Affordable Xiaomi phone beats $1,500 smartphone in review for a third of the price

Anyone who spends $1,500 on a new smartphone expects top-tier performance. But our review of the Reno16 Pro shows that even in 2026, an affordable mid-range phone can outperform new premium models in terms of performance. 

The Poco X8 Pro is listed at a current price of around $380 (available on Amazon.com). The Reno16 Pro is currently only available in the 512-GB version for about $1,500. In our benchmarks, however, the brand-new Oppo smartphone falls short of the affordable mid-range Xiaomi model in Geekbench, both in single-core and multi-core scores. 

Although the Poco X8 Pro offers a slightly higher resolution on its OLED screen, it actually delivers higher average on-screen scores in GFXBench. Here, the thermal limits of the smartphones are the decisive factor. And it is precisely in this area that the Oppo phone shows some weaknesses inour review.

 
Oppo Reno16 ProMediaTek Dimensity 8550, ARM Mali-G720 MP8, 512 GB UFS 3.1 Flash
 
Xiaomi Poco X8 ProMediaTek Dimensity 8500, ARM Mali-G720 MP8, 512 GB UFS 4.1 Flash

Inside the sleek Oppo phone is the MediaTek Dimensity 8550. In our detailed review, however, this MediaTek SoC turns out to be only a minor refresh of the older Dimensity 8500. Unfortunately, the performance shortfall isn’t the Reno16 Pro’s only issue. You can read more about this in our review of the Oppo phone.

Is the Oppo Reno16 Pro a bad smartphone overall? Not at all. If you appreciate a compact 6.32-inch form factor, you’ll get a superbly crafted body with thin display bezels, strong battery life for the compact class, and a lightning-fast ultrasonic fingerprint sensor. The Oppo phone also scores points when it comes to updates, with five years of guaranteed Android updates.

You can find all the details and test results for the Oppo smartphone in our review.

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Marcus Herbrich, 2026-09- 5 (Update: 2026-09- 2)