While its Pro Max sibling aspires to become a “flagship killer”, the Poco X8 Pro is much closer to the feeling of the X7 Pro from last year. That’s both good and bad – on the one hand, the X7 and X7 Pro were quite popular last year, on the other hand, not much has changed in the 14 months since the X7 series arrived.
First, we need to open the box and explain something – you must have noticed that the box looks bigger and more colorful than a typical phone box today. This is because the unit that we received for testing is the Poco X8 Pro Iron Man Edition.
The Poco X8 Pro Iron Man Edition box
The box is pretty cool with the Iron Man logo and a traditional red and gray color scheme. However, the phone itself goes for a black and gold color palette. You can have a closer look at the box and its contents in our hands-on video. The box contains a bespoke case (with “Special Limited Edition” written on it, lest you forget).
The case has a ridged design evoking the power armor’s torso and a mix of matte and glossy materials. The phone’s LED flash is styled to look like the Arc Reactor. Besides the case, there is a red USB A-to-C charging cable but no charger. There are also a Marvel-branded SIM ejector and a thick piece of cardboard with drawings of Iron Man’s power armor.
The back of the Poco X8 Pro Iron Man Edition
The Poco X8 Pro Iron Man Edition is a black phone with gold accents. The back panel has a detailed graphical design and an Iron Man decal that has a sort of 3D hologram style effect to it. The phone itself also has Iron Man UI themes but is otherwise identical to the regular X8 Pro.
Before we continue, we should also mention the Iron Man action figure – that’s just a marketing item and will not be part of the Iron Man Edition packaging. It is posable and has replaceable hands (including blasts from the repulsors). It’s cool all around, but you can’t have it, so let’s move on.
The posable Iron Man figure is just for marketing purposes
The Poco X8 Pro is a hair thicker and a bit heavier than the X7 Pro, but you won’t notice – it’s 8.4mm and 201g compared to 8.3mm and 195g. What you will notice is the new metal frame, which feels sturdier and more premium than the plastic frame of last year’s model.
The X8 Pro features a metal frame
The X8 Pro is powered by a 6,500mAh battery – yes, even the global model. Last year, the X7 Pro used 6,000mAh batteries for global units and 6,550mAh for India. It’s a Si/C battery that can charge to full in 48 minutes.
You will need a 100W adapter to do it, though. We already mentioned the bad news – there is no charger included in the box, not even for the Iron Man Edition. The good news is that you don’t necessarily need an adapter that uses Xiaomi’s HyperCharge tech, a standard USB PPS adapter will do the trick as long as it can hit the power requirement.
The Poco X8 Pro supports 100W charging • It’s a dual-SIM phone (nanoSIM + eSIM)
Hats off to Poco for keeping the dimensions almost identical despite switching to a metal frame and a larger battery. And the dimensions are almost but not quite identical.
The new model has a 6.59” display, down from 6.67” last year. It’s the same width as before, but it is a bit shorter since the aspect ratio changed from 20:9 to 19.5:9.
The Poco X8 Pro compared with the larger Poco X8 Pro Max
Other than that it is still a high-quality 12-bit panel with HDR10+ and Dolby Vision support. It’s sharp (1268p+ resolution) and bright (2,000 nits HBM, 3,500 nits peak) and has Gorilla Glass 7i for protection.
The Poco X8 Pro has a 6.59” 120Hz 12-bit OLED display
Speaking of protection, global units are rated IP69K (for protection against hot water jets), but some regions are getting phones with only an IP68 rating (submersion). We don’t think it makes that much of a difference in practice, but we should mention it.
Another thing to mention is that while the Max got upgraded to an ultrasonic fingerprint reader, the Poco X8 Pro still uses an optical reader.
The Poco X8 Pro is powered by the Dimensity 8500-Ultra
The X8 Pro is powered by the Dimensity 8500-Ultra. It’s a 4nm chip that is basically a “plus” version of the 8400 – it runs its octa-core Cortex-A725 CPU at higher clocks and has an extra core in the Mali-G720 MC8 GPU.
The cameras are the same as on the X7 Pro – the 50MP main has a Sony IMX882 sensor and an f/1.5 lens with OIS. It is joined by an 8MP ultra-wide module and there is a 20MP selfie camera on the front.
The Poco X8 Pro has the same cameras as the X7 Pro
New this year is the Dynamic RGB light – two ring lights (one around each camera lens) that can light up in 8 colors with adjustable brightness. The simplest use case for this light is to show the charging status or to work as a notification LED. However, there is some special integration with the music player and select games too.
But let’s leave that for the full review – that’s coming up soon!
Xiaomi Poco X8 Pro 5G
| 256GB 8GB RAM | £ 269.00 |
€ 309.90 |
| 512GB 8GB RAM | £ 299.00 |
€ 339.90 |
| Show all prices | ||
