POCO launched the M8 Power smartphone in India earlier this month as the first phone in the ‘M Power’ series with a huge 8000mAh battery. It also has a large OLED screen and is powered by a Snapdragon 4 Gen 4 SoC. Is this the best phone with a huge battery in the price range? Let us dive into the review to find out.
Box Contents
- POCO M8 Power 5G 8GB + 128GB in Blaze Orange color
- 45W fast charger
- USB Type-A to Type-C Cable
- SIM Ejector tool
- Protective case
- Screen protector (Pre-installed)
- User guide
Display, Hardware and Design
Starting with the display, the POCO M8 Power has a 6.99-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a pixel resolution of 2396×1080 pixels and a pixel density of about 375 PPI. It offers up to 1800 nits of peak brightness. It is bright outdoors. The display covers the DCI-P3 wide color gamut and features a contrast ratio of 5,000,000:1.
The phone has a 120 Hz refresh rate display that can switch between 60 Hz, 90 Hz and 120 Hz, a 240 Hz touch sampling rate and a 2160 Hz instant touch sampling rate that is activated under Game Turbo Mode. When enabled, it offers a buttery smooth user experience, especially when you are scrolling through the UI and when gaming.
The phone has 960 Hz high-frequency dimming technology and TÜV Rheinland eye-care certification, ensuring both visibility and comfort in various lighting conditions. It doesn’t have HDR support.
Under the display options, there are different options to adjust colours and contrast based on your preference. The phone comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 7i protection.
The phone has a tiny punch-hole that houses an 8-megapixel camera, which doesn’t disturb when watching videos since it just occupies a small space. Above the display there is an earpiece on the top edge, but it doesn’t double up as a secondary speaker. The bottom bezel is slightly thick, which is fine considering the price.
Coming to the button placements, the volume rockers and the power button are present on the right side of the phone. The hybrid dual SIM slot, loudspeaker grill, primary microphone, and USB Type-C port are present on the bottom. On the top there is an infrared sensor, and the secondary microphone is inside the camera deco.
Even though the phone has a plastic build, the quality is good. The flat frame offers a good grip to hold and doesn’t attract fingerprints. The phone also has IP65 ratings for dust and splash resistance.
In addition to the blaze orange color that we have, the phone also comes in black and green colors. Even with a huge 8000mAh battery, the company has maintained an 8.45mm thickness. It weighs 225 g, which is slightly more than standard phones, but the weight distribution is good.
Camera
- 50MP main rear camera with 1/2.88″ Light Fusion 400 sensor, f/1.8 aperture, LED flash
- 8MP front camera, f/2.0 aperture
The camera UI is familiar with other Xiaomi or POCO smartphones running Hyper OS 3. You get all the features such as Pro, Night, Ultra HD, Slow motion, Time-lapse, Dual video, and Panorama. Pro mode lets you adjust white balance, focus, shutter speed (1/4000s to 15 seconds), ISO (50 to 3200).
Coming to the image quality, daylight shots came out well with good dynamic range. After pixel binning technology, you get 12MP output from the main camera. HDR shots are better with improved dynamic range. The 8MP front camera is decent, and you get full 8MP output. Low-light camera performance is decent but could be better.
Check out the camera samples.
It can record videos at 1080p resolution at 30 fps, and it also has slow motion 720p at up to 120 fps. It doesn’t have OIS. Even though there is only a 1080p video recording, the quality is fine, but the stabilisation is poor due to the lack of OIS.
Software, UI and Apps
The phone runs HyperOS 3 out of the box. It has got July 2026 Android security patch. The company has promised 4 years of OS updates and 6 years of security updates, which is good for a POCO M series phone. HyperOS 3 brings a redesigned interface, smoother performance, expanded AI features, stronger ecosystem connectivity, and upgraded privacy protections.
Xiaomi HyperConnect offers seamless interaction across devices; Xiaomi HyperIsland brings expanded live activity support for apps at a glance. You get AI-powered editing features like expand, erase, and sky replacement. You don’t get all the AI features, and the animations are also minimal in the HyperOS since this is a mid-range phone.
Since the phone has an infrared sensor for remote function, it comes with Mi Remote that lets you control your home appliances easily. Out of 8GB LPDDR4X RAM, you get 7.5GB of usable RAM, and about 3GB of RAM is free when default apps are running in the background. It also has up to 8GB of memory extension or virtual RAM, which you can disable from additional settings. Out of 128GB UFS 2.2 storage, you get about 107.31GB of free storage.
Apart from the usual set of utility apps, Google apps, and POCO’s own set of apps, it comes preloaded with Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, LinkedIn, Netflix, and more apps and some games. It also asks for additional app installation during setup, which you can skip. You can easily uninstall these apps, but these come up when you reset the phone. Even though there is a personalized ads option during setup and recommendations in all the apps, you don’t get any ads in the apps.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone has an optical fingerprint sensor which is good enough to unlock the phone quickly. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. You can also use the fingerprint for local apps and payments in apps. There are also options to change the fingerprint animation. The phone also has face unlock, but it is not that secure.
Music Player and Multimedia
The Mi Music Player is the default music player with usual POCO audio effects and an equaliser. It also doesn’t have FM radio and has Xiaomi Sound for effects. There is a single bottom-ported speaker which is decent for mono. Wish it had stereo speakers.
It has Widevine L1 support, so you can play HD content on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and other streaming apps without any issues. The phone doesn’t have an HDR option, so you can’t app HDR content on streaming apps or YouTube. It also doesn’t have 4K video playback, which is a restriction due to the chip.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
It supports 5G and has support for several 5G bands. There is also support for dual 4G VoLTE and VoNR, and the phone supports carrier aggregation as well. Other connectivity options include Dual-Band Wi-Fi 5 802.11ac. It has VoWiFi / Wi-Fi calling support, Bluetooth 5.1, and GPS. There is no NFC support, which you can’t expect in the price range.
Call quality is good, and we did not face any call drops, and the earpiece volume was loud. It has a Xiaomi dialer instead of a Google dialer seen in some Xiaomi phones. There is call recording support as well.
The POCO M8 Power’s body SAR is 0.791W/Kg and head SAR is at 0.824/Kg, that is well under the limit of 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g) in India.
Performance and Benchmarks
The phone is one of the few in India to be powered by the Snapdragon 4 Gen 4 Mobile Platform, which is a budget chip. This has 2 x 2.3 GHz ARM Cortex-A78 performance cores and 6 x Cortex-A55 efficiency cores at up to 2GHz.
The Adreno 613 GPU promises smooth, crisp graphics. It can handle casual games like Subway Surfers and games like BGMI in low graphics but can’t handle high-end games like Genshin Impact. It has large 10,416 mm² graphite cooling, and I didn’t face any heating issues. Since this is a budget chip, there are some hiccups when running a lot of apps in the background even though the phone has 8GB of RAM, and the HyperOS needs better optimization.
In the 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 99.4% which is good. The temperature increased from 33 to 34 degrees, which is minimal. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs an 8000 mAh (typical) battery, which is one of the biggest when it comes to mid-range POCO phones. It can easily last for more than a day even with heavy use, 2 days with typical use and 3 whole days with minimal use.
I got over 9 hours of screen on-time with almost 2 days of use mainly on 5G and a bit of Wi-Fi in 120Hz. When I was travelling, I didn’t take the charger, and with a single charge, I was able to manage heavy use for all day on 5G and got 8 hours of screen on time which is impressive.
There is a 5G battery saver, speed-up wired charging, and more features in the battery settings. Since the phone has support for 45W fast charging, it can charge up to 50% in around an hour and up to 100% in around 2 hours, which is more, but it is fine considering the battery size. The phone also shows charging cycles. It retains 80% or more of its battery capacity after 5 years of regular use, said the company. It also has 22.5W reverse wired charging that lets you use the phone’s big battery to charge other devices.
Conclusion
The POCO M8 Power 5G carves out a distinct niche in the mid-range segment by prioritizing battery endurance and screen quality above all else. Packing a mammoth 8000mAh battery into an 8.45mm chassis without feeling overly bulky is an impressive engineering feat. Coupled with a vibrant 6.99-inch 120Hz AMOLED display, IP65 protection, long-term software support (4 years of OS and 6 years of security patches), and 22.5W reverse wired charging, it easily handles media consumption, travel, and multiple days of daily tasks without range anxiety.
However, the phone makes notable compromises to accommodate its massive power cell. The Snapdragon 4 Gen 4 chip offers adequate everyday efficiency but falls short for intensive gaming, multi-tasking, or 4K playback. The absence of stereo speakers and the lack of OIS on the camera are noticeable omissions at this price bracket.
If your top priorities are multi-day battery life, a large and bright display, reliable build quality, and software longevity, the POCO M8 Power 5G is easy to recommend. But if raw processing power, high-tier mobile gaming, and a versatile stereo multimedia setup are what you seek, exploring performance-focused alternatives in this segment might serve you better.
Alternatives
There is no direct competition in the range with a huge battery and an AMOLED screen in the price range. The realme P4 is a good option with an AMOLED screen, a 7000 mAh battery, and better performance. The Infinix Note edge has a slightly smaller 6500 mAh battery and AMOLED screen in the same price range.
Pricing and availability
The POCO M8 Power 5G is priced at Rs. 24,999 for the 6GB + 128GB model, and the 8GB + 128GB model costs Rs. 27,999. With the bank offer and launch day offer, the effective starting price was Rs. 21,999. You can still get the bank offer during sale. It is available from Flipkart.
Pros
- A large FHD+ 120Hz AMOLED display is good
- Solid build quality, IP65 dust and splash resistant ratings
- The main camera is good in daylight
- 4 years of OS updates
- Excellent battery life with 45W fast charging
Cons
- No stereo speakers
- Average performance for heavy users
- 45W charging takes almost 2h to charge the phone fully