Poco X8 Pro Iron Man edition hands-on: Let's be cool for a change

The LED flash also resides in the center of the Arc Reactor core graphics, so when it's lit, it looks like the reactor core is active. The camera bump is largely the same as the one on the regular model, but there is gold contour around each ring and also around the whole system, outlining an oval shape.

The phone comes in a big box, and it's like an Iron Man suit carrying case. Inside you find the phone, a big cardboard separator with Marvel graphics, a USB-C cable, some paperwork, and a really cool case.

Normally, I'm firmly against smartphone cases when the phone itself looks really cool (e.g., the RedMagic 11 Pro), but in this case (pun not intended), the hard PC back looks even cooler than the phone's back. This case looks as if it's a part of the Iron Man suit.

Very bright display and a custom interface

The 6.59-inch AMOLED display inside this phone looks very bright. Even on a sunny March day, the phone remains perfectly legible, I think Poco's 3,500 nits brightness claims might have some grounding in reality.

The bezels are also quite thin, and there's a hole-punch for the selfie camera in the upper center. Colors look nice, and you also have a couple of adjustments at hand — you can make colors more vivid, play with the white balance, activate Reading Mode, and switch between 60Hz and 120Hz for the refresh rate.

The interface of the phone is also custom-made, from the Iron Man wallpaper, showing Tony Stark in its suit, to the icons. I wish Poco had done something with the sounds too, but they're just the default Poco ringtones and notification sounds.

This Iron Man suit could've been a tad faster

The Poco X8 Pro Iron Man uses a Dimensity 8500 Ultra chipset, coupled with 12GB of RAM. It's a new spin of the 8500 silicon, making its global debut on the Poco X8 series.

The chip features eight cores, 3 of them clocked at 3.2 GHz, four clocked at 2.2 GHz, and 1 doing the heavy lifting at 3.4 GHz. This architecture is called an "all-big-core" layout by Xiaomi, but our quick Geekbenck run showed midrange results.

The single-core result of around 1,500 points, coupled with 6,400 in the multi-core test, places this phone around the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 rivals, and that's quite old silicon. The score is also close to what the Xiaomi 15T managed with the older version of the same chipset — the Dimensity 8400 Ultra. So not a powerhouse when it comes to raw performance.

In day-to-day tasks the phone feels quite smooth, there is some lag when you cold-start an app, but it's barely noticeable.

Simple Iron Man sight

The camera system of the Poco X8 Iron Man edition consists of two snappers—a main 50MP camera that's the star of the show with its Sony IMX882 sensor. It's still a midrange camera silicon with a sensor size of 1/1.95", 1.6μm 4-in-1 pixel binning, and an aperture of f/1.5.

The second camera is a rather unimpressive 8MP ultrawide with an aperture of f/2.2. Poco doesn't share much about that one.

Finally, there's a 20MP front-facing camera for selfies. I managed to snap just a couple of shots for you to get an overall idea of the quality. The main camera gets the job done, but it's nothing to write home about. The ultrawide is not on par with modern 50MP or even 12MP ultrawides we're seeing in other phones.

The Iron Man suit has stamina!

The battery on board is a 6,500 mAh silicon-carbon cell, and while this capacity is far from the huge 8,500 cell inside the X8 Pro Max model, it's still quite impressive.

I spent some time with the phone (not enough for a proper battery test), but battery life felt really solid. I imagine you would be able to squeeze out two full days out of this phone easily if the need arises.

But with the 100W wired fast charging, this is even less important, as you can top up in minutes and charge from zero to top in under an hour.

The big omission here is wireless charging. The Poco X8 Pro Iron Man edition just doesn't have the necessary hardware, no charging coils, so you have to use good old wires.

My initial impression, price, and whether you should consider buying one

Let's start with the price, as it's very important. Special edition phones tend to be expensive, but Poco somehow made the X8 Pro Iron Man quite affordable. It costs just $399, and for that amount of money you're getting 512GB storage, a big battery and fast charging, a super bright and crisp AMOLED screen, and really cool looks.

On the other side of the coin there's the midrange chipset and camera and the lack of wireless charging. I think this model could be a great gift for your kid, as I don't think there's a youth that doesn't like Marvel and Iron Man in particular.