The Xiaomi Poco M8 series debuted right on the promised date. There are two devices in the lineup, and both are 5G-ready. Poco M8 Pro is bigger and more powerful, of course. The basic Poco M8 5G is a bit modest, though it still fits the mid-range category due to its specifications. Here’s everything you’ll see on both these devices.
Xiaomi Poco M8 Pro 5G
Rumors of this device being a rebranded Redmi Note 15 Pro+ were right on the money. The Poco M8 Pro actually carries the same 6500mAh Si/C battery for the global market, with a 100W charging for its backup. There’s also a 22.5W reverse charge feature for convenience.
Poco M8 Pro’s fingerprint is on the screen, but it’s optical (light-based). They’ve tested the device for an IP68 rating, which means it’s completely waterproof. It’s a more premium handset among the two. So you get WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 with stereo speakers on top and bottom.
Everything’s running on a Snapdragon 7s Gen 4 chip. Poco gave it an IceLoop passive cooling system. It will sustain loads over longer periods without heating up. Sadly, it’s stuck on the older Android 15 Hyper OS 2 system out of the box. Even under a different brand, it has the older firmware.
You have to give up one of its four major OS updates to get this to Android 16. Anyway, the camera seems more than adequate for the phone. The Pro has a 50MP Light Fusion 800 main camera and an 8MP Ultrawide on the back. The selfies are taken from a 32MP unit.
Then comes the screen on Poco M8 Pro, which is a 6.83” AMOLED at 120Hz and 1.5K resolution. The brightness is 3200 nits with an HDR10+ rating that could use this local peak brightness. Gorilla Glass Victus 2 defends the panel here. This M8 Pro 5G has a base $299 (~PKR 84,000) cost for the 8/256GB trim. Be mindful that not all counties will have the same sticker.
Xiaomi Poco M8 5G
This is a more basic option and a rebranded vanilla Redmi Note 15. Their displays match, having a 6.77” diagonal length. It’s an AMOLED with a 120Hz refresh rate and 1080p FHD+ resolution. The brightness here is the same 3200 nits local peak value with 12-bit colors.
Its main camera is a Light Fusion 400 (50MP) unit, and there’s a 2MP depth mapper for some help. Its selfie camera is actually a 20MP shooter, which is way better than the Poco M7’s 8MP selfie. And the phone also performs way better due to the chipset upgrade.
There’s apparently a Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 running on the Poco M8 5G, which is a 2.4GHz platform. The RAM is LPDDR4X 8GB, and they pair that with UFS 2.2 storage. The system uses Hyper OS 2 skin and Android 15 core. There are four major OS updates planned for it.
It is not as durable, though, as it’s only an IP66-rated build. So try not to throw the phone in water. Poco M8’s battery is a smaller 5520mAh cell. Its charging backup is 45W. The screen has an optical fingerprint ID. There’s WiFi 6 here. But it only supports Bluetooth 5.1. This newcomer’s starter price is $229 (~PKR 65,000) for the 8/256 GB option.