Xiaomi’s spinoff brand POCO is back with a new Ultra phone that packs the best sounding speaker I’ve heard in a phone in years. This is thanks to a new speaker system developed in collaboration with audio giant Bose. This system includes symmetrical speaker grilles at top and bottom of the phone, and also a mini woofer that produces noticeable bass.
The POCO F8 Ultra’s camera module houses a woofer.
Ben Sin
The speakers are able to produce audio certified Hi-Res and, of course, Dolby Atmos. Elsewhere, the phone is powered by the newest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chip, and features a new 5X Periscope zoom lens that can produce some excellent 120mm portraits, as seen below.
POCO F8 Ultra 120mm portraits shot with the 5X lens.
Ben Sin
POCO F8 Ultra 5X 120mm portraits.
Ben Sin
The phone also packs a large 6500 mAh battery that can be charged at 100W, and one variant has this back material made to look and feel like denim. I find the material comfortable to hold and gives the phone a unique texture. The front side features a 6.9-inch OLED display with refresh rate up to 120Hz.
POCO F8 Ultra’s back side.
Ben Sin
The POCO F8 Ultra’s 6.9-inch display
Ben Sin
For all intents and purposes, this is a flagship phone, and with that comes a higher price than usual for POCO. The F8 Ultra will retail in Europe starting at around the equivalent of $729, although there is an early bird deal that knocks about $100 off. But as usual, I am sure this phone will be priced a bit lower in Asia regions like Hong Kong and Thailand, where I am guessing will retail at around the $600 range. Even at $729, the specs justify the price, but people do associate POCO with high value, low cost phones, so there will need to be some selling on POCO’s part. There is a lower tier POCO F8 Pro that starts at around $579 in Europe (which means in Asia will be around $450 or so), but it loses the woofer and runs on a slightly older chip, so I think most should go for the Ultra.