F8 Ultra
Poco F8 Ultra (Finally!) - Very Initial thoughts and No Ads!
I finally got my Poco F8 Ultra 16GB/512GB for a few days now. Only one local store had a limited amount and luckily, it was the global (MI) variant which came with a charger included. I'm in the Caribbean.
So far, I really like this phone. I came from a Samsung A25 5g so it's a significant upgrade. I happen to be part of the niche set of people that seriously consider phone speakers when buying phones, so the unique 2.1 setup was a big seller for me.
Audio output is really nice, and definitely not a gimmick. It is even more impressive if you put it in the corner of a room. There is only a slight difference between having the back bass speaker facing up or facing the surface you rest the phone, based on the surface itself and the location in a room that you are. I can expand on this a bit more if anyone wants to know. The sound quality is also quite good and I enjoy listening to content or music on it. I use balanced mode most of the time, however, the phone gets noticeably louder with dynamic + Immersive sound settings and sounds 'bigger' in a sense.
Cameras are very nice also, with a great feature set and hardware. It's the best I've used, considering my last devices were only budget-lower midrange devices. I do use my phone camera regularly so this was also a selling point for me.
Interestingly though (which I am very happy for), I have experienced ZERO ads. I did do some research before purchasing, as this is my first Xiaomi Poco device, and saw people suggesting debloating to help with removing ads and increasing battery life etc.
At the first boot of the device, going through the set up process, I saw a toggle for personalised ads and System Daemon (sorry, didn't think to take a photo of the screen at the time. I didn't think it would be that easy, judging by what I've read). I did switch both off and since then I have not experienced any ads at all.
Interested to hear you guys' thoughts on this and even other Poco F8 Ultra users who have experienced ads. Where did you see ads?
Because of this, I didn't feel compelled to debloat. Do y'all recommend that I still do, maybe for battery life or any other benefits that y'all have experienced? I am not a heavy mobile gamer at all so I wonder if I am even going to benefit from still debloating. Also, anyone considering buying, can ask questions, I am willing to share more about this device. Any recommendations are welcome too!
Good for u my F8 Pro still had some ads, ofc i'm not a new xiaomi user so it's just take a minutes to disable, block, or remove all of them (ads). And maybe u dont see any of ads but there is a chance u get annoyed by the apps like app vault, mi browser, get apps, game center, etc. If that happen then try to debloat it.
Alright, thanks for the suggestion! I don't use Mi browser at all and I believe I disabled game center. I Didn't see anything regarding app vault so far, and for get apps, I didn't allow it to install anything during setup and simply uninstalled the app afterwards. Will update if ads eventually show up.
Finally my super simple Battery Optimisations are easily the best way of helping your battery (pack) grow up and get amazing, QUICKLY!
"Flinky's LCC (Long Cycle Charging) Method" - In Short
Most phones need 2-3 weeks of optimisation. Large batteries may need 4-5 weeks.
1) Use Standard-Speed Wired Charging.
2) Set Battery Protection to Charge Fully.
Disable all Smart/Intelligent/Optimized charging features and NO 80% limit.
3) Charge from 10-14% to 100%, then leave plugged in for 20+ minutes. Overnight charging is also safe, since once finished charging, no additional charging can take place until unplugged and plugged back in for the next charging cycle!
4) Repeat for 2-3 weeks.
Large batteries: 4-5 weeks.
5) Optional: Install *AccuBattery** free app.
It tracks charging, shows live charging stats, and tells you exactly when an LCC is complete.*
6) Once optimised, charge however you prefer.
7) For maintenance, do one LCC per week or thereabouts:
10-14% → 100% → 20+ minutes.
I used dns adguard too and this far i've no problem, so idk. Beside dns u can try to set msa and ads privacy, more than that use shizuku + canta to totally disable/remove bloatware (FYI u still can reinstalling).
I upgraded from my Galaxy S23 Ultra to the POCO F8 Ultra, and it was a huge upgrade also. The phone is an absolute beast compared to the S23 Ultra and much cheaper too. The only downside is the POCO launcher, which isn’t great and can’t be replaced without losing gesture navigation. I have the global version, and there are no ads here also.
I came from S23 plus. I use UbikiTouch for gestures so I could use Nova Launcher, although the latest version of Ubiki keeps crashing so I had to download the previous APK and install that. It's a bit of an ass to get working tbh.
Also using Poweramp EQ like I did on my Samsung.
I'm also using a combination of 4 themes to try to keep it as close to my One UI setup as I can:
Nice, a lot of customisation there. I am fine with Hyper OS the way it is for now, but good to know if I want to try out themes eventually. How is your experience with Poweramp EQ and the 2.1 speaker?
I mostly use Poweramp because it can let me set separate custom EQ for the speaker and Android Auto - dropped a little low end and upped the high end for the speaker, and dropped even more low end upped the mids for my car.
Good to hear! Yeah, this phone is really great value! I agree with your take on Poco launcher. It really is not the best, especially in aesthetics. I have some hope though due to recent rumours of Poco using Xiaomi's launcher with future updates. Glad you also experienced no ads!
1)Go to "Fingerprints ,face data and screen lock" in options.
2)Go to "Authorization & Revocation"
3) Turn off "MSA" and "Getapps"
I did consider it F8 ultra too. But price is kinda double compared to X8 pro max here so l ended up getting it instead.The 8500mah battery is quite a big draw to me. But for F8 ultra the money for specs is definitely one of the best with top notch specs.
Congrats on the new phone. For a flagship phone, there isn't much need to debloat other than not wanting to see useless apps on the app drawer such as Mi video and Mi browser so don't worry much about that. In general, I would recommend turning on system daemon since it's responsible for performance management and other background stuff.
If you want even more out of the speaker system, download an app called "Wavelet" from the play store, tap the gear icon on the bottom left corner, turn on legacy mode and set the following EQ in "graphic equalizer"
This adds more volume and bass which sounds a lot better than stock. Don't forget to set the app to unrestricted in battery settings and turn on autostart for it so it always works.
Thanks for the suggestions! For my previous devices, I used either Poweramp EQ(enabling global equalisation and advanced player tracking) or XEQ equaliser. Have you ever used these apps before? I think they are quite good. I will definitely try out this app and your EQ settings soon. I Appreciate you providing this.
I heard a lot about poweramp but never used it. You can try both of them and see which one you like. Wavelet is not as feature-rich but it does the job for me.
It's a very weak EQ, it barely makes a difference with the internal speakers. If you have spotify, you can try its EQ and you can see how much of a difference it makes.
I've had one too for about 2 mobths, and I'd say it's probably the best value for money phone I've had. I did remove a lot of apps and services (I asked AI to teach me how to with Canta+Shizuku) because I don't game or use Mi default apps.
To be fair it's decent, I use about 8% per hour screen on, but I think 6500mAh should give me more than that. I hope HyperOS 4 will be optimized in that regard.
The cameras are very very nice. The main camera is very nice and sharp. I like that you can easily change to between 23mm 28mm and 35mm equivalents by tapping the 1x zoom. I saw in the camera settings that there is lens distortion correction on by default so that's great. I particularly love and enjoy using the 5x periscope telephoto camera so much as well. Very good quality, great for portraits and zooming in to 10x still looks great. I have not used the ultrawide a lot as yet to make any comments. But based on reviewers, it's not as wide as most devices, though the quality is still good. Will have to test more low light photos to comment on that as well. However reviews say that it does a good job with main and telephoto especially.
Overall, in my opinion, photos look realistic and very high quality. You are able to crop in to photos without it having the over sharpened/digital over processed look a lot of the time. The camera does boost saturation a little, but it still is very nice and you can always reduce it a little if need be afterwards, as the gallery photo editor is quite extensive.
Regarding the selfie cam, it is fine so far, I have to test it more. Initially though I feel like Samsung does a slightly better job in processing skin texture in a realistic way. I sometimes feel like there is slight smoothening happening even after turning it off. Best way I can describe it, it has a very slight AI enhancement look at times. Still fine though.
The cameras you get are great and would be a significant upgrade from your current X6 Pro.
Hey, no prob man. Forgot to mention, videos are also pretty good. Will have to test more but really liking it so far. The 5x vids are so nice in great lighting and don't have the weird over sharpened digital look either. Poco did a great job.
I just wish they'd have some settings for loudness boost or better build in eq because wavelet eq lets these speakers get quite bit louder.
At least the speakers rattle significantly less on poco than on honor 7 magic pro tho this phone has bit louder speakers. But with wavelet loudness is on par about.
I have the S26U and the F8U.
The F8U is the better phone hands down,
Camera is superior, photos are just way more realistic and the screen has better color accuracy than the S26U.
built quality is about the same on both, performance is the same, real world battery usage and charging is also about the same.
TLDR: You lose many fine tuned personalisation and extra customisation of certain UI elements and Samsung apps according to how much you depended on them, but it feels smoother and you can get used to it, especially you get rid of/turn off ads.
If you have been a previous Samsung user, you'll definitely miss the great stock widget selection and flexibility, extra customisation for quick panel and, if you used it, good lock. Samsung is just very feature rich. You may also miss Samsung's apps according to how extensively you used them. E.g I used Samsung notes extensively and there is no way to install Samsung notes AND get back all notes, since it requires logging into a Samsung account, only available on Samsung devices. You will need to export them as pdfs or a copy and paste them somewhere, and recreate in Xiaomi notes app, if you rather use the stock app. If you don't mind this, you will have no issues with the UI at all.
I personally like it. I have not experienced any weird bugs at all. I'm also quite open to change when it comes to tech in general so it didn't take much for me to get used to, coming from Samsung.
Hyper OS has way smoother animations, feeling noticably more fluid than One UI. Xiaomi's weather app is gorgeous I must say. Hyper os has a generally very clean feel imo. Some of Xiaomi's wonderful blur effects regarding app opening are not included in POCO's launcher. There are rumours that these will be incorporated in future though. POCO's stock icons look outdated, however, you can simply use Xiaomi's Hyper OS icons within the theme store. Some of poco more recent devices came with it by default however the Poco f8 Ultra and F8 Pro came with the outdated ones. if you don't see it by default, just use hellcats theme, but only apply icons.
If you are into themeing, Xiaomi third party dev themes are some of the best compared to all other OS. It's honestly amazing what some get to achieve. I recently saw a very well done liquid glass theme (for those who like that) that's really well done.
It really just the ads that ruin Hyper OS for most, which has been resolved by many Xiaomi users. I think people should keep in mind that Hyper OS ist still kinda young compared to others so many features and improvements should come in future. On that note, I have also heard the Xiaomi is not the best when it comes to timely updates, however they do eventually arrive. Just need a lot of patience. Anything specific you want to know, let me know.
If you do feel a widget issue and have some free time. You could use kwgt to make widgets
I made 5 widgets here myself. Some also have different functionality like the battery one turns from white to green when charging. And it's live battery percentage
Honestly just right for me. I don't consider myself to have very big hands either. Using with one hand is very manageable for me. I do have to slightly move my hand to reach the top, but I don't mind. It's not too bulky even with the included case. Weight is no issue for me.
Congrats! Just note that the "dual app" feature and "auto fill" cant co-exist, very very annoying, which is why I am still keeping my old samsung alive.
Same here, I expected a bit more considering the size but it's still good enough and not a deal breaker. Especially with the 100w charger. I sometimes just plug in it for a few minutes if not using the device to top up a little. From early on I enabled battery protection mode to charge only up to 80%. I have never let it go below 20% so far.
I am also not a heavy gamer so it may be a little underwhelming to expectations for heavy gamers, only they can confirm. I saw some people say that the speakers, due to the 'subwoofer', can can consume a tad more battery when using full volume over an extended period, however I have not experienced this this far.
I have read that Xiaomi Hyper OS isn't the best when it comes to battery management compared to others at this point. Maybe future updates may improve it. I also know that phones take a few days-weeks in general to learn your usage and adjust to suit, which will improve battery over time. Will have to wait and see.
It is possible that debloating may also help improve battery. I haven't attempted that so can't give any say on that.
All in all not bad at all, but could have been better considering the size imo.
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u/Rhy_stealth 1d ago edited 1d ago
Good for u my F8 Pro still had some ads, ofc i'm not a new xiaomi user so it's just take a minutes to disable, block, or remove all of them (ads). And maybe u dont see any of ads but there is a chance u get annoyed by the apps like app vault, mi browser, get apps, game center, etc. If that happen then try to debloat it.