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The new Xiaomi Poco F8 Pro: the best phone? When you get a Ferrari with a Snapdragon 8 Elite engine for the price of a used Golf

Absurd power, a battery that lasts longer than the average bill, and a price that mocks the competition

Xiaomi Poco F8 Pro
Photo: Xiaomi

We live in a world where smartphones have become status symbols, as expensive as kidneys on the black market and as fragile as the ego of the average influencer. We pay a thousand euros and more for devices that we use mainly to watch cats on TikTok. And then there's the Xiaomi Poco F8 Pro. A phone that walks into a room, kicks the door off its hinges, throws 1,500 euros worth of specs on the table, and asks for a third of that amount with a smile. Is it the perfect phone? No. But it's the absolute wildest bargain of the year, one that will give CEOs in Cupertino and Seoul a headache.

If I were Xiaomi Poco F8 Pro car, it wouldn't be a sleek German sedan with leather seats. It would be a converted Japanese race car, stripped of everything unnecessary just so they could cram a V12 engine under the hood.

Let's talk about the processor Snapdragon 8 Elite (3nm). This isn't just a "good" chip. It's a monster. With eight cores ticking up to 4.32 GHz and Adreno 830 graphics, this phone doesn't open apps—it telepathically loads them onto the screen. It scores around 3 million points in AnTuTu benchmarks. To put that in perspective: your current phone probably chokes at half that number. Gaming? That's an insult to this processor. It's like taking a spaceship to the grocery store to get milk.

“The Poco F8 Pro is not fast. It's so fast that it'll feel like your old phone is running in slow motion.”

Photo: Xiaomi

Energy station in your pocket

The biggest problem with modern flagship phones is that they die faster than you can hope for on a Monday morning. The Xiaomi Poco F8 Pro mocks this with a 6210 mAh battery. Yes, you read that right. Not 5,000, but over six thousand.

That means you can use your phone all day, all night, and probably the next morning before it starts frantically searching for an outlet. And when you finally plug it in? 100W wired charging charges it to 100% in about 37 minutes. That's less time than it takes to decide what to watch on Netflix.

Photo: Xiaomi
Photo: Xiaomi

A screen that will “burn out” your pupils (in a good way)

The display is a 6.59-inch AMOLED with a 120Hz refresh rate and Dolby Vision support. But the real star is the brightness. With 2000 nits (HBM) and a whopping 3500 nits at peak, this display is brighter than the future of most cryptocurrencies. Even in the middle of the Sahara, you'll have no trouble reading that unimportant email. It's protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 7i, which means it'll survive a meeting with your keys in your pocket, or maybe even an awkward drop.

Photo: Xiaomi

Camera: Surprisingly… good?

Poco phones have often said, “Oh, it’s good enough” when it comes to cameras in the past. This time, they’ve actually put in the effort. The 50MP main sensor with optical image stabilization (OIS) produces images that even the greatest aesthetes wouldn’t be ashamed to publish.

But the real shocker is the 50MP telephoto camera with 2.5x optical zoom. You can finally take pictures of things from afar without the photo looking like a 19th-century impressionist painting. The third camera is an 8MP ultra-wide – nothing special, but it serves its purpose. It records video in 8K at 30fps or 4K at 60fps, which is more than enough to film your dog in ultra-high definition.

Photo: Xiaomi

Sound and other goodies

Here's another surprise: the sound is tuned by Bose. The stereo speakers are loud, clear, and actually have some depth. The phone runs on Android 16 with HyperOS 3 on top, which (to be honest) is still full of Xiaomi's bugs, but it's fast and fluid. And yes, the phone is IP68 certified, which means you can submerge it in water up to 1.5 meters for 30 minutes. I don't recommend swimming with it, but if you drop it in a sink, it will survive (your pride, maybe not).

Property Specification
Processor Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite (3nm)
Screen 6.59″ AMOLED, 120Hz, 3500 nits (peak)
Battery 6210 mAh, 100W charging
Memory 12 GB RAM / 256 GB or 512 GB (UFS 4.1)
Cameras 50 MP (main, OIS) + 50 MP (telephoto, 2.5x) + 8 MP (ultra-wide)
Weight 199g (7.02oz)
Dimensions 157.5 x 75.3 x 8 mm (6.20 x 2.96 x 0.31 in)
The price Approximately €570 / £399 Amazon

Conclusion: Rational madness

Xiaomi Poco F8 Pro It's like that friend who brings a case of beer to a party even though no one asked for it - everyone loves it. For around €500, you get performance that rivals a €1,200 phone. You can buy it via this link on German Amazon. 

Sure, it doesn't have the Apple logo and the plastic around it may not smell like luxury, but who cares? When you're blazing through apps at lightning speed and charging your phone every other day, you'll laugh at all those people who spent their entire paycheck on their phone. Poco F8 Pro It's not just a good buy; it's an intelligence test that you pass with flying colors. Buy it before Xiaomi realizes they've undervalued it.

Would you like me to compare the Poco F8 Pro with the latest Samsung Galaxy S or iPhone model to see where exactly you save?

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