Poco M8 Power will be released soon, but it’s potentially a rebranded Redmi Note 17, not an original device. Poco is only known for its derivative handsets, so we can’t say we are surprised by this move. The details about this Poco M8 Power were tipped on X today.
Someone dissected the new HyperOS firmware and found a reference to a phone called Poco M8 Power that seems to have the model code 26021PC18I. That very same code was seen before on the Redmi Note 17 (26021RN18C), but it’s modified. Don’t worry, we’ll break it down for you.
The letter RN in the middle and the final letter C in the Note 17’s model number actually mean “Redmi Note” and “China.” The numbers stay the same on Poco M8 Power’s model number, but “PC” means Poco and the letter “I” means India. So it’s the same phone, but it’s meant for the neighboring market.
These Poco phones usually spin off the Redmi handset just so they can sell outside China, so we would bet on a global launch for the Xiaomi latest Poco mobile. There was no hardware info, but the firmware source code gave us the perfect clue that will help us track down the phone’s entire spec sheet.
They share the model numbers, so we are assuming the Poco M8 Power will inherit the whole spec sheet from the Redmi Note 17. If that’s how it goes, this newcomer is 5G and built on a Snapdragon 4 Gen 4 (4nm) SoC that has 8GB LPDDR4X RAM.
There will be a 7” OLED on the Poco M8 Power, which will be a 1080p panel pushing pixels at a 120Hz refresh rate and glowing at 1800nits peak brightness in isolated spots. Then comes the camera, which was a big disappointment on the Note 17: a small 50MP outsole.
Only an 8MP selfie camera is installed on the screen, though the M8 Power will have the same HyperOS 3.1 with tons of AI features to make the cameras fun. And there’s potentially the same 8000mAh battery on this newcomer with 45W charging. We say potentially, because global regulatory hurdles might cause them to install a smaller battery on the Poco M8 Power. Keep watching the news for more updates.
