Poco X8 Pro Iron Man Edition GBAtemp review
Hardware
Product Information:
- Official Store: https://www.mi.com/uk/poco/
With the latest Avengers movie coming to theaters in December, the merchandising is beginning to ramp up. In association with Marvel, Xiaomi have partnered up to offer an Iron Man-themed variant of the Poco X8 Pro. This edition comes with the Iron Man case, Iron Man decals on the rear, a Marvel logo sim ejector, and a presentation box that is reminiscent of Iron Man's MK5 suitcase armament.
The Poco X8 Pro is a dual-SIM 5G smartphone powered by the 8-core Mediatek Dimensity 8500-Ultra SoC with 12 GB's of RAM. It sports a Mali-G720 MC8 GPU with 6 GB RAM and has a 6.59" 120 Hz screen. Lastly, it packs in a 6,500 mAh battery, which is purported to last 2 full days and it has support for 100W wired charging, though the device does not come with the brick, so unless you happen to have a 100w capable USB adapter laying around, you will not be able to achieve these speeds with typical off the shelf plugs.
The official 100W adapter from Xiaomi costs roughly £30, so that's another price you may have to factor into this purchase, depending if you already own one or not, or even if you're interested in speedy 100W charging.
Tech Specs:
- Model: Poco X8 Pro 2511FPC34G (GSM / HSPA / LTE / 5G)
- Materials: Glass & Aluminium (IP68/IP69K) 6.59"
- Sim Type: Dual Nano SIM
- CPU: Octa-Core MediaTek Dimensity 8500-Ultra (4 @ 2.20 GHz, 3 @ 3.20 GHz, 1 @ 3.40 GHz) 4 nm
- GPU: Mali-G720 MC8 6GB
- Memory: 12 GB LPDDR5X / 512 GB Storage
- OS: Android 16 with Xiaomi HyperOS 3.0.1.0
- Battery: 6500 mAh Li-poly (2 day battery life)
- Charging: 100W wired, 27W reverse charging
- Screen: AMOLED 30 - 120 Hz, 19.6:9 ratio, 68B colours, Dolby Vision, HDR10+, 3500 nits peak
- Resolution: 2756 x 1268 (460 PPI density)
- Main Camera: 50 MP Ultrawide / 8 MP wide f/1.5
- Selfie Camera: 20 MP f/2.2
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 dualband, Bluetooth 5.4 A2DP Auracast, NFC
- GPS: (L1+L5), BDS (B1I+B1c+B2a), GALILEO (E1+E5a), QZSS (L1+L5), NavIC (L5), GLONASS
Excellent Battery Life, Bulging With Bloatware
The Iron Man styling runs deeply into this device. From the holographic Tony Stark "autographed" print on the back to the armor-styled case, through to the arc reactor boot animation, as well as the icons and gold/black colour-way used throughout. It's pretty cool at first glance, but I felt that it ultimately detracted from the ease of use a little by having awkwardly styled icons that I, as a mainly iPhone user, had to double check what was what. For example, the Google messages icon is a weird rectangle and the SMS messaging icon is the exact same weird rectangle. Thankfully you can alter the icons or turn off the theme altogether to avoid confusion.
The battery itself is awesome. I pushed this to it's limits with a series of tests through using social media, watching streaming media and playing games on it, and can confirm that it easily lasted me two days without even considering putting it on charge. If you really wanted to, you could even put this in ultra battery saver mode, converting it into a dumb phone, and eking out over four days (105+ hours) use before needing to juice it back up again.
One thing I really detest, which isn't limited to this model of Xiaomi/Redmi/Poco phone, was the phenomenal amount of bloat the device comes lumbered with. Upon set up, you can choose not to install around 12 applications, but even after this, the phone comes pre-packed with apps Xiaomi expects the average user to want to use, for example Amazon, Netflix, TikTok, Chrome, and Facebook, etc. Beyond this, there are already a dozen weird crappy-looking games installed, as well as Mi Music, App Mall, Mi Store, Mi Remote, ShareMe, MiMover, MiBrowser, Xiaomi Home, Game Center and an obligatory feedback app called MIUI Services and Feedback.
Needless to say that I uninstalled and removed everything that wasn't essential to my day to day usage, but it would have been nice to have an option to not have these apps bundled in at all, so that I didn't have to waste time removing them.
Scoring 1713 single core and 6465 multi core, the X8 Pro's 8500-Ultra offers roughly a 10% performance boost over the X7 Pro's 1547/5943 benchmarks under the 8400 Dimensity. In real terms, this means that the performance is slightly snappier, efficiency is improved, and frame rates in games will be a tad bit better. It's no paradigm shift, and no revolutionary leap, but it's always good to have year-on-year gains and a better capability to handle modern apps with ease.
As a daily driver, this model excels in delivering a speedy OS experience throughout the day, and it will serve you well, with no notable slowdowns or jittery display issues.
I was quite happily able to test various apps, run benchmarks, send and receive messages, make calls, and watch streaming media on this device, with no notable issues. I have to say that the screen is wonderfully vibrant and bright, with a peak brightness of 3500 nits making it perfect for use outdoors regardless of the lighting situation this time of year.
Call quality is also notably fantastic. A feature of most modern phones that we take for granted, the ability to make a receive calls is often overlooked and sometimes relegated to second place in terms of what we look for when buying phones. Thankfully the call quality is top-notch on the X8 Pro. Rest assured, you will be able to hear and communicate crisply, as well as game on it!
A Capable 50 MP Camera, Questionable Post Processing
Taking photos with the X8 Pro provides you with some really nice quality images providing you use the correct settings. The standard camera mode is ideal for most whimsical snapping, but the pro camera mode is where you really want to be, for several reasons.
First and foremost, the display port itself lags in regular camera mode, with a notable delay seen on screen as opposed to what you see with your eyes. I even held my iPhone camera open next to it and waved them around side-by-side, only to see the delay even more notable. Once pro mode is open and in use, this odd delay is gone.
Pro mode also allows you dial in your aperture, ISO and white balance if you wish to, but also has automatic AI enhanced features that attempt to give you the best settings possible given the lighting and subject matter. This mode is by far my favourite, completely negating the need for the regular camera mode. They should just make the Pro mode the standard, perhaps with an option to hide the OSD to make it look less daunting for amateur photographers.
The one thing I really didn't like on the camera, is the zoom. I attempted to get really granular with some detailed shots and, once zoomed to 10x, the image taken is treated to some utterly hideous post processing, which you can see for yourself below. The raw non-zoomed images are 7-9 MB-sized, gorgeously vibrant, crisply detailed and a more than decent representation of exactly what I saw with my naked eye. The zoomed images on the other hand, are processed (sharpened and badly interpreted) to within an inch of their lives, becoming utterly unreadable swirly messes. Best to turn it off, or refrain from zooming to the 10x threshold.
2D NSW Games, PSP/PS2/Wii/GC & DC is the Upper Limit
Gaming on the X8 Pro is extremely serviceable, with emulation up to DC/Wii/GameCube and even PS2 running in a more than playable state with native resolutions, and even the Nintendo Switch emulator, Eden (latest nightly), running a little slow for less intensive games like Super Mario Bros. Wonder. More 3D-oriented games like Super Mario Odyssey and Luigi's Mansion 3 will also run, but suffer extreme slowdowns to the point that I wouldn't recommend trying to play them until NSW 3D emulation is more forgiving on these GPUs, even with a precompiled shader cache present.
Note: for anyone wondering, no Xemu is not worth mentioning yet, because the state of emulation without an legit release is ugly and disappointing. I'm sure once a release is made by the official team, for free, there will be much better compatibility and more Android-focused tweaks to bring those games to you mobile devices. Whether the X8 Pro even handles Xbox OG games remains to be seen.
Game turbo's "Wild mode", isn't exactly wild. It doesn't appear to do too much in comparative testing but it spikes wildly when enabled and disabled repeatedly it was sometimes stating that it was producing over 116 FPS in some 30 FPS-capped emulators. Surely it must be adding stability at some level, stabilising frame rates "up to 120 FPS" but I simply don't see it. Perhaps I hoped that it would negate any slight frame dips, but it simply doesn't.
Games appeared to run equally well with and without the mode turned on, and as stated, I didn't note any additional enhancements one way or another. One example is Super Mario Sunshine, which runs at a locked 29.xx FPS in normal mode, and stutters on the opening transition to the file select screen. The exact same frame rate and stutter appears with "Wild Mode" enabled, so what exactly is it doing?
A Decent Daily Driver, Pestered by Small Inconveniences
The X8 Pro is a nice all-rounder, with a sleek Iron Man theme that leans into the black and gold, rather than the red and silver of the X7 Pro. I appreciate the crossover and the styling that has gone into the packaging and accoutrements that come in the box, but I have to say that it's disappointing not to have a 100w capable charger in the box.
Starting from £349, it's a reasonably priced smartphone which packs a rock solid metal build quality with a nice camera and decent gaming capabilities.
Verdict
- Presentation box is nice
- Built from premium materials
- Budget friendly + gaming sufficient
- 2 day battery life + 100w hypercharge
- Dimensity over Snapdragon chip
- No charger included at all
- Bloat filled
