Comments
Today marks almost exactly three years to the date since POCO became an independent brand and not just a lineup of smartphones under Xiaomi.
Despite the brand’s similarities to Xiaomi’s Redmi smartphone, POCO has clearly been trying to pack in powerful specs in the mid-range price segment.
The latest POCO X5 Pro aims to please the value-conscious consumer and here’s how it fares.
Design
The first thing that strikes me about the POCO X5 Pro is how incredibly light the smartphone is. With flat edges and a slender form factor — barely 8 mm at its thickest — the smartphone sits firmly in my palm.
There’s a two-tone finish on the rear panel. The camera island on top rests on a shiny blue island, while the rest of the rear panel sports a brushed matt finish.
I’m pretty pleased to see a headphone jack on top — a feature most high-end brands are trying hard to have us believe we don’t need.
The phone does feel a bit plasticky but the overall design keeps it from looking like a cheaply-made smartphone. The volume rocker and the power button are all the hardware buttons you get on the device — all placed on the right bezel.
The power button doubles up as a fingerprint sensor which unlocks quite snappily. The smartphone is IP53 rated which means it’s somewhat protected from dust and water spray, but is definitely not waterproof.
Display
The POCO X5 Pro sports a 6.67-inch AMOLED display, with refresh rates of up to 120Hz. Using the phone outdoors on sunny afternoons was no problem at all with the device’s brightness being sufficient for use under direct sunlight.
As expected watching movies and playing games on the screen was engaging enough.
The dramatic vistas of Ireland were rendered beautifully as I watched Bad Sisters, an Irish dark comedy series.
The speakers on the smartphone are loud and clear, although I did need subtitles to go with the heavy Irish accent.
Camera quality
The POCO X5 Pro has a three-camera setup, starting with the primary 108MP camera sensor. Supporting this is an 8MP ultra-wide snapper with a 120-degree FOV and a 2MP macro sensor.
Most of the shots taken outdoors rendered pretty satisfactory photographs. Shots taken with the optical zoom, at first glance, look clear enough but on closer glance aren’t very sharp when I blow them up.
The colour saturation is pretty accurate on most photographs taken outdoors. Without sufficient light indoors, the stills turned out a bit darker than was the case in reality.
The smartphone supports 4K recording (30 fps) and has special modes including short videos, slow-mo, and vlog modes. I found the vlog mode to be super handy to make short, dreamy reels for instant social media sharing.
Although the images and videos taken in this mode weren’t the sharpest, it does a cute, quick job of capturing snippets for your social media grid.
Completing the camera setup is the 16MP selfie snapper. Heavy filters kick in by default when I trigger the front cam, which I’m, personally, not a fan of. Without the filters on, the front camera does give decent photos but still tends to blur skin texture just a little bit.
Tech specs
The unit I reviewed had 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage space of which around 228 GB was available for me. The smartphone runs on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 778G processor and has MIUI 14 OS.
I find the default aesthetic of MIUI 14 a little too colourful for my liking — like a carnival pop-up on the smartphone. Dragging down from the top right shows me the shortcut for a bunch of settings whereas doing the same from the left shows me recent downloads and system notifications.
Battery life
Thankfully, with a 5,000mAh battery, the POCO X5 Pro is one of those phones that I didn’t have to rush to plug in at the end of the day. With moderate usage, the device kept me company for a good 1.5 days.
With a 67W turbo-charger packed in, it took about 45 minutes for a full charge from zero. When I was in a hurry a quick 20-minute charge sufficed for another 5-6 hours of usage.
Verdict
The POCO X5 Pro 5G is the kind of smartphone that leaves you wondering what’s the caveat?
Well, for starters, it’s not a significant upgrade from the POCO X4 Pro released in April 2022. And for that matter, it’s also uncannily similar to the Redmi Note 12 Pro launched last month. Having said that, there’s not much that this mid-ranger has got wrong.
At its price, it brings a vivid display, long battery life, and a well-performing processor to the consumer. With the mid-range segment getting even more crowded and competitive, thankfully it’s only the consumer who stands to gain the most from it.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.