If you want a smartphone that stays up with your messaging, YouTube, calling and music requirements, the Poco M8 Power could be one to look out for if your budget is around ₹25,000; that's really the bottom line here.
It's not meant to be a gaming‑intensive smartphone, and we have been seeing price increases and lower‑end hardware being pushed to smartphones for a while now.
The RAM pricing situation isn't getting improved anytime soon, so if you really need a smartphone with the above‑mentioned requirements, you might as well get one.
The 8,000 mAh battery lasted me two days quite frequently, while the 6.9‑inch (1080x2396) AMOLED display is quite a tall one – it's usable under direct sunlight, has decent viewing angles and comes with good colour reproduction.
The rear 50 MP (f/1.8) camera does an okay job in daylight and strictly okay with moving subjects or in somewhat low‑lighting conditions. It can be used for group shots and portrait shots, provided there's decent light in place.
The front‑facing 8 MP (f/2.0) camera does a decent, but not exactly great, job for video calls and selfies outdoors in terms of details given the price tag.
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 4 Gen 4 chipset (up to 2.3 GHz octa‑core processor, Adreno 613 GPU) and 8 GB of LPDDR4X RAM combination running on Android 16‑based HyperOS 3.0 (June security patch) means a satisfactory performance for day‑to‑day tasks, including calling, messaging apps, YouTube, social feeds, downloading and editing photos, and so on.
This 128 GB UFS 2.2 phone isn't meant to be a gaming device and that's visible if you try a graphic‑intensive game, though stuff like Monument Valley runs well enough. Such is the time of the industry with RAM prices.
Call quality and network reception on the phone are top notch, something that didn't cause me any trouble while working on the go.
All in all, the Poco M8 Power aims to offer multiple days of battery life, a good display and decent performance to get your work done throughout the day while you also binge watch something on it. It isn't the best in terms of looks or sheer performance, but it does what it's meant to satisfactorily.
