The Poco F8 Ultra is a flagship phone with great-sounding, striking-looking swagger, and a tempting price tag

The Poco F8 Ultra asserts itself as a formidable player in the smartphone market, delivering exceptional features without the hefty price tag often associated with flagship models among the best camera phones. Its expansive, vibrant display and premium build quality give it a luxurious feel that defies its cost. With a robust camera system, Bose‑enhanced audio, and impressive performance metrics, Poco is not merely competing; it’s redefining the smartphone landscape. I've been putting it to the test for the past month, and it has truly impressed me.

Poco F8 Ultra: Key specifications

Design and screen

• Big and bold design
• Denim-textured back

The Poco F8 Ultra makes a strong impression with its impressive 6.9-inch AMOLED display, which boasts a sharp 1200x2608 resolution. This big screen captures attention, delivering exceptional detail and brightness, and makes you question why you settled for lesser displays before.

Flip it over, and the vibe shifts from futuristic slab to something more tactile and characterful. The Denim Blue finish (denim in spirit, not in fabric, as Poco is very keen to clarify) gives the phone a textured, almost playful identity. It’s a refreshing break from the usual glass‑and‑gloss parade.

Then there’s the Light Fusion camera system on the front, tucked into a three‑lens notch with a flash, next to a speaker with the words 'Sound by Bose' emblazoned across it. It’s distinctive, a bit dramatic, and undeniably Poco.

Design score: 5/5

Features and performance

• Astonishing performance
• A subwoofer? In a phone?! In this economy?!!

The Poco F8 Ultra arrives with the swagger of a phone that knows exactly which family it belongs to, and isn’t shy about out‑muscling a few of its Xiaomi cousins along the way. The triple‑50MP rear camera setup gives it the kind of photographic credibility that makes you double‑take at the price bracket. It’s not just “good for Poco”; it’s good, full stop. Add in the Light Fusion front camera system with its distinctive multi‑lens notch and you’ve got a device that treats imaging like a headline act, not an afterthought.

Audio gets the same star treatment. Poco’s collaboration with Bose is front‑and‑centre on the product page, and the speakers absolutely behave like they’ve been raised on a steady diet of stadium tours and unreasonable volume sliders. It’s loud, it’s clean, and it’s the kind of sound system that makes you wonder whether your TV should be worried.

Under the hood, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset keeps things icy even when you push it a welcome nod to proper thermal management. Benchmarking scores reflect that muscle, with the chip positioned at the very top of Qualcomm’s current stack.

In fact, it handily beats the Geekbench 6 scores recorded by the most celebrated Android model, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, and by a staggering margin on every front. Reminder: the Poco comes in at £599. The Samsung costs £1,349.

Powering all this is a 6500 mAh battery with 100W wired charging, which is Poco’s way of saying: “Yes, you can use this thing all day. And yes, you can panic‑charge it in the time it takes to make toast.”

It’s a feature‑packed, performance‑happy slab of ambition, and it absolutely delivers.

Performance score: 5/5

Performance score: 5/5

Camera

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The Poco F8 Ultra’s camera array feels like Poco finally deciding it’s done playing in the shallow end. You get a trio of lenses: wide, telephoto, and ultrawide, that work together with a kind of easy confidence, producing startlingly sharp photos. Not “good for the price,” not “surprisingly decent,” but properly crisp, detailed images that hold up even when you zoom in like an over‑zealous detective in a TV drama. I'd even go so far as to say it rivals the flagship Xiaomi camera system in many regards.

What makes the setup sing is how consistent it feels across those three focal lengths. The wide gives you the everyday hero shots, the telephoto adds reach without collapsing into mush, and the ultra‑wide keeps distortion in check while still capturing the drama of big scenes. It even does crisp lil macros! It’s a flexible, grown‑up system.

And then there’s the 8K video capability, because apparently 4K is for peasants now. In all, it's a confident, capable camera system that punches well above expectation

Camera score: 4.5/5

Price

Everything about the Poco F8 Ultra screams "flagship quality", so you'd expect the price to at least stray close to a grand.

But nope.

You can grab it for $729/799 (depending on RAM) in the US and £599/699 in the UK. That, frankly, is absurd value.

Ludicrous.

Just ridiculous.

Value score: 5/5

Buy it if

• You want a big-screen phone with almost all the bells and whistles of a flagship
• You want a great camera
• You want distinctive design

Don't buy it if

• You prefer compact or small-screen phones