Poco’s new flagship phone has a mini Bose subwoofer for 2.1-channel audio – and I hope I’m not near one on the bus

• Xiaomi has launched a new Poco phone with a Bose-tuned subwoofer
• This is likely to deliver deeper bass than most handsets
• It also has a top-end chipset and a big battery

Poco – a sub-brand of Xiaomi – has come up with a novel way to make its latest handset stand out, and it’s something that you might not appreciate if you often get public transport.

You see, the company has partnered with Bose to equip the new Poco F8 Ultra with a subwoofer, along with dual stereo speakers. While stereo speakers aren’t unusual on phones, a subwoofer is, so this should be capable of delivering stronger bass than most smartphones.

That, of course, is a mixed blessing, as while it could turn the F8 Ultra into a genuinely useful mini speaker, it also inevitably means some people will take full advantage of the feature in public settings.

Still, it’s nice to see new and unusual features on phones, so we applaud Poco for that, even if we can already feel a headache coming on just imagining the antisocial ways this phone might be used.

A big screen and a massive battery

Subwoofer aside, the Poco F8 Ultra has a top-end Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 chipset, a 6.9-inch 120Hz OLED screen, a trio of 50MP cameras (one of which offers 5x optical zoom), a massive 6,500mAh battery, and 100W charging – or 50W when wireless.

It comes in two configurations – a version with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $729 / £749, and one with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage for $799 / £799. That said, there’s no word on when you’ll actually buy it in the US, and if you get it in the UK right now, it’s available at a hefty discount, with these two models currently reduced to £549 and £599 for the 12GB and 16GB versions, respectively.

Alongside this, Poco has also launched the F8 Pro, which also has dual stereo speakers tuned by Bose, but lacks the subwoofer.

It also has slightly inferior specs all round, including a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, 12GB of RAM, a 120Hz, 6.59-inch screen, a 6,210mAh battery with 100W charging, a 50MP wide camera, an 8MP ultra-wide, and a 50MP telephoto (with 2.5x optical zoom).

This one costs £549 / $579 for a model with 256GB of storage and £599 / $629 for one with 512GB of storage – but again, there’s no word on when you’ll actually be able to buy it in the US, despite pricing being announced, and you can currently get it at a reduced price in the UK, with it – presumably temporarily – going for £399 for 256GB of storage and £449 for 512GB.

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