The POCO F8 Ultra smartphone is the latest and by far most powerful smartphone to be released by the company. Sporting some competitive hardware and a redesign of the outer body and audio system, the F8 Ultra is a seriously impressive smartphone. Having reviewed a few phones from the POCO lineup over the past couple of years, the F8 Ultra moves beyond the realm of excellent budget phone and into the realm of flagship smartphone territory.
I had mentioned in my F7 Ultra review last year that “The F7 Ultra truly feels like POCO’s first flagship phone”. I stand by that statement. However, after spending a couple of weeks with the new F8 Ultra, I can confidently say that this is POCO’s first truly flagship phone. Starting with the overall look and feel, POCO has undergone a significant overhaul for the better.
The backside of the F8 has seen the most rework with a new rectangle camera bump now much more in line with other flagship designs like the iPhone 17 Pro or the new Xiaomi 17 Pro Series, minus the screen, of course. In its place, though, is a unique collaboration with Bose that comes in the form of a triple speaker acoustic system.
Essentially, this system, along with the standard top and bottom speakers, adds a third speaker on the back of the phone, which enhances the sound profile with a level of depth not typically found in most smartphones. Referred to as a 2.1 channel system, the POCO F8 Ultra smartphone produces audio that is quite impressive, especially for a smartphone.
While I wouldn’t throw out your subwoofer just yet, I was quite impressed at how much the additional speaker, which adds a lot of low end into the overall mix, actually fills out the overall sound profile. When paired with the additional speakers, the result is a clear, robust sound profile. For those who like to listen to music or watch shows on their phone, this little collaboration is a nice treat.
“Sporting some competitive hardware and a redesign of the outer body and audio system, the F8 Ultra is a seriously impressive smartphone.”
The rest of the rear rectangle bump houses the F8 Ultra’s new and impressive 50MP Light Fusion 950 lens with optical image stabilization (the same lens used on the aforementioned Xiaomi 17 Pro Series) and a large 1/1.31″ sensor, as well as a 5x Periscope Telephoto that feels like magic to use. In camera tests, the F8 Ultra performs incredibly well. The 50MP Light Fusion 950 lens pulls in an incredible amount of light when shooting, with the resulting photos speaking for themselves.
While I’ve come to expect this from POCO and Xiaomi as a whole, I was baffled by how impressive the 5x Periscope Telephoto lens is. There is a series of images I took with a POCO-branded can with each level of zoom available. The F8 Ultra consistently presented the same level of detail with each shot without the digital distortion usually associated with phone camera zoom lenses.
Another aspect of the camera system that feels updated over the F7 Ultra is the OIS. This was most notable while testing the Periscope Telephoto. The camera does an excellent job of steadying, making it much easier to take photos while zoomed in.
As for filming, the F8 received a much-appreciated update to the SteadyShot capabilities of the POCO F series. This latest iteration allows for steadyshot filming at 2.8K @ 30FPS, a notable upgrade from the F7 Ultra’s 1080p @ 30 FPS. This sharper resolution allows for some beautiful and steady shooting even with more action-oriented subjects. Regarding resolution, for those looking to squeeze out every possible pixel in your capture, the F8 Ultra’s 8K30 works exceptionally well.
These updates, both to sound and photo, are huge leaps forward for the brand and help establish the POCO F8 Ultra as a flagship-level smartphone, but the updates don’t stop there. This latest iteration of the F Series introduces a beautiful new HyperRGB AMOLED display. It seems POCO is aiming to push the F8 Ultra into Gaming phone territory as well.
The display leverages an innovative new pixel arrangement technology and presents images with a clarity comparable to 2K. POCO has equipped the F8 Ultra with a new AI Super Resolution tool that enhances the image quality in both video and gaming. The results are absolutely stunning, allowing for improved visuals with full HDR while also extending battery life for gameplay.
This technology is coupled with the latest iteration of the Vision Boost D8 chipset, allowing every game to take full advantage of the aforementioned HDR, improved framerate and the AI Super Resolution. The beautiful 6.9-inch display is incredibly bright (a signature trait of the POCO F series) and provides a smooth 120Hz refresh rate outside of gaming, meaning our favourite shows and even productivity apps look absolutely gorgeous.
While all of these new features help raise the bar on POCO F8 Ultra, it’s what has been updated inside that truly helps it earn its Flagship moniker. The F8 Ultra is equipped with the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 with an impressive Octa-core Max 4.6GHz processor. This latest iteration of the Snapdragion 8 Elite brings with it some serious improvements to wireless connectivity (more on this in a moment), improved image capture as noted above and seriously improved speeds, which I will address in just a moment.
“…the POCO F8 Ultra smartphone produces audio that is quite impressive, especially for a smartphone.”
This is paired with the latest iteration of Xiaomi’s VisionBoost D8 GPU, which, when paired together, becomes a processing powerhouse both for productivity and gaming. The F8 Ultra sent for review also includes 16GB of dedicated RAM, along with an additional 6GB of system RAM available if needed for more demanding tasks.
While this all sounds great on paper, it’s the benchmarking that really leaves no room for doubt. The F8 Ultra is a flagship-level phone. Geekbench scores for single-core and Multicore testing were some of the best I’ve seen on a mobile device, measuring 3376 in single-core tests and 10,000 in multicore tests. For context, that pushes the POCO F8 Ultra above the Pixel 10 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra on both points.
GPU results were similar, with a score of 23944. This puts the POCO F8 Ultra in the same league as the other flagship phones mentioned. In games testing, the F8 Ultra crushed titles like Diablo Immortal and Destiny Rising. Offering consistent 60FPS + results on the highest settings each title would allow. If you are a mobile gamer, the POCO F8 Ultra will have no issue taking on anything you throw its way.
This push for performance extends to cooling as well. POCO has implemented LiquidCool Technology to create a more stable gaming experience. This translates to cooler internal components with faster heat dissipation. While I did note on more graphically intense titles that the F8 Ultra got slightly warm after a couple of hours of gameplay, there were never any performance interruptions or frame drops.
Part of this is due to the new LiquidCooling technology. However, POCO has also worked on optimizing CPU and GPU performance on the F8 Ultra, resulting in a much more consistent gameplay experience. In testing, as noted above, I never noted any dips in frame rate and even after a couple of hours of Diablo Immortal gameplay, the F8 Ultra was performing well and without issue.
As for productivity, the F8 Ultra runs exceptionally smoothly, offering all of the speed and fluidity needed when jumping between apps, multi-app snapping and AI-powered tools. In testing, the F8 Ultra easily loaded and then allowed me to work within a fairly complex spreadsheet I use for testing. It handled zooming in and out, data entry and even tab swapping like a champ.
The HyperOS has seen an update as well to the new HyperOS 3. It brings with it a lot of quality of life updates, such as a smoother app and AI integrations. The standout feature, though, in my testing was the improved connectivity framework baked into the OS. This was most evident in the ability to sync and output to multiple audio speakers simultaneously, in my case, the excellent Creative Pebble Nova (review coming soon) and the JLab JBuds Party Bluetooth speaker I’m testing here in the office. I actually didn’t even know this feature existed until it recognized that both were in range and asked me about it.
While I am not typically a fan of OS overlays, I continue to be impressed with HyperOS. Each interaction offers new quality of life features and up to this point has not been a huge resource drain on the phones I’ve tested. It’s a slick operating system that actually feels like a solid addition to the Android experience.
The POCO F8 Ultra also sees a solid improvement in longevity thanks to the 6500mAh battery. This allows for easy all-day use. In testing, the F8 Ultra had no issue keeping up with my heavy usage, with it still having a good 40% on average when I would put it on the wireless charger at night, and yes, 50W Hypercharge wireless charging is supported on the Ultra. This feature is further enhanced thanks to the inclusion of reverse wireless charging.
For those needing a quick charger, it also supports 100W wired Hypercharging, allowing for an incredibly quick recharge for those days when you have time for binge-watching your favourite show. In testing, I was able to fast charge the POCO F8 Ultra from 0-100% in around 35 minutes. It’s slick and works exceptionally well as long as you have a supported charger, which is the one small critique I have of this year’s F series release; there’s no charger in the box at all. This is a bit disappointing considering that the F7 Ultra came with a wonderful 120W fast charger.
The POCO F8 Ultra is, without a doubt, a flagship phone. It easily competes with the latest and greatest smartphones on the market and still manages to maintain POCO’s long-running theme of consumer first, with a more reasonable price point at $799 for the model tested. From updated hardware to a full redesign of the smartphone, the POCO F8 Ultra truly earns its place among the greats.
