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Xiaomi Poco F8 Pro 5G Dual Sim 12GB RAM 256GB - Titanium Silver
256 GB, Titanium Silver, Dual SIM, 5G
Poco F8 Pro review: great battery life and telephoto camera, average sound
26-11-2025
Translation: Elicia Payne
Pictures: Jan Johannsen
Xiaomi’s low-cost brand Poco has unveiled two new smartphones and, for the first time, Bose is the audio cooperation partner. I’ve already had the chance to try out the Poco F8 Pro – and it still just sounds like any other smartphone.
When you consider the features, the Poco F8 Pro is on a par with other top smartphones released this year. However, the price is lower. It’s matching the prices of devices that have been available for months, some of which have fallen sharply. My biggest point of criticism wouldn’t exist if Bose’s label didn’t raise expectations of sound quality.
Beautiful display and waterproof housing
With an 6.59-inch AMOLED display, the Poco F8 Pro is of average size. A 2510 × 1156 resolution paired with a 120 hertz refresh rate and 2000 nits of brightness – 3500 nits at peak for HDR content – leaves nothing to be desired.
Gorilla Glass 7i is supposed to protect the display from scratches and other damage. It’s not bad and should be enough, but is intended more for mid-range devices. Top of the range smartphones usually come with Gorilla Glass Victus 2 or Armor, so you get even more protection. The Poco F8 Pro is dustproof to IP68 and can withstand 30 minutes in 1.5 metres of water.
Main and telephoto camera depend on the ultra-wide-angle camera
The camera hump on the back of the Poco F8 Pro is comparatively flat. The cameras only protrude by 2.3 millimetres. These consist of a main and a telephoto camera with a resolution of 50 megapixels and an ultra-wide-angle camera with eight megapixels. The telephoto camera has a focal length of 60 millimetres – 2.5 times more than the main camera.
The main camera on the Poco F8 Pro delivers almost perfect pictures. The colour reproduction is strong and natural. Level of detail is also really high. I only see some blurring in the corners of the images when I look at them on the PC.
The camera also copes well with contrasts.
You don’t really notice the ultra-wide-angle camera’s low resolution on the smartphone display. However, when I look at the images in their original size on a PC monitor, I notice that the level of detail isn’t as high as with the other two cameras.
The telephoto camera, on the other hand, produces excellent images.
On all three cameras, it’s worth using night mode with longer exposure times when it’s dark. The main camera already delivers good pictures in automatic mode, night mode just brightens them up.
With the ultra-wide-angle camera, images are too dark without night mode.
The telephoto camera sometimes loses brightness compared to daylight shots. However, this strongly depends on how dark the scenery is, other motifs with more street lighting have become sharper. Still, you can clearly see how night mode helps here as well.
The front camera takes selfies with 20 megapixels, which look very good in daylight. Again, here I’d recommend night mode when it’s dark. This ensures greater brightness and, above all, a higher level of detail.
Bose settings
While Leica and Hasselblad have been working with smartphone manufacturers for some time, these kind of collaborations aren’t exactly common in the audio sector. This is Bose’s first partnership in this field. But the loudspeaker and headphone manufacturer doesn’t supply the two small speakers in the Poco F8 Pro, it provides the software.
I have two sound profiles to choose from – «Dynamic» and «Balanced». When I switch between them, I can clearly hear the difference. According to the description, «Dynamic» is for «a full bass character and authentic». «Balanced» is for an «overall balanced sound and pure vocals.»
Yet, I don’t find the listening experience of the balanced sound profile pleasant at all. The sound seems muffled to me, it doesn’t come out of the smartphone properly. I permanently stick to the dynamic sound profile.
Despite the collaboration with Bose, the Poco F8 Pro doesn’t have any special speakers. They’re standard smartphone ones. In fact, I think the Pixel 10 Pro sounds better – even though the earpiece serves as a second speaker and there’s no major cooperation with an audio expert.
Lots of computing power and a long battery life
With the Snapdragon 8 Elite, Xiaomi’s installed Qualcomm’s top chipset from the latest generation in the Poco F8 Pro. It has plenty of computing power and comes with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. However, now the Snapdragon 8 Elite 5 Gen’s been released, there’s already an even better chipset. With one of these, the OnePlus 15 performs better in benchmarks, but this shouldn’t have a negative impact in everyday use.
You can really tell the Poco F8 Pro can’t quite keep up with other smartphones with the Snapdragon 8 Elite in the performance tests. In some cases, it clearly lags behind the results of the Xiaomi 15 Ultra or the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Still, the Xiaomi 15T Pro with a Mediatek Dimensity 9400+, which is in a similar price range, falls just behind Poco.
Poco F8 Pro’s battery has an above-average capacity of 6,210 mAh. In the PCMark battery test, the smartphone lasts 19:01 hours with the display at half brightness. Although this doesn’t come close to the front-runner, the [OnePlus 15](/page/oneplus-15-im-test-das-24-stunden-smartphone-40514, it’s still very good in comparison.
When charging, the smartphone manages up to 100 watts via the Hypercharge fast charging technology. In around 40 minutes it’s fully charged. Unfortunately, you’ll have to go without wireless charging for the F8 Pro.
HyperOS 3 with lots of AI and a Dynamic Island
Ex works, Xiaomi’s HyperOS 3 runs on the Poco F8 Pro. This is based on Android 16, makes visual adjustments and adds functionality to the operating system. In addition to a few proprietary apps from Xiaomi, these are primarily various AI functions with which the manufacturer supplements Gemini from Google. The AI helps to formulate texts, creates background images, edits photos and translates. An AI search function’s supposed to able to find content from system apps.
And because it has a reputation for copying Apple ideas, Xiaomi’s now also copied the Dynamic Island after a three-year delay. This means that some apps shrink around the front camera and display small icons there. When tapped, they expand to a preview and not to the app in full screen.
Bigger, faster and more bass: Poco F8 Ultra
Together with the F8 Pro, Xiaomi’s presented the Poco F8 Ultra. This also has a subwoofer for the Bose sound and is a larger size overall with its 6.9-inch display. Other differences include; the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 with slightly more power and the camera setup – with the Light Fusion 950, the main camera has a larger image sensor. The telephoto camera offers a longer focal length of 115 millimetres and the ultra-wide-angle camera has a higher resolution of 50 megapixels. This also applies to the front camera with 32 megapixels. A slightly higher battery capacity of 6,500 mAh isn’t supposed to have a major impact on the runtime.
Source: Xiaomi
The blue version of the Poco F8 Ultra stands out visually – its back’s covered with denim fabric.
Price and availability
Xiaomi’s recommended retail price is 649.90 euros for the Poco F8 Pro with 12 gigabytes of RAM and 256 gigabytes of storage space. With 512 gigabytes of storage capacity, the price increases by 50 euros.
The Poco F8 Ultra with 12 and 256 gigabytes costs 829.90 euros. 16 and 512 gigabytes cost 70 euros extra. I don’t have the prices for Switzerland yet. I’ll link the devices here as soon as they’re available.
In a nutshell
Good smartphone that can do without an audio collab
Xiaomi will be feeling smug that they can write Bose as a cooperation partner on the Poco F8 Pro. As a user, however, I didn’t get much out of this collaboration. You can make adjustments to the sound, but the speakers still sound like a normal, mediocre smartphone. This wouldn’t be worth mentioning if it weren’t for the cooperation.
Nevertheless, the Poco F8 Pro impresses with a long battery life, a stylish display and plenty of computing power. You can expect typical Xiaomi software customisation, and the main and telephoto cameras deliver good pictures. But the ultra-wide-angle camera falls somewhat short in terms of quality with its lower resolution.
Pro
- Very long battery life
- Great telephoto camera
- Good value for money
Contra
- Sounds just like many other smartphones
- No wireless charging
- Ultra-wide-angle camera of lower quality
Header image: Jan Johannsen
Jan Johannsen
Senior Editor
Jan.Johannsen@galaxus.deAs a primary school pupil, I used to sit in a friend's living room with many of my classmates to play the Super NES. Now I get my hands on the latest technology and test it for you. In recent years at Curved, Computer Bild and Netzwelt, now at Digitec and Galaxus.
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