POCO launched the POCO M8x 5G, the company’s latest smartphone in the M8 series, in India recently, which is placed below the M8 and the recent M8 Power. This gets the Snapdragon 4 Gen 5 SoC and packs a 7900mAh battery. Is this worth the price? Let us dive into the POCO M8x review to find out.
Box Contents
- POCO M8 Power 5G 6GB + 128GB in Leather Green 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 M8x has a 6.9-inch HD+ LCD screen with a pixel resolution of 720 x 1600 pixels and a pixel density of about 254 PPI. It offers up to 825 nits of HBM brightness.
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. When enabled, it offers a buttery smooth user experience, especially when you are scrolling through the UI and when gaming.
The phone has TÜV Rheinland triple certifications for low blue light, circadian friendliness, and flicker-free output. 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 that doubles 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 that embeds the fingerprint scanner are present on the right side of the phone. There is nothing on the left. The hybrid dual SIM slot is present on the bottom along with a USB Type-C port and a loudspeaker grill. The 3.5mm audio jack and the speaker vent are present on the top.
Since the phone has a plastic frame, you don’t see any antenna cutouts. The flat frame offers a good grip to hold and doesn’t attract fingerprints. The phone also has IP64 ratings for dust and splash resistance.
In addition to the Leather Green color that we have that has a vegan leather finish, the phone also comes in cobalt blue and black colorways with a plastic matte finish. Even with a huge 7900mAh battery, the company has maintained an 8.8mm thickness. It weighs 232 g, which is slightly more than standard phones, but the weight distribution is good.
Camera
- 50MP main camera with f/1.8 aperture, flicker sensor
- 8MP front camera, f/2.0 aperture
The camera UI is familiar to 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 June 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.
Out of 6GB LPDDR4X RAM, you get 5.5GB of usable RAM, and about 2GB of RAM is free when default apps are running in the background. It also has up to 6GB of memory extension, or virtual RAM, which you can disable from additional settings. Out of 128GB UFS 2.2 storage, you get about 106.92GB of free storage. It comes pre-loaded with Facebook, Instagram, Spotify, Linkedin, Netflix, Amazon and more apps and games. These can be uninstalled.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, which is quick to unlock the phone. 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 has FM radio since there is a 3.5mm audio jack and has Xiaomi Sound for effects. Stereo speakers are good and a welcome move which was missing in the M8 Power.
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 M8x’s body SAR is 0.666W/Kg and head SAR is at 0.823/Kg, that is well under the limit of 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g) in India.
Performance and Benchmarks
The phone is first in India to be powered by the Snapdragon 4 Gen 5 Mobile Platform, which is a budget chip. This has 2 x 2.4 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.
The phone integrates a multi-layer triple cooling system consisting of a 12,439 mm² ultra-large graphite sheet, a 1,924 mm² copper foil layer for critical component dissipation, and 3.5W high-efficiency thermal gel between the chipset and cooling layers, 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 6GB of RAM, and the HyperOS needs better optimization.
In the 3D Mark wild life stress test, it scored 99.2% which is good. The temperature increased from 31 to 32 degrees, which is minimal, thanks to the powerful cooling solution. That said, check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 7900 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 8 hours of screen on time with almost 2 days of use mainly on 5G and a bit of Wi-Fi at 120 Hz, 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
At its price point, the POCO M8x 5G clearly positions itself as a marathon runner rather than a sprinter. Its biggest selling point is without doubt the massive 7900mAh battery, which delivers exceptional two- to three-day endurance and even doubles as a power bank with 22.5W reverse wired charging. Backing that up is a smooth 120Hz display, a capable 50MP daylight shooter, IP64 ingress protection, and an unusually generous update commitment of 4 years of OS upgrades.
On the flip side, cramming that much capacity inside makes the handset noticeably heavy at 232g, and replenishing a cell that large takes around two hours even with the bundled 45W brick. Furthermore, the Snapdragon 4 Gen 5 SoC—while adequate for daily tasks and thermal control—shows its limits under heavy multitasking or demanding 3D games.
If your core priority is marathon battery life, long-term software support, and a dependable screen for day-to-day media consumption, the POCO M8x 5G is a solid, practical workhorse. However, if you are looking for pure gaming horsepower, ultra-fast charging, or versatile camera performance with OIS, you might want to look at more performance-centric alternatives in this bracket.
Pricing and availability
The POCO M8x 5G is priced at Rs. 20,999 for the 4GB + 128GB model and the 6GB + 128GB model costs Rs. 22,999. It is now available from Flipkart.
Pros
- A large FHD+ 120Hz display is good
- Solid build quality, IP64 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
- Might be bulky for some
- 45W charging takes almost 2h to charge the phone fully