Poco’s first Pro Max phone earns the name with an 8,500mAh battery

Xiaomi subsidiary Poco has launched the X8 Pro and X8 Pro Max phones, both of which feature large silicon-carbon batteries, powerful chipsets, and 256GB of storage as standard, with stronger specs on paper than the recent Pixel 10A despite costing less. Both Poco phones also feature a surprisingly subtle take on RGB lighting, with small rings of LEDs inside each of their rear cameras.

The X8 Pro Max, a new tier in Poco’s X line, is the more exciting of the two thanks to a huge 8,500mAh silicon-carbon battery — with an even larger 9,000mAh version available in India and some other markets. Either way, it should make for two to three days of battery life on a single charge, but you still get a fairly slim phone, just 8.2mm thick. The 100W PPS wired charging should guarantee fast refills too.

The Pro Max is powered by MediaTek’s Dimensity 9500s, a new chipset launched in January that’s only a slight step down from its Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5-rivaling 9500. It gets 12GB of RAM and either 256GB or 512GB storage, and has a large 6.83-inch OLED display.

The X8 Pro is just a little smaller, with a 6.59-inch panel. That brings with it a battery reduction, though, with a fairly steep drop to a 6,500mAh capacity — still substantial, but maybe not quite enough to hit two days of use. It’s powered by the sub-flagship Dimensity 8500-Ultra, with 8GB or 12GB of RAM and the same storage options as the Pro Max. Both phones have impressive dust and water resistance, up to IP69K, but similarly less-impressive cameras, with 50-megapixel main cameras, 8-megapixel ultrawides, and 20-megapixel selfies.

Poco has had a bit of fun with the design of those cameras, though. Both phones have rings of RGB lights built into each camera ring, which can be set to flash for calls, notifications from specific apps, music playback, and certain situations in compatible games (currently only PUBG and Call of Duty). While you can pick a specific color for calls and another for notifications, you can’t set custom colors or patterns by contact or app, making this less versatile than the likes of Nothing’s various Glyph lights.

If it occurred to you that the rings look just a little like Iron Man’s Arc Reactor, then you aren’t the only one. Poco is also releasing a limited edition Iron Man version of the X8 Pro in a garish black-and-gold design. It ships in a cardboard briefcase, and includes a custom case, cable, and SIM tool too.

While none of the three phones are launching in the US, Poco supplied its global prices in USD. The X8 Pro starts from $329, rising to $399 for the top configuration, the same price as the Iron Man edition. The X8 Pro Max starts at $469, with 512GB storage available for $60 more.

Photography by Dominic Preston / The Verge