Update | Xiaomi's Poco M8 5G arrives with a new design, smaller but sharper display, and 45W fast charging

Just a couple of months before its first anniversary, Xiaomi has announced a successor to the Poco M7. The Poco M8 5G arrives alongside its sibling, the Poco M8 Pro 5G. The new mid-range smartphone arrives with a revamped design and several internal upgrades.

The Poco M8 5G ditches the flat frame and flat back of the Poco M7 for a curved back panel that meets a slimmer and similarly curved frame. The display, which is smaller now, curves to meet the frame, too. Xiaomi has also dropped the round camera island for an equally large but squircle camera island.

The Poco M8 5G not only looks different, it has also gotten a durability upgrade, as it now boasts an IP65 dust- and water-resistant rating, unlike the dust and splash resistance of the Poco M7. Xiaomi will sell the Poco M8 5G in Green, Black, and Silver.  

Regarding its specs, the Poco M8 5G has a 6.77-inch Flow AMOLED display with a 2392 × 1080 resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. The screen has a typical brightness of 800 nits and a peak brightness of 3200 nits. It also has a 240Hz touch sampling rate, 3,840Hz PWM dimming, a 100% DCI-P3 color gamut, and support for Wet Touch Technology 2.0.

Powering it is the Snapdragon 6 Gen 3 processor, and it is paired with 8GB of LPPDR4X RAM. Buyers will be able to choose between 256GB and 512GB of UFS 2.2 storage, and if they need more storage, there is a microSD card slot for up to an additional 1TB of storage.

Despite the large camera island, the Poco M8 5G has just two cameras — a 50MP f/1.8 Light Fusion 400 sensor that can record in 4K and a 2MP depth camera. It also has a 20MP f/2.2 front-facing camera. The phone features dual speakers with Dolby Atmos and Hi-Res Audio certifications and has a 300% volume boost mode. There's Wi-Fi 5, Bluetooth 5.2, NFC, an IR blaster, an in-display fingerprint scanner, and a hybrid SIM card slot.

Despite the smaller display, Xiaomi has bumped the battery capacity up from 5,160mAh in the Poco M7 to 5,520mAh. It also charges significantly faster at 45W compared to 18W of its predecessor, and it is capable of charging other phones at up to 18W.

The Poco M8 5G runs Xiaomi HyperOS, but Xiaomi didn't say what version of Android it is. The Poco M8 5G is priced at €269.90/$229/£229 for the base model with 256GB of storage and €299.90/$279/£259 for the 512GB version. Poco will offer an early bird price of €229.90/$209/£189 and €259.90/$259/£219 respectively, from January 8 to January 14 on mi.com.