Pricing:
- POCO F8 Pro 12GB + 256GB – P29,999 (early bird price P26,299)
- POCO F8 Pro 12GB + 512GB – P31,999 (early bird price P28,299)
- POCO F8 Ultra 12GB + 256GB – P39,999 (early bird price P34,999)
- POCO F8 Ultra 12GB + 512GB P42,999 (early bird price P37,999)
*Early bird price is from November 26 to December 9 2025
Last April, I said that I can highly recommend the POCO F7 Ultra. This was because it was a true flagship device that was also quite affordable if placed side by side with your Samsung and OPPO flagships. As the first phone with the ‘Ultra’ label, you got a great all around camera with superb zoom, a fast Snapdragon Elite processor, and great battery management.
Well guess what? Seven months in, POCO has now launched its second Ultra phone, the POCO F8 Ultra. It didn’t take a year for POCO to push this follow up and your guess is as good as mine as to why this is the case (I feel it’s because of the impending price increase of RAM but more on this later).
As the second Ultra release in the series within the same year, what could the F8 Ultra possibly have to convince you to switch or upgrade? There are a bunch of things:
The POCO F8 Ultra has an improved screen compared to its predecessor. The 6.9 inch panel comes equipped with what they call HyperRGB, which is better color fidelity for display, that claims better color quality than AMOLED screens. Well, videos look great and Sword of Justice does look pretty. But I believe HyperRGB’s biggest contribution is less battery strain, with a claim of almost 20% battery savings for the display compared to the F7 Ultra. I’m also quite enamored by Reader Mode, where I have set up the device to mimic an ebook reader if I want to do some longer reading or editing with PDF files.
If POCO’s sister company Xiaomi partners with Leica for optics on their flagship camera tuning, POCO has partnered with BOSE for audio tuning on their Ultra devices. The F8 Ultra’s camera module prominently houses a mini subwoofer offering a 2.1 audio system that you don’t see in many smartphones. More than just a gimmick, I was quite surprised with the results.
Usually these 2.1 systems are meme level Tiktok fodder (yes the Michael Jackson ‘You are not alone’ meme). But the Sound by BOSE tuning is surprisingly elegant, full, yet subtle. I was able to customize my EQ settings to match the music I usually listen to.
Under the hood, POCO has moved to a dual-chip architecture. The new POCO F8 Ultra boasts the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Mobile Platform, which claims a 35% improvement in power efficiency and an AnTuTu score pushing past 3.9 million on paper. I was able to run my own benchmark and got a result of roughly 3.65 million. On Geekbench I was able to get almost 24000.
Just like its predecessor, the F8 Ultra comes with a dedicated VisionBoost chipset that accompanies the Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC. Now upgraded to VisionBoost D8, this serves the same purpose as the previous model, pushing visuals to 120 FPS at a higher 1.5K resolution. This technology is meant to unburden the main processor from heavylifting, which is quite funny because the Elite line from Qualcomm is already a powerhouse by itself. If you are old enough to remember math co-processors or floating point units, it’s quite similar. VisionBoost D8 is a sidekick that enhances gaming visuals and camera output. More importantly, by not straining the main CPU, the device overall saves battery life.
Which brings us to the last feature: a 6500 mAh battery is a whopper. We are looking at 100W fast charging tech with 50W wireless charging.
One of the most versatile flagship cameras
The POCO F8 Ultra comes with a 3x 50MP camera for wide, ultra wide, and periscope telephoto. On tests we got 10x optical zoom while 20x ultrazoom gives you mixed results. But really, these ultra zooming features are more for marketing than real utility.
I was able to get some great shots from our recent trip to Bali, Indonesia.
Parting words
The best looking variant of the POCO F8 Ultra is the one in Denim Blue, hands down (see photo below). That is not to say that other versions (I’m using the one in Black) aren’t nice. Overall, I like this new look better than the previous F7 Ultra as the camera module with the subwoofer looks more elegant.
POCO’s parent company Xiaomi has some of the best AI features in a phone, from translate, to transcribe, to a deep integration of Gemini into daily tasks. HyperOS 3.0 also has some of the best photo editing tools with AI Expand, Erase, and horizon fixing.
The F8 Ultra comes with NFC for your Google Wallet Tap To Pay feature that was recently launched in the Philippines. It also has eSIM support.
The Verdict
If you’re in the market for a new phone, POCO is always a good flagship choice. The time to buy is now as Xiaomi did mention in a statement that by 2026, we will be experiencing a price increase in smartphones because of the huge demand for RAM due to these pesky hyperscalers and their AI projects. If this is going to be a temporary price increase bubble like what we saw during the BTC mining days just a half decade ago, only time will tell.
This phone will not get any cheaper. It’s still a great deal now!
