redmi Note 17 review or the Poco X8 Pro review, you would know that the Hyper Island is one of my favourite features in this OS. It lets me check up on live activities and currently playing songs without having to open the apps. And its animation is also quite neat.
Poco is also taking a huge swing with software promises, as the phone is supposed to get up to four major Android updates. That's a big promise, and only time will tell whether Poco will deliver on it or not.
Related Articles
Cameras Reviewed
- 50 MP (main), f/1.8, OIS, video recording up to 1080p @ 30 FPS
- 16 MP (selfie), f/2.4, video recording up to 1080p @ 30 FPS
- 2 MP depth camera
The camera setup on the Poco X8 is not too shabby. There's a 50 MP main camera, coupled with a 2 MP lens for capturing depth information and a 16 MP shooter for selfies. During my Poco X8 review period, I took a bunch of samples in both day and night, and the quality is something worth discussing in detail.
Main Camera
The main camera doesn't disappoint in daylight environments. Among the several images I captured, the colour science remained consistent, close to natural colours with a little pop. Neither too vibrant nor too dull. The images carry plausible levels of detail and texture, like how you can see tiny hair follicles in the close-up of flowers or the texture on the wall of the mosque.
The colour contrast is on point and shows that Xiaomi has improved its image processing. The shot of the cell tower against the sky is a good example, as some phones would have easily messed up the shot by overpowering the sky.
The 2x crop also looks pretty good, but that's where I would hit the brakes. Anything above 2x results in a smudgy shot, like the one of the sad dog I clicked during my Poco X8 review period.
Nighttime images benefit from the OIS in the main camera. The results are quite decent and usable for the most part, with a good amount of detail intact and not a lot of noise to speak of. However, like the previous Redmi and Poco phones I have reviewed, it overblows the exposure from light sources, which Xiaomi needs to work on. Motorola fixed it; I hope they figure it out too.
Front-Facing Camera
The front-facing camera is consistent in turning faces red. The shot with me and my colleague Ashutosh looks especially off-putting, as we both look like fresh tomatoes ready for plucking. But looking past that, the shots are decent, with good levels of detail while not oversharpening the face.
The bokeh blur effect is neat; it has issues with edge detection here and there, but it recognises multiple subjects in the shot and applies the effect accordingly.
Video Quality
The video is the part which lets me down, as the quality is capped to 1080p @ 30 FPS. I wish there were at least a 60 FPS option, even with 1080p settings, as 30 FPS feels quite limiting.
Battery Life and Charging
- 9,000 mAh battery capacity
- 67W wired charging support
- 0-50% charge in 50 minutes
The battery is the real talking point about the Poco X8, as it comes with a 9,000 mAh capacity. You can basically consider it a power bank roleplaying as a phone. With such a huge capacity, I managed to get around 12 hours of screen-on time on average during my Poco X8 review period.
This was with hours of watching movies, video calls, using the phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot and gaming too. Even with all that, I couldn't manage to kill it within a day. It wouldn't be wrong to call it a two-day phone with mixed usage, and you can even stretch it to the 3rd day with a light load.
For charging, the Poco X8 takes about 50 minutes to go from 0–50% and 1 hour 40 minutes to charge from 0–100% with the supplied 67W charger. For a battery of this stature, it is surprisingly quick, to be honest. But I wish the charging speed up to 50% was a little faster.
Poco X8 Review Verdict: Should You Buy It?
If you have read the entire review, you might have guessed that I am actually impressed by the Poco X8. Going into this review, I expected a tonne of compromises and cut corners, and while they are there, it does not take away from the generally pleasant experience the Poco X8 offers for the price.
Sure, there is no ultrawide camera, and the video recording is stuck at 30 FPS, which may be a deal breaker for some of you. But in a struggling segment, where we aren't spoilt for options, and every better option has already received a price hike, the Poco X8 makes a lot of sense for now. Even with its base variant. But if the price does increase after this review, then it has tough competition ahead of it.
