Poco M8 5G Review: Reliable Where It Counts

The two Xiaomi sub-brands, Poco and Redmi, are for the non-premium segment of smartphones that offer value-for-money handsets with a good number of features at an affordable cost. It is the new Poco M8 5G, which is a latest addition to help support the company’s plans for its ambitions. Just recently we reviewed the Redmi Note 15 5G (which is remarkably similar to the handset described above) and found it good for everyday use, rather than a flashy upgrade.

In India, the Poco M8 5G price tag is Rs. 6GB RAM 128gb storage for base variant 18,999. Can it be more effective than its Redmi counterpart? Here’s our review of this.

Poco M8 5G Design: A Notable Step Up

• Dimensions – 164 x 75.42 x 7.35mm
• Weight – 178g
• Colours – Carbon Black, Glacial Blue, and Frost Silver

I’m not going to say here that we have already mentioned the design of the Poco M8 5G in our first impressions. A notable improvement in design is the phone’s redesigned predecessor to its original, and has been significantly improved over its predecessor. It is a very thin phone, just 7 inches in diameter. The thickness of 35mm and weight only 178 grams is very light, slightly less than some of the other smartphones on the market. The sides and edges of its are also curved, making it ergonomically more comfortable to hold in one’s hands.

Two-tone finish The back panel of the Poco M8 5G has a matted, glossy ‘race line’ accents that tend to collect fingerprints rather easily but the middle part resists stains pretty well. The build is IP66, which protects it from the dust and water splashes for durability.

Overall, the Poco M8 5G has a modern and elegant design for its price range.

Poco M8 5G Display: Big Upgrades

• Size and resolution – 6.77-inch 3D Curved AMOLED, 1,080 x 2,392 pixels
• Refresh rate – 120Hz
• Protection – NA

A 6. On the front of the Poco M8 5G is a on the side,’ said Pocomega G. The AMOLED screen is a 387PPI pixel density, with 77-inch (1,080 x 2,392 pixels) 3D curved A MOLED (Algorithma HD), 120Hz refresh rate and has 78-inches (3,780 PPM) resolution. A really cool addition to the last model that came with an IPS LCD, and what you’re left with is a vibrant display of punchy colour reproduction, good black levels and sharp content.

The bezels are fairly thin on all three sides except for the slightly thicker chin, which is also known as “bezel” (along with its slimmer face) and have been relatively narrow. It’s a peak brightness of 3,200-nits, so the screen is bright enough under direct sunlight that you won’t complain about the legibility front.

A lot of scrolling through the user interface (UI) is quite fluid, animation is smooth and viewing media on large AMOLED is largely enjoyable. My screen was curved, but I didn’t suffer much distortion around the edges of even though it had been very flat. My biggest gripe is that you can’t really enjoy HDR-supported apps like Netflix and YouTube.

The Poco M8 5G has an in-display fingerprint scanner, and the scanner is quick to respond to gestures. Dual speakers make a loud sound enough, and the device has dual speakers to play ‘hypothetically’. But when the sound goes all the way loud, it is a slight distortion of audio output and there’s varying vibration in the lower rear part of the body during playing audio.

Poco M8 5G Performance and Software: Par for the Course

• Processor – Snapdragon 6s Gen 3
• Memory – 8GB LPDDR4X (RAM), Up to 512GB UFS 2.2 (storage)
• OS – Android 15-based HyperOS 2
• Updates Promised – 4 Years OS + 6 Years Security Patches

256GB of storage and up to 8GB RAM, Qualcomm Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 chipset for the Poco M8 5G is powered by its processor (i.e. The case with the cheapest smartphones today is that as usual performance of the handset does not leave room for complaint. There was no lag for me while I did something such as messaging, running social media sites, browsing and playing video content from OTT platforms.

Casual gaming Games like Call of Duty Mobile and Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) are moderately well-played with low graphics and frame rates in casual games such as Call Of Duty. I was a low-resolution gamer like COD Mobile, and managed to run an fps of around 85-90 frames per second. But games like Genshin Impact and Grid Legends, which are graphics-intensive games that were largely hard to run smoothly, struggled to do so well.

The Poco M8 5G was heat for gaming in BGMI and COD Mobile, which took about 30 minutes talking about the issue of thermals. It did not, however, go to the point where it would have been awkward to hold up.

The Poco M8 5G is a smartphone with HyperOS 2 running Android 15-based. I am disappointed that phones still ship with the previous version of Android operating system (OS), even if Android 16 has been out for some time now, it is disappointing to see this. Nevertheless, Poco’s software plan to offer four years of Android version updates and six years security updates is certainly a positive one for the time.

The overall experience is quite similar to the new Redmi Note 15 5G introduced recently. UI navigation and animations on Android 15-based HyperOS 2 fluidly work. There are a lot of home-and lock screens, icons and tiles customisation options available for the home and . theme stores and download wallpapers from the themes.

Other than that, the staple AI features such as Circle to Search and Gemini are fairly decent. Yet we were hesitant to call it a good software experience, because the amount of bloatware is in. The OS also includes the usual culprits such as Block Blast, Bubble Shooter and Tile Fun. All of these come with pre-installed on the handset, and you’ll have to manually delete them.

Poco M8 5G Camera: Unspectacular

• Rear – 50-megapixel primary (f/1.8) + 2-megapixel depth sensor
• Front – 20-megapixel (f/2.2)

Poco M8 5G cameras are just about average, . These pictures, in good lighting are usable, with a fair amount of detail and contrast. Nevertheless the colours, however, remain fluctuating between natural and artificial. It is also a habit of blowing out the highlights, as does .

Poco M8 5G primary camera samples (tap to expand)

The handset has 2x digital zoom, and while it maintains constant colours and exposure, details and fine textures tend to be a hit. And you don’t even get an ultra-wide-angle, some of the Poco M8 5G competitors in its price range are on offer.

Poco M8 5G 2x camera samples (tap to expand)

Poco M8 5G portrait camera samples (tap to expand)

In the light Taking selfies captured during daylight is much more accurate in detail than when it comes to low-light scenarios, moving on. I did notice a bit of inconsistency when it comes to taking correct skin tone.

Poco M8 5G normal and portrait selfie camera samples (tap to expand)

The Poco M8 5G supports up to 4K 30fps video recording, but I experienced jittering and poor stabilisation.

Poco M8 5G Battery Life: Lasts a Day

• Battery Capacity – 5,520mAh
• Wired Charging – 45W
• Wireless Charging – NA

One of the positives of Poco M8 5G is its battery life. The handset can last you more than a day of normal use with full charge, and is easily used by . in PCMark Work 3 . It is impressive The handset reached a figure of 20 hours and 13 minutes, according to 0 Battery Test. Despite heavy usage, the phone will still be able to last through the evening with games such as casual gaming, music streaming and social media browsing.

A Poco M8 5G supports 45W wired fast charging. After 30 minutes of charging, it charges up to 51 percent and from 0 to 100 percent is about one hour and 11 minutes.

Poco M8 5G Verdict

A well-rounded smartphone is the Poco M8 5G, which focuses on getting everything right and not just some fancy things. It’s quite a change in design, it has incredibly large and colourful AMOLED display, good performance (and long battery life) etc. But its appeal also comes with the promise of long-term software support from .

But it’s not a bad thing about the cameras, which are anything but impressive and that the UI is under pressure with some bloat. And yet again, these are likely compromises at this price.

If you are looking at an inoffensive 5G phone under Rs., no-nonsense is the case if you have to look for it. A good option to consider is the Poco M8 5G, which has a total of 20,000 that works consistently in daily use. If you want something that stands out and has an ultra-wide-angle camera, you can also choose the Redmi Note 15 5G (review) with remarkably similar specifications or the CMF Phone 2 Pro (Review).