Half a year after the launch of the successful F7 series, the Poco brand released two F8 models. They bring some serious upgrades, some fun designs and, unfortunately, an increase in price.
The Poco F8 Ultra is €80/€100 more expensive than the F7 Ultra for the 256GB and 512GB models respectively. At least that’s if you go by the MSRP – the starting price drops to €180/€200.
Poco F8 Ultra
This generation of Ultra goes for a bigger screen at the expense of resolution – the F8 Ultra has a 6.9″ 1200p+ display (120Hz OLED with 12-bit Dolby Vision), up from a 6.67″ 1440p+ (120Hz OLED with 12-bit Dolby Vision). The battery also grows from a small 5,300mAh to a solid 6,500mAh. Charging at 100W wired and 50W wireless is pretty much the same.
Poco F8 Ultra Highlights
The Poco F8 Ultra is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 – and it’s one of the cheapest phones with this chip. Other major upgrades are a larger 50MP sensor in the main camera (1/1.31”, up from 1/1.55”), a taller 5x/115mm periscope for the 50MP telephoto camera, and a higher-resolution 50MP ultra-wide (albeit with a narrower 102° lens, versus the 32MP 120°).
The Poco F8 Pro got a €50 price increase (MSRP) over its predecessor. Once again, the starting price brings a huge discount of €180 for the 256GB model and €200 for the 512GB model, making it a premium mid-range killer? No, this does not come off the tongue. But one should be worried about a €500 phone either way.
Poco F8 Pro
The F8 Pro is interesting because in a way it replaces the F7 Ultra – it has the same Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and the same 6.59” (vs 6.67”) display. The camera setup looks quite good, except for the 8MP ultra-wide camera. You may want the older Ultra for its higher resolution display (1440p+ vs 1156p+), but the new Pro has a bigger battery (6,210mAh vs 5,300mAh).
Poco F8 Pro and F8 Ultra Highlights
We’re curious to see what Poco has in store for the vanilla F8, but it’s not here yet. And the two F8 phones that were announced can lay claim to being the best value for money phones.
Here are the prices – we’ve listed the MSRP and added the effective introductory price in parentheses. We’ve also included the old prices of the F7 phones (of course, their prices have dropped since launch).
| 256 GB | 512GB | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poco F7 Pro | $500 | £500 | €600 | $550 | £550 | €650 |
| Poco F7 Ultra | $650 | £650 | €750 | $700 | £700 | €800 |
| Poco F8 Pro | $580 ($530) | , | €650 (€470) | $630 ($580) | £600 (£450) | €700 (€500) |
| Poco F8 Ultra | $730 ($680) | £750 (£550) | €830 (€650) | $800 ($730) | £800 (£600) | €900 (€700) |
Xiaomi Poco F8 Ultra 5G
| 256GB 12GB RAM | €659.46 |
£549.00 |
| Show all prices | ||
Xiaomi Poco F8 Pro 5G
| 256GB 12GB RAM | €519.90 |
£399.00 |
| 512GB 12GB RAM | €503.60 |
£449.00 |
| Show all prices | ||
Let’s start with the Poco F8 Ultra – at its starting price, it’s a flagship killer. This is something we don’t see often these days. Don’t miss our review to find out if all this hardware really delivers a good user experience (mostly it does). Could the F8 Ultra be your next phone?
Now the Poco F8 Pro – it definitely puts other premium mid-rangers on notice with its sub-€500 price. We’re still working on a full review, but we already know what to expect from its chipset and that battery life should be just as impressive as it was on the Ultra. With advanced cameras, it is a great replacement for the F7 Pro. But is it right for you?
