POCO F8 Ultra Review: After 1 Month
With a starting price of RM3,199 or USD788, this POCO F8 Ultra seems like it’s the best value for money phone, especially with the flagship level specs. So, the question is: why isn’t everyone buying this phone? Is this really a flagship killer or a smartphone pretending to be one?
Well, after using this phone for about 1 month, while there are some areas that make this phone very well worth the price, but there are some parts that make this phone not worth getting as this is the first time ever that I cannot recommend this phone to everyone. So, watch first and buy smart.
As usual for this type of in-depth review, I’m not going to be talking about the specs, but it’s more of how is it like when you use this phone daily.
Design & Build
All right, let’s start from the design and the build quality. This Denim Blue variant is honestly the way to go. It has a very great feeling just holding it. Definitely something that you will feel very refreshing and feels very grippy in the hands.
And if you’re like me who loves to use a phone without a case, you won’t have that sort of anxiety of dropping the phone when using this daily as it really feels like it was meant to be in the hands compared to most slippery phones which gives you that mini heart attack when the phone slips just a bit. So yeah, that is something that I didn’t get when I was using this phone daily.
But what’s really great is that the quality is really great to a point that from the front, when the screen is totally turned off, side by side with the iPhone 17 Pro Max, you could mistakenly pick up the iPhone or vice versa, which shows how good the quality of the phone is.
Typing on the phone was really nice. The haptics did feel very premium. And speaking of typing, because of how the camera bump is, the phone will not wobble at all if you type this on the surface, which is a huge bonus. So yes, this is surely one of the biggest advantages on the POCO F8 Ultra compared to the previous generation when it comes to the overall design and the build quality.
Display
The screen is nice and flat. It’s like the best flat screen phone ever. Almost like when you search for “What is the best flat screen smartphone of the year 2025?” online, this phone is a definition of that.
But I do have a love-hate relationship with the screen protector that the phone comes with because on one end, it’s nice that it protects the phone screen out of the box. But on the other hand, it gets scratches very easily. So yes, it is protection but emotionally not really, because it hurts every little time when you see a scratch on the screen. So make sure that you don’t fully rely on it if you plan to use the phone for long periods.
But while viewing this display during the day was nice, I did feel that sometimes it was a little dimmer than how I would want it to, but there’s still room to increase the overall brightness if you really needed to. So, that is good, I guess, because maybe POCO is trying to save on battery.
Battery
Speaking of battery, the battery life on this almost gave me a heart attack. Let me explain. So, when a phone comes with 6,500 mAh of battery, you’re not supposed to have any sort of battery anxiety, right?
Well, not here at first because the first 2% battery was gone like Speedy Gonzales with only 9 minutes of screen on time. So, at that moment, I totally panicked and I was already mentally preparing my rant. And then things get better with me ending Day 1 with still 60% battery life with 2 hours and 49 minutes of screen on time, which did overall give me a total of 3 hours and 16 minutes on Day 1 and about 2 hours and 55 minutes on Day 2 with still 15% battery life.
So that’s a total of about 6 and 1/2 hours of screen on time using a combination of Wi-Fi and cellular data. And this is also with dark mode turned on.
I still don’t get why it is still charging at 100W charging instead of last year’s 120W. But that was something that really didn’t bother me much because 100W is still very fast. But I’m very sure that you’ll appreciate the 50W of wireless charging more, which charged the phone from 0 to 50% in about 28 minutes, which was mighty impressive indeed.
Cameras
Next, looking at the phone’s cameras. Some may argue and say, “Oh, the POCO is all about gaming, not about the cameras.” But I choose to disagree because remember the legendary POCO F3? Yep, that camera set the standards then and it should set the standards now moving forward, right?
Ultrawide
So the ultrawide lenses did look great. Nice and natural colors with great dynamic range as well.
But one little nitpick that I have with this particular lens is the focal length, because this ultrawide focal length is a 18mm lens. Like how in the world is that an “ultrawide lens”? Because it has to be the tightest focal length on any ultrawide lenses on a smartphone because ultrawide lenses on a phone are usually between 15mm or even 14mm. But even the previous POCO F7 Ultra was a 15mm ultrawide lens. So yeah, besides that the quality was great as mentioned.
Main + Zoom
The main lenses are at 23mm which was looking really nice where for this first indoor shots it was nicely balanced and so it was for the 2x or the 46mm focal length.
But while POCO has added a periscope lens for its 5x zoom or the 115mm image, but as you can see side by side with the 2x mode, the image did look darker because of its higher aperture value. So if you want a consistency of the image brightness moving between the zoom values, you will see a significant difference from the 3x zoom onwards.
And while the 10x mode was also really great too, but I wouldn’t recommend using the 30x zoom onwards because the details were almost done from 30x zoom onwards. And while there’s also a 60x and also a 100x zoom mode for this phone, I honestly don’t see why it’s even there.
But being skeptical of their results, I decided to take another bunch of photos outside instead. And while the 1x and the 2x modes were great, but once again there’s that shift when you switch to the 5x zoom onwards. And this time the color also shifted. And while the 10x mode was still great, but to all of our disappointment once again the 30x, the 60x and the 100x were not good at all.
And the story was the same for this final batch of photos where it was really good from the 1x, the 2x and this time a minor shift on the 5x mode. But when you go beyond 10x, the image quality is really not good from 30x onwards especially. So again it seems like POCO is giving those zoom options just for the sake of flexing the zoom values instead of producing better quality on those high zoom levels.
Portrait Mode
As usual portrait mode for POCO phones have been consistently good for humans. There are a total of 5 focal lengths to choose from within the camera app: 23mm, 28mm, 46mm, 75mm, and a nice 115mm focal length, which has amazing quality and details.
And the quality of this portrait mode on a back lit situation was also great to properly expose the dynamic range at the background area, no matter which focal length that you use in the camera app.
But when it comes to objects, it was a totally different story, specifically for this 23mm lens as the phone was having issues trying to nail the focus correctly. And honestly, I didn’t even realize that it was not in focus until I saw it when I pulled it up on my computer.
But the good news is that the other focal lengths like the 35mm, 46mm, 75mm, and even the 115mm focal length did an amazing job when it comes to objects.
Macro Mode
It seems like many of you really appreciate the Macro Mode on the phone. So, I decided to test it out on this phone and the results were just decent. Because while this photo looks like it was taken effortlessly, but the real story is that it was not because the minimum focus distance on this was really not good. It was bloody far away from the flower, like really far away. So, the minimum focus distance on this in the macro mode is really not good. So, what’s the point?
Selfie
Selfie wise, there’s a wider option for the portrait selfie at 22mm and a closer 27mm, which looked nice for situations where the lights were shining on you. So, it was for a backlit situation, both for the 22mm and the 27mm focal length once again.
Ultrawide (Night)
Then, as for the nighttime photos, the ultrawide lenses did look really nice where you need to take this moment to appreciate how POCO didn’t make the skies blue like most phones do. And it had a nice balance of highlights and shadows.
Main + Zoom (Night)
What’s surprising is that while the 1x and the 2x photos were great as expected, but this time around the 5x periscope zoom did perform better at night. Probably because the image processing on POCO phones are better at night. God knows.
But like how it was during the day, the best was only until 10x zoom because for the love of God, please do not go beyond that. As you can see the quality from the 30x zoom onwards. So, as long as you’re sticking to the 1x, 2x, the 5x, and even up to 10x zoom, you will get the best quality nighttime photos.
Portrait Mode (Night)
Once again, when it comes to the portrait mode photos for humans at night, it was really nice on every focal length as mentioned earlier.
But once again, the 23mm photos on objects were not the sharpest. So, be sure to be more aware of getting the subject in focus before hitting the camera shutter. But the other focal lengths were great, as you guys can see.
Selfie (Night)
While the nighttime selfie photos had great skin tones and the bokeh was really nice at the blurred background area, but there was some level of beauty mode being applied to my skin, probably to make sure that the face was not grainy or noisy, but other than that, it did look great, even for a backlit situation for both focal lengths.
Video Recording
[Check out all the video sample footage on my YouTube video here]
As for the phone’s video quality, while the POCO F8 Ultra can record up to 8K resolution, which was great to know, but let’s be honest, you and I are only going to be recording at 4K resolution, right?
So looking at the ultrawide lens quality, it looked really nice. Nice dynamic range too.
And that was the case for the 1x zoom and even for the 2x zoom as well. The periscope 5x video was also really good too. But you’ll see the video being a little jittery at the max 10x mode.
Speaking of jitters, looking at the phone’s video stabilization, while the ultrawide, the main lenses, and the 2x mode looked really great, but the 5x video had a sort of a wobbly effect, which was done in post, and it was even worse at 10x more.
But while the front video quality was great at 4K, like finally, but the dynamic range was really bad in the skies area, totally blowing out the skies, which was rather cloudy that day. So that was really disappointing.
Video Recording (Night)
[Check out all the video sample footage on my YouTube video here]
It was a total different story for the nighttime videos because the ultrawide lenses look decent and so it was for the 1x zoom. But the 2x zoom started to show some lens flare. And while the lens flare did reduce on the 5x mode, but it had better overall video quality on this particular periscope lens. And the image processing for the 10x mode was decent.
Stabilization wise, honestly, I would just recommend the 1x video because the ultrawide was very jittery and it got even worse from the 2x, 5x, and the 10x mode as well. And while the front video quality at night was decent, but not really when it comes to the stabilization.
Audio
Next, going from audio recording to audio playback because remember the subwoofer at the back? Yep. I will tell you right now that this is the BIGGEST reason for you to get this phone.
With this Bose subwoofer at the back, you might think that it’s all about the bass , right? But when it comes to even watching YouTube videos or listening to video podcasts, you can hear the amazing clarity and the voice cutting through.
This is because the stereo speakers are all focused on giving the best highs and mids. So, it’s just telling the woofer “Bro, you handle the bass, I will handle the rest”.
And this sound tuning reminds me of a home theater system, something like what Sonos and other home theater system does, where if you have a soundbar and then you add a subwoofer to the mix, the soundbar will give the “bass duties” to the subwoofer where the soundbar will just focus on giving better highs and mids on the overall audio quality, that was the case over here. So if you want a “mini Bluetooth speaker” in a smartphone form factor then this is it.
And for me, other than consuming videos on it, I’ve been using this as a music playback or a white noise playback when I’m changing my son’s diaper to calm him down.
Gaming
Since POCO smartphones are all about gaming, so the obvious thing to test over here was gaming. And based on our usual tests, it ran from light to heavy games very well without any significant overheating.
Genshin Impact ran very well on these settings: Highest Graphics, 60 fps, Motion Blur o). And since Wuthering Waves is considered to be more demanding than Genshin Impact, that game ran the best at these settings: Ultra Graphics, 60 fps, Bloom On.
COD Mobile was also flawless on Max Graphics & Max Framerate settings and because the phone did feel great in the hand as mentioned earlier gaming on this phone for long periods is a huge yes indeed.
Software
Then as for software, Xiaomi’s HyperOS has been great ever since it was introduced. If you’re coming from a previous POCO or Xiaomi phone, you will blend straight right into it. But if you’re not used to it, it will take you a while for you to get familiar with.
Unlike vivo or OPPO, HyperOS is not trying their best to look and feel like iOS. Probably just the Dynamic Island, which Xiaomi calls it the Hyper Island, but that is about it. However, if it’s AI that you seek, you’ll find some very reliable photo editing AI in this particular phone.
Conclusion
So, after a full month, here is the truth. This phone does many things right, but its inconsistencies totally stops it from being a true flagship killer.
And that doesn’t make a bad smartphone. It makes a phone that you need to think twice about. Because depending on how you use your phone, this could either be a steal or a regret.
[Watch the full video on YouTube here]
Related:
