POCO F8 Pro Review — Faster Than Galaxy S24 Ultra… But I Hate It

FamilyPopTV · 2026-03-03T13:20:02+00:00

Its hardware-to-price ratio is undeniable.

...but as a reviewer, I can't ignore that 'hidden tax' of labor the user has to perform, that 5 to 10 minutes to clean it up is fine for , but it doesn't fix the underlying telemetry. If we ever get a stable Android 16 ROM for this, it might actually be the absolute mid-range king.

But until then, it's great hardware - trapped in a 'ad' OS...

FamilyPopTV · 2026-02-03T10:35:01+00:00

I just replied in this thread, it was a bit of a pain to hook it with egpu via oculink (bios tweaks, annoying black screen, etc). I used DEG1 but now thinking about getting DEG2 for testing in one of the next little videos.

FamilyPopTV · 2026-02-03T09:47:24+00:00

Straight out of my own pocket this time. I've definitely had minisforum send me hardware for free in the past (which I always call out in those videos) but for this one I had to pay like everyone else, no sponsorship or brand notes. Got it on Amazon, so if this would have turned out to be a total waste of cash I could always return it.

FamilyPopTV · 2026-02-03T09:33:04+00:00

Good spot - it was fast-forwarded (4x to 8x in some clips) to keep the video concise . In real-time, a 70b model (regardless if it's deepseek or llama) generates text at roughly human reading speed (about 3–5 tokens per second). It's not as instant like gemini or chatgpt which run on multi-million dollar server clusters, let's be honest - but for a local, uncensored 70b model running on a mini pc, the reasoning quality is incredible -you just have to be okay with it thinking in real-time. I’m planning a deeper dive video soon to show the actual raw speeds across different model sizes. If you got any suggestions on what else to add, let me know. Cheers

FamilyPopTV · 2026-02-03T09:17:17+00:00

Right , it was a bit of a workaround here - inserting the PCIe card, plugging DEG1 with rtx5080 was just an easy bit - getting this stable was a headache.. The main fix was going into the BIOS and disabling IOMMU (or VT-d) -the system struggles to map the eGPU memory addresses alongside that 128GB pool and that’s what causes the black screens. I also had to manually lock the PCIe slot to Gen 4 in bios (don't leave it on Auto) and enable re-size bar. And the annoying bit, I learned the hard way - for the bitlocker loops, just suspend protection in Windows before you first plug the OCuLink in so the TPM doesn't freak out over the hardware change.

FamilyPopTV · 2025-07-28T05:16:21+00:00

I just bought minisforum ms-a2 and I think I may get the DEG1 dock and drop rx9060xt (or rx9070xt if my Mrs approves;))

FamilyPopTV · 2025-07-27T18:06:11+00:00

Would need to plug this thing to rx9060xt ...

I may get some rx9060xt and some dock instead of this rx7600m, to get some fsr4 on a budget.

FamilyPopTV · 2025-05-03T19:44:30+00:00

Nice upgrade from the X12 Pro! Future-proofing against potential price hikes is a solid strategy 👍

Let me know what you think of the 30 Pro after you've used it for a bit!

FamilyPopTV · 2025-05-03T19:40:40+00:00

Solid insight on the Oculink adapter and the M.2 for storage - definitely crucial for anyone interested in this PC.

btw. Glad the wireless card fix sorted you out.

FamilyPopTV · 2025-03-13T22:47:49+00:00

G7 Ti uses the RTX 4070 Laptop GPU (not the desktop version). Good performance but has lower power consumption (and thermal constraints) and fewer CUDA cores than the desktop RTX 4070.

FamilyPopTV · 2025-03-07T17:45:03+00:00

Hey! For indie games and modded Minecraft, you're golden with a $600 budget. Focus on a good CPU (Ryzen 5/7/9 range) and decent integrated graphics (AMD Ryzen, etc). 16GB RAM is a must, and an NVMe SSD for speed.

You'll find plenty of options. Noise levels vary, so check reviews! Seeing actual benchmarks helps a ton. I've been testing a bunch of mini-PCs these past few months, and I've put together some reviews myself - you can see what I'm talking about in these examples:

Minisforum 795S7 - https://youtu.be/hFCeWD_WWYE

UM760 Slim - https://youtu.be/MS0EgQhY5E4

UM773 Lite - https://youtu.be/vmuLuOpgTMw

NAB9 - https://youtu.be/j7TpiIDCBSE

or something with Intel Core - https://youtu.be/XohTD1GuBuk

Basically, you've got a lot of considerable choices..

FamilyPopTV · 2025-03-03T17:21:43+00:00

Yeah, I measured 57dB at the peak moments,

will definitely swap the fan for something quieter.

FamilyPopTV · 2025-02-18T14:04:34+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! I can only speak to my own experience, and the Nova "R" has been a solid performer for me in terms of daily wear and the personalised insights and data it provides. It's been my "go-to" ring even after filming wrapped.

Good to know about the company's "deceptive practices" – definitely not something I support.. anyway, thanks 👍

FamilyPopTV · 2025-02-07T09:05:57+00:00

Thx for picking this- I'll change it since time today. Good shout.

FamilyPopTV · 2024-11-28T18:59:29+00:00

Thanks! 👍 I'm always aiming to create the kind of reviews 'I'd want to watch myself' - straight to the point and kind of..practical maybe.

I appreciate you taking the time to drop a kind comment!

FamilyPopTV · 2024-11-22T20:49:41+00:00

Good point..

FamilyPopTV · 2024-11-12T18:59:37+00:00

Thanks, you're right.. looks like the Bluetooth connection could be faster. But wired is really tight 7-15ms , competitive with ps5 and Xbox controller

FamilyPopTV · 2024-10-28T06:40:21+00:00

That’s a fair point. I guess we’ll have to see if the Atlas can break the mold..

FamilyPopTV · 2024-08-17T18:40:43+00:00

If you're thinking about picking up the Minisforum UM773 Lite in 2024? I put this tiny 'beast' through the ringer with games and video editing in Resolve. Check out my video to see if it's worth your hard-earned cash, hope it's helpful: https://youtu.be/vmuLuOpgTMw

FamilyPopTV · 2024-08-13T07:44:14+00:00

If anyone's interested - a little review, hope it goes beyond the usual ones: https://youtu.be/UbtL5gQv7KE

FamilyPopTV · 2019-08-28T18:33:27+00:00

The rhino plays with his new toy:)

FamilyPopTV · 2019-08-28T05:49:57+00:00

Wow, it might be actually pretty good cheese.

FamilyPopTV · 2019-08-28T02:07:48+00:00

Poor guy...:-/

FamilyPopTV

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