The Xiaomi Mi Band 8 is a 27-gram band with a 1.62-inch AMOLED display, a metal frame and more than 150 workout modes, for a price well under most fitness trackers. Wareable liked the 60Hz refresh and the improved brightness; Tech Advisor found the tracking useful as a general guide rather than accurate to the metre. There is no GPS, no NFC and no voice assistant, and the magnetic charger is sold separately. Budget buyers who want daily activity and heart-rate tracking are the fit; anyone who runs without a phone is not.
Full review
Metal frame and a 1.62-inch AMOLED at 60Hz
The Band 8 swaps the previous plastic unibody for a metal frame, and the 1.62-inch AMOLED runs 192 by 490 pixels at a 60Hz refresh rate - a visible upgrade in how the interface moves rather than in how it looks. Brightness is adequate outdoors and still loses to direct sun, per Tech Advisor. There are no side buttons, so everything happens on the touchscreen. Notebookcheck found the strap's clasp fiddly, which is the sort of daily annoyance a spec sheet never captures.
It clips to a shoe or hangs from a necklace
Xiaomi sells a pendant clip and a shoe clip that move the band off the wrist entirely, turning it into a running-form sensor at the foot or a discreet pendant. Wareable treated the shoe clip as the more interesting of the two, since it feeds stride and cadence data the wrist cannot see. Both accessories cost extra, as does the magnetic charger, which is not in the box - worth adding to the price before comparing this against anything else.
More than 150 workout modes, and no GPS
Heart rate, blood-oxygen and a six-axis motion sensor feed more than 150 workout modes, with running getting the most attention including stride and cadence figures. The gap is GPS: without it, distance and pace depend on a paired phone in a pocket. Wareable is direct that this makes standalone distance tracking unreliable, and Tech Advisor's broader finding was that accuracy is good enough to trend against and not good enough to measure with.
Two weeks a charge from a 190mAh cell
The 190mAh cell runs past two weeks at default brightness with the always-on display disabled, and charges fully in about an hour. That endurance is the strongest argument for a band over a smartwatch, and the missing GPS is part of why it lasts, since there is no power-hungry radio to run. Water resistance covers swimming, so it can stay on the wrist through the whole week.
No NFC, no assistant, no replying to notifications
There is no NFC, so no contactless payments. There is no microphone or speaker, so no voice assistant and no calls. Notifications arrive but cannot be answered, and the screen shows the first few lines of a message and no more. Third-party app support does not exist beyond what Mi Fitness itself offers. These omissions are what separate a tracker from a watch, and they are also why this one costs what it does.
Strengths
- +150 sports modes including advanced run tracking
- +60Hz display refresh rate for smoother navigation
- +Improved design with versatile attachment options (necklace, shoe clip)
- +Excellent battery life with 190mAh capacity
Watch-outs
- −No GPS tracking for outdoor activities
- −Limited health tracking accuracy in some areas
- −Cannot make or receive phone calls, lacks voice assistant support
How it compares
The Xiaomi Mi Band 8 offers more sports modes and a smoother 60Hz display compared to the Fitbit Inspire 3, but lacks GPS tracking that the Fitbit Charge 6 provides. While the Garmin Vivosmart 5 has better app ecosystem, the Mi Band 8 is more affordable and versatile with its necklace and shoe clip attachments, unlike the Amazfit Band 7 which has better battery life.
Rating sources
“Cheap tracker. The Xiaomi Smart Band 8 is one of the most affordable fitness trackers on the market.”
Our 3.8 score is the average of these published ratings. Ratings marked * were derived from the reviewer’s written analysis or video transcript — the publisher didn’t print an explicit numeric score, so we inferred one from their own words. Click through to verify. More about methodology.
