POCO is a brand that never failed to surprise us. I got an email a few weeks ago, asking if I would like to review the new POCO X8 Pro Max. I was surprised because POCO doesn’t really have a fixed release schedule. And the price? Starts from only RM1,999, but early birds can get it for RM1,699. That’s a great price – but is it truly a good phone? Let’s talk about it in today’s review.
Specs and performance
To begin, POCO knows that this phone is made for pure performance. Those who thirst for the best performance at the lowest price possible – yeah, the POCO X8 Pro Max should be on your list. So, let’s get started by talking about the 3 most important aspects of the phone, starting with the performance.
The POCO X8 Pro Max comes packed with the MediaTek Dimensity 9500s and also 12GB RAM. It is available in both 256GB and 512GB storage variants, so it truly depends on what you want.
That Dimensity 9500s, as we’ve mentioned in our original gaming test video, is basically the Dimensity 9400+ but with 1 less GPU core, hence it’s the Arm Immortalis-G925 MC11 GPU. Also, since it is practically a rebranded Dimensity 9400+, it is using the old Arm CPU and GPU architecture too. However, I do believe that this architecture of CPU and GPU is much more optimzed and matured compared to the latest generation.
How does it perform in games, then? Well, in our gaming test, it performs magnificently well. I was surprised by how good it is. Honestly, I do believe this generation of
Genshin Impact, at the highest graphical settings, managed to get a very high and consistent FPS throughout the test. It’s not exactly 60fps, but it’s really high and near 60fps. The power consumption is quite okay as it is about 5W-ish only.
Zenless Zone Zero is a very demanding game. At the highest graphical settings, it does have some stutters at the beginning because it has to do some shader caching. It only has to do once. When the shader has been cached, it will maintain a supremely good frame rate and fluidity throughout the entire gaming test. The wattage is definitely a bit high though, as it hovers around near 10W.
Wuthering Waves is definitely the most demanding game that we have, mostly because of how terribly optimized the game really is. At the highest graphical settings, the frame rate is definitely fluctuating up and down a lot – but it managed to actually not drop into the slideshow territory. Yes, the power consumption is definitely high – but the experience is actually very good in comparison.
If you want to know the full details with the temperature, the frame time, and the power consumption – then watch our gaming test video above. I can assure you that even with the older architecture found in the Dimensity 9500s, it can still outperform some of the latest chipsets. Honestly, I am surprised myself.
Emulation
Also, in our comments section for the gaming test video of the POCO X8 Pro Max, there are some people who asked about emulation on this device. Well… in summary, the support has gotten better than before – but it’s still not good.
I tried Tomb Raider 2013 and it actually ran fine, and so is Silksong. However, I couldn’t get Cyberpunk 2077 or Expedition 33 to work at all. PS2 emulation actually works, but the game is very stuttery at times. Input delay is also a massive issue, by the way.
Nintendo Switch games just outright don’t work at all. I’m kind of surprised as the Exynos 2600 in the Galaxy S26+ actually just works fine out of the box.
Anyway, MediaTek devices are generally not recommended when it comes to emulation mainly because of the driver support for the Mali GPU. It’s not open-source, and hence support for it is rather up in the air. That’s the one reason why Snapdragon devices are always recommended when it comes to any sort of emulation because they have the best compatibility. However, in my opinion, if you want to play PC games, get a handheld gaming device instead.
Battery life
The battery life is also something that we have to talk about. It comes with a superbly massive 8,500mAh battery – but we have no idea what’s the Wh value. Wh is a much better way to measure battery capacity – click here to know why.
Using our standardized battery life test with PCMark locked at 100 nits brightness… the battery life is actually quite disappointing. It lasts for only 22 hours and 55 minutes.
If I were to do some quick math, I can kinda guesstimate that the POCO X8 Pro Max is taking in quite a lot of power just to run this battery life test because it was kinda warm when I touch it. This is definitely something weird with POCO’s tuning as this is the only phone with such an issue. It can definitely be improved via a software update if POCO wants to fix it.
Charging speed
Now, let’s also talk about the charging speed. In our gaming test, we did say that the POCO X8 Pro Max does not come with a charger but we have been contacted ever since to clarify that the retail unit does indeed come with a charger, so I just want to make that clear.
Anyway, since we don’t have the original charger, we’re just testing with the Anker 100W 3-port charger that actually supports up to 90W of Xiaomi’s proprietary standard. You can watch the review of that charger at the top right corner there if you’re interested.
Anyway, using this Anker charger and the default settings, we can charge the phone from 15% to completion in around… I’d say 70 minutes or 92 minutes? Not sure why it stalled for so long at 99% before bumping it up to 100%. Either way, using this Xiaomi charger, it takes around 76W maximum for a short period only.
Then, if we turned up the fastest charging speed option in the settings menu, it can go up to 78W for a much longer time – hence the much higher temperature throughout the entire charging cycle. It will shorten the charging time to only around 43 minutes – which is surprisingly fast for such a massive battery.
Finally – the USB-PD PPS test. Surprisingly, Xiaomi did improve its USB-PD PPS support this time around. It can take a maximum of around 77W for a short time, and the temperature is actually the lowest among the three charging tests. It takes around 82 minutes to charge from 15% to completion – and I am just very happy that Xiaomi supports USB-PD PPS now. I mean, since they did remove the charger from the box for certain regions, they have to give up their own proprietary charging standard to be friendly with aftermarket chargers.
Bypass charging?
A lot of you also asked if there’s bypass charging for the POCO X8 Pro Max. The answer is – no. In theory, the POCO X8 Pro Max should be able to support bypass charging since it has USB-PD PPS support, but I guess they just haven’t implemented it yet.
Screen
Let’s now also talk about the screen. It is a 6.83-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 2772×1280 pixels and goes up to 120Hz refresh rate. I’m just glad that companies are having displays higher than 1080p by default nowadays.
This screen can go up to around 1100 nits maximum and around 2.1 nits at the lowest. It’s not the brightest or the dimmest display that we’ve tested, but this is actually good enough for most usage.
Now, the color gamut coverage is a completely different story. There are two color profiles, so let’s start with the default Original Color PRO color profile first. It will cover 97.5% of sRGB and 71.17% of DCI-P3 color gamuts with a very low ΔE number across the board.
When we turned it up to the Vivid color profile though… the color gamut coverage doesn’t change much. It will cover 99.1% of sRGB and 79.56% of DCI-P3 color gamuts only, and the ΔE number remains to be low. I mean, between these two color profiles – they really don’t differ much from each other.
This could be a bug, but this is also the same behavior on the POCO F8 Ultra when we reviewed it. This could also be one reason why the both phones are so low in price, if you get what I mean.
Design
All of this are packed within this design of a phone. There’s really nothing out of the ordinary here, I’d say. The back with a few lines definitely look distinctive, but that’s about it. I do have to highlight that the POCO X8 Pro Max is actually a rather thicc and heavy phone. I mean, that’s the price we have to pay for such a large battery.
The camera bump is also tiny… but that’s because this phone only has two cameras.
Camera
So, let’s talk about them here. On paper, the main camera isn’t bad. Having an f/1.5 aperture is great as it can let a lot of light in but is that the case?
To have a look at all the pictures taken with the POCO X8 Pro Max, watch our video at the top of this review.
Software
As for the software, there’s really nothing special here. It is using HyperOS 3 with all of the features we’ve come to expect. It works well as navigation is indeed smooth and everything is just seamless. There are some bloatware here and there but they’re easy to deal with – and there is another tool to debloat HyperOS.
There are certainly some parts that need improvement, like the power consumption issue. I refuse to believe that this phone can only last 22 hours and 55 minutes in our standardized battery life test.
A few more things to mention
Okay, there are a few more things that we have to mention. The POCO X8 Pro Max comes with only a USB 2.0 port at the bottom, so no display output capability and file transfers take forever.
We do have dual SIM card slots – at least for our region, and it also has an IR blaster at the back of the phone too.
Should you buy the POCO X8 Pro Max?
So, should you buy the POCO X8 Pro Max? Honestly, yes. If you want the best performance possible at an unbelievably low price, the POCO X8 Pro Max is the phone that you should get. That MediaTek Dimensity 9500s is still a truly amazing chipset despite a generation old and still using the old but mature CPU and GPU architecture.
However, you do have one alternative – the Xiaomi 15T Pro. It’s equipped with the Dimensity 9400+, and the performance is about the same as the POCO X8 Pro Max, has much better cameras and also an optical telephoto camera, but a smaller battery.
The price is definitely higher, but I do think the Xiaomi 15T Pro is worth the price premium if you need better cameras.
I truly love the performance of the POCO X8 Pro Max. For the price, it’s really a no-brainer even though when there are definitely some shortcomings here and there to make the price possible.
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