Poco X8 Pro Max review: The midrange has escaped to the Max
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Impressive performance
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Outstanding battery life
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Big, beautiful display
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The software is still very comprehensive
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Amazing cameras
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A lot
Early indications are that 2026 is the year of smartphone stasis, with spiking costs leading some manufacturers to repackage the same phone and label it as new. Trust Xiaomi’s Poco product to capture something you desire.
The Poco X8 Pro Max is the first ‘Max’ device in the series, promising advanced performance while maintaining its mid-market prices. If you’re looking for the fastest possible phone under £500, it could be your best option right now.
Poco X8 Pro Max review: What you need to know
Poco’s MO works very well, and the Poco X8 Pro Max takes Xiaomi’s mid-range offering to the next level. It lives up to its Max mark with a large 6.83-inch AMOLED display, IP69K dust and water resistance, a large 8,500mAh battery and a formidable 100W wireless charging.
You can also expect more performance for the money, courtesy of the powerful Dimensity 9500s processor, paired with 12 or 16GB of RAM. The base model also offers a whopping 256GB of internal storage, which can be doubled up to 512GB if desired.
One thing that is decidedly not Maximal is the stripped down graphics setup of the X8 Pro Max. There is a 50-megapixel main camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide, and a 20-megapixel selfie camera.
Poco X8 Pro Max review: Price and competition
With a starting price of £469, the Poco X8 Pro Max is the most expensive X series model we’ve seen by some margin. The Poco X8 Pro (no Max) costs just £349, while its predecessor the Poco X7 Pro came in at just £309.
The phones are arguably more expensive across the board, but even at this price the Poco X8 Pro Max still smacks in the middle of the smartphone market, costing half the price iPhone Air or a Google Pixel 10 Pro.
Positioned to undercut the Nothing Phone (4a) Pro, Google Pixel 10a, and (soon to be replaced) Samsung Galaxy A56all of which carry expensive starting prices of £499.
Poco X8 Pro Max review: Design and key features
Poco X8 Pro Max represents a subtle evolution of the product’s design language. It’s very similar to the Poco X7 Pro before it, with a flat body with an iPhone-esque edge and a dual pill-like vertical camera module.
This is a more premium piece of kit, though, as befits its Pro Max status. Instead of plastic, its edge is made of metal, and its back is glass. It also boasts extensive water resistance, covering IP66, IP68, IP69, and IP69K – better than most flagship phones.
Points of interest around the edge of the phone include red around the left-click power button, an IR blaster on the top edge (great for replacing a lost TV remote), and edge-mounted stereo speakers that put out a decent level of clarity and range for the money. The twin camera modules feature custom RGB lighting rings that can respond to different notifications, which may come in handy for those who put their phones down when not in use.
On the front of the phone, the screen bezels aren’t exactly the same, but the differences are subtle enough. Meanwhile, under the display sits a fast and secure ultrasonic fingerprint sensor, which is another flagship-grade flourish.
I weigh the phone at around 219g, which is slightly heavier than Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. It certainly gets its Max designation, but that applies to the high-quality feel of the phone in its bulk.
As always, Poco’s software fails to match its hardware. Xiaomi’s HyperOS 3.0 is fast and efficient, with plenty of personalization capabilities and a dash of standard AI tools if you want to indulge. But it’s also very busy and full of bloatware, with the likes of Temu, TikTok, Booking.com and Facebook gracing the home screen, not to mention a folder full of rubbish games.
Meanwhile, four years of operating system updates and six years of security is fine, but falls short of the seven-year support promise for the Pixel 10a and Galaxy A56.
Poco X8 Pro Max review: Display
Max in name, Max in appearance. Poco’s series-topper crams in a large 6.83-inch OLED display with a sharp 1,280 x 2,772 (1.5K) resolution.
The refresh rate is great at the standard 120Hz, while the brand says it can reach 3500 cd/m2 brightness in high situations – which means limited parts of the screen during HDR playback. Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and HDR Vivid are all supported.
In my tests, with automatic brightness turned off, I recorded a maximum brightness of 629cd/m2, which is almost 23% higher than the Poco X7 Pro. Color accuracy is excellent, with 98.4% sRGB gamut coverage compared to 102.2% volume, and an average Delta E ratio of 1.1. Thankfully, this was in the original color scheme of the Original Pro color, so I didn’t have to mess around in the Settings menu to get a nice natural result.
Poco screens usually punch above their weight, and that remains the case with the brand’s new Max model.
Poco X8 Pro Max review: Performance and battery life
Poco hasn’t given its new phone Max power, but the phone’s Mediatek Dimensity 9500s chip gives it excellent value for money – especially with the decent 12 or 16GB of RAM available.
The average Geekbench 6 CPU multi-core benchmark score of 8597 represents a massive 38% increase over last year. Poco X7 Pro. It’s also close to double the score scored by the Pixel 10a, and nestles nicely between the Google Pixel 10 as well as OnePlus 15R – two phones cost hundreds of pounds more.
When it comes to throwing graphics around, the Poco X8 Pro Max scores 20,838 on Geekbench 6 Vulkan GPU. That’s almost double the Pixel 10a’s score. Physically, I was able to play rounds of Destiny Rising smoothly and smoothly on the highest Graphics Mode and Render Quality settings, though the Frame Rate was limited to Normal. It’s just a notch or two below the big boys.
More eye-catching than the performance output of Poco X8 Pro Max is its battery. At 8,500mAh, this is the largest smartphone battery I’ve ever used, even for battery placement OnePlus 157,300mAh cell in the shade. It didn’t quite match that phone in our video battery test, but at 39hrs 20mins it’s significantly better than the Poco X7 Pro and almost edges out the frugal Pixel 10a, just shy of it. Honor Magic 8 Lite.
Poco has given its phone enough wired charging grunt to match that capacity, to the tune of 100W. Connecting a suitable charger (I used a Xiaomi 120W brick), the Poco X8 Pro Max went from empty to 59% in 30 minutes, and progressed to full charge in about an hour. That’s nothing spectacular, but it outshines the Pixel 10a, and it’s usually impressive given the large capacity.
Poco X8 Pro Max review: Cameras
The graphics rendering of the Poco X8 Pro Max is decidedly smaller. There are just two cameras around the back, and both are modest. It includes a 50-megapixel 1/1.95″ main sensor with f/1.5 aperture and OIS, and an 8-megapixel 1/4.0″ ultra-wide sensor with f/2.2 aperture.
There’s no dedicated telephoto camera, though that’s far from a common or expected feature at the high end of the market. There is a standard 20 megapixel camera on the front. Everything seems very similar to the Poco X8 Pro and indeed the Poco X7 Pro before it.
Although the main sensor here is slightly different – the Light Fusion 600 – the results are always the same. Shots taken in good light with the main sensor are reasonably detailed and well exposed. The ultra-wide loses a lot in terms of detail and dynamic range, although the tone falls within the same ballpark as the main high-end sensor, which is far from what is offered on a cheap phone.
Zooming is possible, courtesy of the standard cropping techniques on the main sensor, but detail starts to fall apart noticeably beyond 2x (below). The camera app marks 5x and 10x options in the UI, but I wouldn’t recommend using them.
Night shots taken with the main sensor do a decent job of lighting the scene, making good use of the Dimensity 9500s to achieve acceptable shutter speeds, but you’ll notice some character from the sky.
That 20-megapixel front camera does an acceptable job with selfies, although it’s a small sensor with no autofocus, so you shouldn’t expect miracles. There’s an annoying aesthetic effect that’s applied automatically, though it’s relatively understated. The portrait mode does very well at separating the subject (you) from the background, which probably speaks to parent company Xiaomi’s excellent image processing.
Video capture extends to 4K and 60fps, and I’m reasonably happy with the video quality. Audio capture, too, proved reasonably accurate.
Poco X8 Pro Max review: Verdict
The Poco X8 Pro Max is another great value proposition for those who want more functionality from their mid-range phone. As the first Max in the series, it comfortably lives up to its name, offering a large and beautiful display, superior performance, and incredible power from a large battery – albeit with a correspondingly increased price.
It is a shame that the cameras did not get a smidgen of this love of Max, even if we fully accept that this is not the best product of Poco. Software, too, continues to be a weak point for Poco, as it belongs to the wider Xiaomi family.
Still, if you’ve got less than £500 to spend on your next phone and want it to be as big and fast as possible, buying the Poco X8 Pro Max would be a smart move that we fully endorse.
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