Poco X8 Power Long-Term Review: This Is The New Mid-Range Endurance King

Battery. Battery. Battery. Did I mention the battery already? Well, we can also talk about the looks. Yes, I’m here to talk about the POCO X8 Power smartphone. It comes with a 1.5K 120Hz AMOLED display (with Dolby Vision), the Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 SoC and a massive 10,000mAh battery. It’s got a solid build quality and long software support.

Back in the day even an 8,000mAh battery inside a smartphone was a pipe dream. It’s 2026 and now we’re stuffing phones with 10,000mAh batteries. This puts the POCO X8 Power in a unique position.

While the 10,000mAh silicon-carbon battery is the USP of this phone, it’s also the design that has caught my attention. How did POCO manage to cram the battery into a package that comes in at 8.65mm thick and weighs just 229g? That’s the genius of the smartphone’s design team. What’s more is that you get a 1.5K AMOLED display (with a 120Hz refresh rate), Gorilla Glass Victus 2, IP69K protection, LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.1 storage. Oh, and did I mention it can be juiced up in no time via 100W charging speeds?!

Yes, the X8 Power (how i’ll refer to it henceforth) is stacked. With a price that starts at just Rs 35,999, you’re going to ask as to what the catch is. Well, there are over 80 pre-installed apps (included 35 third-party apps), and the cameras aren’t up to the mark, especially in low-light.

What I Liked

Build quality: Somehow, it didn’t feel hefty to me. My hands weren’t tired while using the smartphone and even when binge-watching cricket on the go, I had no fatigue. Yes, it is a little unwieldy at 229 grams, but you can’t deny that POCO has really thought about the design before going through with the super large battery. In fact, with IP66, IP68, IP69 and IP69K ratings, along with Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the display, you can be rest assured that you’re getting a premium smartphone with a build quality that’ll last you for years.

The Display: I really liked the 6.83-inch 1.5K AMOLED display (2772x1280). With 3500 nits of peak brightness, and 1060 nits of typical brightness, outdoor legibility was a thing of the past. As the display covers 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut, you can be rest assured that the colours are vibrant and popping. In fact, I was just watching India lose against New Zealand in a T20I as I’m writing this review. What surprised me the most was that this phone comes with Corning Gorilla Victus 2 protection.

Performance: The Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 performed admirably well, except for the one time when I left the smartphone dormant for a few days and hadn’t updated any of the apps. With a medium-to-heavy usage pattern, I didn’t face any heating issues and very minor lags at some points when I was pushing the device to its limits.

Battery life: In one word? Phenomenal. The smartphone easily lasts you two days even with heavy usage. The only way to kill it faster is to stream videos constantly or take videos 24/7. With 10 hours of screen-on-time (SoT), I was a happy camper.

What I Didn’t Like

Bloatware: HyperOS 3 isn’t the biggest offender, but it sure felt like it out of the box. Yes, the smartphone comes with a ton of pre-installed apps that will annoy any and everyone out there. HyperOS promises a smoother performance with expanded AI features and seamless ecosystem connectivity, and for the most part it delivers. But with a ton of bloatware, the smartphone can be a little laggy and janky.

Camera: Yes, they aren’t my cup of tea. Simply put, I wasn’t impressed by the dual-camera (50MP main and 8MP ultra-wide) setup. Yes, daylight shots in good lighting conditions will suffice, but for everything else, you’ll really be struggling to get a good shot. In low-light a lot of details are lost and noise creeps in. Ultra-wide photos? The less said the better. I’ve complained about the ultra-wide camera in a number of smartphones and it is no different here with respect to the X8 Power.

Long-Term Verdict

I’ve been putting the X8 Power to the paces quite a lot more than other reviewers out there. Thankfully, in that time, I haven’t noticed anything untowardly. There are no unexpected bugs, the phone is still speedy and snappy, and despite dropping it a couple of times, the body, frame, and display is intact. Oh, and unless I’m gaming for hours, or video recording, then it doesn’t at all heat up.

The X8 Power has stuffed a massive 10,000mAh battery into a smartphone with barely any compromises. If camera quality is your main focus, then you can look elsewhere. For everyone else, the X8 Power needs to be on your shopping list. It’s probably one of the best buys of 2026.

The only thing I would have liked would have been a 12GB RAM variant, but we all know the market dynamics at the moment. The only alternative that comes to mind is the realme P4 Power, which is cheaper, but a smartphone I definitely wouldn’t recommend.