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Poco's X8s Adds the 2.5x Telephoto Camera the X7 Never Had, in a Smaller 6.35-Inch Phone From $399
Poco launched the X8s globally with a 6.35-inch screen, a 50MP 2.5x telephoto camera, a 6,330mAh battery and 100W charging, at an early-bird $399 that isn't on its own product page.
Poco put a zoom lens in its smaller phone. The X8s carries a 50MP telephoto at “2.5x optical zoom,” a 57mm-equivalent lens at f/2.2, next to a “50MP Light Fusion 800 image sensor with OIS” for the main camera, Poco’s product page says. The page’s tagline for it is “Boundless vision in your hand.”
The hand part is the other change. The screen is a “6.35” 1.5K 120Hz AMOLED display,” the phone weighs “187g” and measures “8.06mm” thick. Inside are a “Snapdragon®7 Gen 4 Mobile Platform,” a “6330mAh Silicon-Carbon Battery” and “100W HyperCharge,” and it’s rated “IP68 water and dust resistant.”
The Poco X7 it follows had a 6.67-inch screen, a 5,110mAh battery, 45W charging and a MediaTek Dimensity 7300-Ultra. Its cameras were a 50MP main, an 8MP ultrawide and a 2MP macro. No telephoto.
The price came from the launch, not the page. “The handset has an early bird price of $399 for the 8GB/256GB variant,” Siddharth wrote at GSMArena on October 26. “Meanwhile, the 12GB/512GB option is priced at $499.” The phone “runs Android 16-based HyperOS 3,” and it comes in blue, black and white. What it costs once the early bird is gone, nobody has said yet.
| Poco X8s | Poco X7 | Google Pixel 10 | Apple iPhone 17 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price (US) | $399 early bird, import only | not on Poco’s page | $799 | $799 |
| Screen | 6.35 in | 6.67 in | 6.3 in | 6.3 in |
| Telephoto | 50MP, 2.5x optical | none | 10.8MP, 5x | none (2x crop of the 48MP main) |
| Battery | 6,330mAh | 5,110mAh | 4,970mAh typical | not given in mAh (up to 30 hours video) |
| Wired charging | 100W | 45W | 30W | not given in watts |
| Weight | 187 g | 185.5 g to 190 g | 7.2 oz (about 204 g) | 177 g |
| Update years promised | none stated | none stated | 7 years | none stated on the spec page |
The rivals’ figures are from Google’s Pixel 10 spec page, which promises “7 years of OS, security, and Pixel Drop updates,” and Apple’s iPhone 17 spec page, where the 2x option is a “12MP optical-quality 2x Telephoto” cropped from the main camera. “iPhone 17 starts at $799 (U.S.),” per Apple’s launch release.
For anyone who buys phones by the dozen, that missing number is the one that matters. A phone’s update window sets its retirement date, and a fleet can’t schedule a retirement date that was never published.
Expect the small-phone-with-zoom pitch to keep sliding down the price ladder. Once a $399 phone carries a real telephoto, a base model that crops its zoom from the main sensor has a harder time on a spec sheet, and the next round of mid-range phones will be judged on that row.
The open question is how long the early-bird $399 lasts, and what Poco charges after it.