Now sometimes everyone wanted a Smartphone that is the latest in terms of all the performance and features that one can desire, but brands certainly wanted to put all the latest in that might results in a higher price tier when selling it. Again, the POCO line up of smartphones is no stranger in bringing all the best of the mix when comes to giving the market what is right for the price, yet not much is being sacrifice to say.
We will look at the POCO F5 Pro, one of the POCO range of the F series model that is considered a sub premium in specs, but still be very much friendly on the pricing and specifications along with modern features that fits in your palm as your companion and of course, your communications tool as a phone.
Design
The very much approach of the F5 Pro is the back to the looks of a classic phone, sporting both glass back and front, while the frame is completely built of plastic. So to speak this also means that the POCO F5 Pro is not constructed entirely with cheap materials and the quality definitely stands. Edges are chamfered that brings in curves on all sides making it smooth to the touch, yet still holds some reasonable grips to it when operating with the phone. While using it there is hardly any fingerprint smudges or stain, and that is probably due to the glossy finishing on the most part of the phone’s body. It is weighted at 204 grams, and that is perfectly reasonable for a phone today that is packed with features.
There is no fancy colors like the previous versions, you only get Black or White as the color choices and I should say such strategy is a safe one, common and no confusing tones on sight that one wanna ponder on and decide which colors one should have.
The POCO F5 Pros ingress is IP54 certified, so no water submergence there but it should be able to withstand some dust and water splashes on the body of the phone and it will still holds up just fine.
Other than that you get your usual button placements that actually fits on most palms during operation alongside with a USB C Port for data and charging, a dual speaker setup, and the usual infrared port for controlling legacy electronic devices thru the included app in the phone.
Display & Audio
POCO does put quite abit on this part, the display of the POCO F5 Pro is well fitted with an 6.67 inch AMOLED WQHD+ display with 120Hz refresh rate, though the refresh rate is not dynamic, but it is still user selectable along with Dolby Vision, and good brightness peaked at about 1000nits, that is just makes it well suitable to used under bright or dark conditions. Upon that if you wanted to dial down the screen resolution, maybe just to save some battery out of it, you still can do so via the display settings in the phone. Others including DRM Widevine L1 and HDR playback is present to support your favorite streaming platforms on the go.
With that, there is an equipped stereo speakers that further amp up your enjoying, that also supports Dolby Atmos and equalizer pre customization which you can set it to your audio likings, and this will also work on USB C based headphones or Bluetooth TWS.
Both combined gives the best from Dolby while my experience is a pleasant one, with good color reproduction and in most situation the colors gives an advantage when comes to stream and games, while is audio is not the loudest, but definitely brings some quality and able to cover a size of a small room when enjoying it. So far as long the expectations are kept right, this is quite a good device for mobile entertainment.
Camera
This is the part where I am surprised that, with a good mid range budget phone, this one performs good when comes to the available set of camera within the POCO F5 Pro. Lets start with the rear camera set, a 64mp OIS with PDAF, 8MP ultrawide and a 2MP macro shooters combined located as an island bump at the back with a classic design placement to it.
Day time pictures can be well represented with bright colourful images that is accompanied with good amount of light absorption, accurate in most situation with limited dynamic range to it. While the sharpness is present, it is not as sharp as compared with phones within the same tier level. All I can say is the overall pictures taken are upload ready towards any social media platform and minor editing can still be done whether it is within the phone or with any of your editing platform outside from it, and it is well above passable level as if you wanted something that produces boosted color and clarity, this phone is a no brainer. Over night time all I can say it is still presentable if you dont mind the occasional high level noises exhibited but it is still perform its best as a flagship like device that still can take good night photos provided the conditions are met. I have no complain over the 16MP selfie as it is well supported with wide angle allowing group selfie whenever you need it with good subject identifications.
Towards video, it can record up to 8K at 24FPS, in any normal day, I guess 4K at 60FPS is more than suffice and it is a great video recording device which you can play with several in built features and filters should you desire.
Performance & Benchmarks
Now looking deep to the hearts of the POCO F5 Pro, it is powered by the dated but still plenty flagship powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SOC along with 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256GB of internal storage. In daily use, this is more than enough for all your calls and messages, while multitasking is not an issue at all with the speed available, gaming wise this phone can take on anything you wanted to, even graphical hungry ones like Genshin Impact for the likes of it. But one should bare in mind that it seems that throttle is much faster where framerate might go lower after 15minutes of continuous high graphical settings in game, while lowering the setting will keep your gaming right and much smoother, as the included SOC seems to be clocked just tiny bit lower, but its all good as this is to keep the performance sustained.
Beneath every POCO phones, its the MIUI along with Android 13 that does the magic of bringing the UI not too far away from the stock android OS UI, hence it is still lightweight in operations, while only several top of the cherry changes to the interface, which still brings customization such as themes, better control centre styles, privacy protection, second space and Game Turbo, which optimises your gaming experience with screen recording options.
I will just leave the benchmark results here, which is still standing strong scores along with its competition, and this proved that POCO F5 Pro is still only strong contenders in performance.
Verdict & Conclusion
The POCO F5 Pro is a phone that combines a classic back shell design but still carries a strong performance and updated camera to address the current needs of a user, while at the same time POCO did not left out the display, which in fact a nice one with good set configuration paired with within the heart of the phone. That said POCO will also be providing OS upgrade for at least another two years and three years of security update, while not the longest that we know of, at least this phone will bring you far with you just with a reasonable affordable price of RM2149 for the 12GB/256GB config, this is one worthy consideration to purchase.