Poco X5 Pro review: Is Poco X5 Pro the best phone for gaming under Rs 25K?

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Poco X5 Pro review summary

Editor’s rating: 3.8/5

Design

Display

Performance

Battery

Camera

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Pros

  • Vibrant display
  • Good everyday performance
  • Dependable battery and charging
  • Excellent primary camera
  • Headphone jack and IR blaster

Cons

  • Poor secondary cameras
  • Runs on Android 12
  • Build quality lacks premium-ness

Poco joins the February frenzy with the launch of X5 Pro in India. The Poco X4 Pro successor appears to have received several upgrades, including a better chipset, 5G support, and a 108MP led camera system. With these additions, Poco has also slightly jumped up the price. So should you shower your love on the Poco X5 Pro or consider one of its alternatives? Let’s find out in the POCO X5 Pro 5G review. 

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Poco X5 Pro unboxing: What comes in the box

The box has all the expected contents. Here’s what Poco bundles with the phone:

  • Protective case and pre-applied screen protector
  • 67W Flash charge adaptor
  • USB cable for data transfer and charging
  • SIM ejector pin and documentation’

Poco X5 Pro Specs and Price in India

DevicePoco X5 Pro
OSAndroid 12 with MIUI 14
Display6.-67inch AMOLED
Resolution1080 x 2400 pixels
Max refresh rate120Hz
Dimensions76.03 x 162.91 x 7.9 mm
Weight181g
Battery capacity5,000mAh
ProcessorSnapdragon 778 CPU
RAM6GB/8GB
Storage128GB/256GB
Rear cameras108MP wide, 8MP ultrawide, 2MP macro
Front cameras16MP (f/2.2)
PortsUSB-C
BiometricsUltrasonic fingerprint sensor, facial recognition
Water and dust protectionIP52
UWBNo
Wireless chargingYesNo
Wireless5G mmWave / sub-6GHz, LTE, Wi-Fi 6E (6Ghz), Bluetooth 5.2
Starting price₹22,999/ ₹24,999

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Poco X5 Pro review: Design 

Poco has made a few tweaks to the new POCO X-series smartphone. The Poco X5 Pro continues to flaunt the flat edges and centered punch-hole display, just like its predecessor. It is also protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The X5 Pro 5G features slim bezels but a slightly noticeable chin. 

However, if you flip the phone, you will notice a few cosmetic changes that POCO has made compared to the X4 Pro. The rear panel is made of polycarbonate so is the side frame. Poco has given the back panel a fostered glass finish which looks cool without catching finger smudges. The X5 Pro camera hump sits on a rectangular glossy finish that also sports Poco branding. It contrasts nicely with fostered glass finish in the remaining back panel. Two of the three rear cameras further juts out from the camera island, making the phone wobble when placed on a flat surface. However, if you plan to use the provided protective case, you don’t need to worry about it.

Moving to the sides, the phone has a power button and volume rocker on the right edge, while the left edge is clean, just like the Poco X4 Pro. The top edge features an IR Blaster, a 3.5mm headphone jack a noise-canceling microphone, while the bottom edge includes a speaker grille, a primary microphone, a SIM ejector tray, and a USB Type-C port for charging and data transfers. 

The plastic unibody construction of the phone feels solid in hand. Overall, I am pretty content with the look and feel of the phone. 

Poco X5 Pro: Display and audio

The POCO X5 Pro 5G also sports a 6.67-inch AMOLED display with FHD+ (2,400 x 1,080p) resolution with a 120Hz refresh rate. The display also has a high contrast ratio of 5,000,000:1 and 10-bit colors. Poco has also taken Dolby Vision and HDR10+ certifications for the X5 Pro. 

After using the phone for a while, I can say that it’s a good screen offering a good viewing experience delivering vibrant colors and excellent contrast levels. Viewing angles are good too. 

Additionally, Widevine L1 certified is the POCO smartphone. The device can stream FHD video via OTT platforms.

Thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate everything looks and feels fluid. The POCO X5 Pro 5G can also dynamically adjust the refresh rate between 60Hz and 120Hz based on the material displayed on the screen to decrease power consumption.

Coming to audio quality, the phone comes with Stereo stereo speakers with Dolby Atoms certification. The speakers are decently loud and well-balanced for watching movies and playing video games. At the maximum level, the audio setup scarcely exhibits any distortion.

Poco X5 Pro Review: Performance and Software

The Snapdragon 778G SoC is the brains of the POCO X5 Pro 5G. This 6nm chipset has eight Kyro 670 cores with a maximum clock speed of 2.4GHz. For Graphics, the chipsets is paired with Adreno 642L GPU which can easily handle most tasks.

The phone comes with 6GB/ 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB UFS 2.2 ROM, which the user cannot expand. Poco does offer the ability to use up to + 3GB your storage as virtual RAM.

Software-wise, the POCO X5 Pro comes pre-installed with MIUI 14, the most recent custom skin, on top of Android 12, a relatively outdated operating system. The new custom Android skin lacks adverts much like the previous MIUI build did.

The custom skin still provides a plethora of modification and personalization choices. Users can choose between two alternative Control Centre styles. Customizing the Always-on-Display screen, changing wallpapers and themes, modifying the animation speed, and so on are all choices.

There are certain third-party apps already pre-installed on the Poco X5 Pro 5G, like Prime Video, Amazon, Moj, and others. Anytime you choose, you can choose to remove these applications. The option to configure Glance for lock screen wallpaper suggestions is also available.

For the X5 Pro smartphone, POCO guarantees two years of major software updates and three years of security updates.

The device outperformed some MediaTek Dimensity 1080 SoC-powered phones in its price range in terms of synthetic benchmarks as well as day-to-day performance. It’s an excellent choice for those who enjoy playing games on their smartphone but do not want to spend much money. The Snapdragon 778G is a competent processor, even for tackling daily chores and your resource-intensive asks.

On the Poco X5 Pro 5G, I played several games including Call of Duty: Mobile, and Asphalt 9 without any hitch. For COD Mobile, I had my graphics set to high and frame rates at Max. I managed to play it comfortably without encountering any lag. However, with Apex Legends Mobile the Poco X5 Pro did struggle with frame rates. It seems that Poco forgot to optimize its device for this particular popular game.

Coming to benchmarks, the Poco X5 Pro scored 5,29,429 on our Antutu test which is better than what Realme 10 Pro+ and Redmi Note 12 Pro+ scored during our testing.

On Geekbench 5 test, it scored 719 in single-core and 2,432 in the multi-core test. We also ran a throttle test where we noticed no throttling however, there is a slight rise in body temperature we could notice by touching the phone, nothing alarming though.

Poco X5 Pro review: Cameras

The POCO X5 Pro 5G has three cameras on the back, including a 108 MP Samsung ISOCELL HM2 primary sensor, an 8 MP ultra-wide lens, and a 2 MP macro sensor. The front camera is a 16 MP camera. By default, the 108MP sensor only records images with a 12MP resolution. In bright, sunny conditions, the results seemed well. The photographs taken using Poco X5 Pro primary camera delivered good detail and color vibrancy in day shots. However, the HDR images appear to have oversaturated color especially green.

When in night mode, the 1/1.52-inch Samsung ISOCELL HM2 sensor performs superbly preserving details in the shadows. I did miss OIS occasionally because of the slight blur that appeared in my low-light clicks.

The colors in the images captured by the 8MP ultra-wide camera were decent, but when you zoom in and you will find details are not that prominent. It is advised to avoid using the 2-megapixel macro camera because it took subpar pictures.

Poco X5 Pro review: Battery life

The 5,000mAh battery is the same as its predecessor. During my testing phase, I was able to use the phone for nearly a day without worrying about charging. I checked emails, Slack messages, streamed content, played games, and browsed the internet.

The phone ships with a 67W fast charger which charges 47% battery in 15 minutes. the 30 minutes, we were able to charge 80% battery. It takes 45 minutes to fully refill the battery.

Poco X5 Pro review verdict

The Poco X5 Pro 5G manages to deliver an excellent multimedia experience, respectable performance, and adequate battery life. With Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision support it’s a good device for consuming content. It was good for gaming too. The primary rear camera delivers good results but the remaining sensors are not really praise-worthy. The absence of Android 13 was a major disappointment for me. However, the software compensates for this with its wealth of features and minimal bloatware apps that are not useful.

Reasons to buy Poco X5 Pro

  • Vibrant display
  • Good everyday performance
  • Dependable battery and charging
  • Excellent primary camera
  • Headphone jack and IR blaster

Reasons to not buy Poco X5 Pro

  • Poor secondary cameras
  • Runs on Android 12
  • Build quality lacks premium-ness
Deepak RajawatDeepak Rajawat
Experienced technology journalist with over 7-years of experience. Before embracing online journalism, he has worked with several legacy publications including print editions at Hindustan Times and The Statesman. He also has a keen interest in Sports, which he used to cover with equal enthusiasm in his early career.

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