Poco has made a name for itself by offering smartphones with flagship-level specifications at affordable price points. With the Poco X5 Pro 5G, the brand continues to offer a high-end smartphone with a powerful Snapdragon 778G processor, 120Hz AMOLED DotDisplay display, 108MP main camera, 5G connectivity, and many other features at a fraction of the price of other flagship smartphones.
At just RM1449, the Poco X5 Pro 5G is perhaps the most affordable smartphone in this price range to offer such a powerful package. With that being said, our question is: has Poco been optimised to handle all this hardware and offer a pleasant user experience?
Overview:
The Poco X5 Pro 5G is built within a functional-centric body. The phone is encased in a ring of metal, giving it protection from dropping while earning extra style points (especially on the yellow variant, where the two-tone colour really makes it pop). This front display is a gorgeous 6.67-inch Flow AMOLED display. This display is perhaps the best a user can get at this price range; more on this later. Surrounding the phone we have the usual volume rocker and power button that double as a finger print sensor.
The camera is located at the back the top right corner. With three cameras, the primary camera is a whopping 108 MP wide angle camera by Samsung, followed by an 8 MP wide angle camera also by Samsung, and finally a 2 MP macro camera by Omnivision. This is a strong line-up of cameras that would provide great versatility to the user, except for the macro camera, which is just a placeholder.
Poco uses a matte finish for its back cover; other than for aesthetic reasons, this cover also houses 12 layers of graphite below it to help with taming the phone’s heat. Present below the casing is an NFC sensor; other than the usual key card function, Malaysian users can also use this for Google Pay as it was launched here not long ago.
Poco X5 Pro 5G Hardware:
The Poco X5 Pro 5G features a powerful Snapdragon 778G processor, a powerful mainstream SoC designed to deliver fast and efficient performance. This SoC has been used in many popular smartphones and has proven itself as an effective chipset to handle demanding workloads and games. The SOC is paired with up to either 6GB or 8GB worth of LPDDR4X RAM and two storage configurations: 128GB and 256GB UFS2.2. With UFS 2.2, it also made it possible for POCO to incorporate Dynamic RAM Expansion 3.0, where the phone accesses the UFS 2.2 as a temporary cache. Currently, with this technology, the Poco X5 Pro 5G can access up to 5GB worth of virtual RAM to speed up the device.
As per POCO’s DNA, not only the X5 Pro included a large 5000 mAh battery, providing longevities. And to recharge the large batteries, the phone comes with 67W turbo charging and MMT technology, further speeding up the charge time. With the bundled charger, it takes about 45 minute to full recharge the phone from 20%.
Poco X5 Pro 5G Screen:
The 6.67-inch Flow AMOLED DotDisplay on the phone is perhaps the most interesting component of the Poco X5 Pro 5G. Not only does it have 900 peak nits of brightness, a 120 Hz refresh rate, and a 240 Hz touch sampling rate, it is even HDR10+ certified with up to 100% DCI-P3 rating, guaranteeing vibrant imagery.
To further enhance its viewing experience, Poco has incorporated two Dolby technologies: Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos (we will talk about this further). Dolby Vision optimised the phone’s HDR profile based on scene to scene, giving a true-to-life viewing experience. The experience is similar to HDR10+ in that users can choose from a wide range of streaming services because, while most streaming services support Dolby Vision, not all support HDR10+.
| Dolby Vision | HDR10 | HDR10+ | |
| Netflix | ✓ | ✓ | – |
| Amazon Prime Video | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Disney+ | ✓ | ✓ | |
| Apple TV+ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
With such a beautiful screen, users likely spent long hours looking at it. The Poco X5 Pro 5G comes equipped with 1920Hz PWM dimming, a game changer in the eye protection with screen. The backlighting panel switched on and off quickly enough that the image quality was not affected while effectively dimming the screen. Unlike conversional screen dimming, the 1920Hz PWM dimming retains the good colour and contrast of an image, giving the user’s eye good comfort while enjoying the best image quality the screen can offer.
Finally, on to the gaming side of the story for the display. As mentioned earlier, the Poco X5 Pro 5G’s display can handle 240Hz of touch sampling rate while ditching the high frame rate of 120Hz. This made the Poco possibly the most affordable new Android phone on the market to have these 2 features in 1 package, which also make it ideal for gaming.
Poco X5 Pro 5G Camera:
As mentioned earlier, the Poco X5 Pro 5G packs three cameras at the back. Leading the camera pack is the 108 MP wide-angle camera model S5KHM2 by Samsung. This camera model has been seen on some high-end phones, such as the original Xiaomi Mix Fold or the Vivo S12.
The second camera is a Samsung 8 MP wide-angle camera. Modelled S5K4H7, this camera has been used by some flagship models of smartphones by Sony.
The final camera is a macro camera by Omnivision; this is just a placeholder camera and serves no major function on this phone as the main camera can already take pretty good close-up images.
Sample images
the picture quality of the Poco X5 Pro 5G is quite natural in our opinion. The color came
Wide-angle vs ultra wide-angle
Night mode vs normal mode
The picture quality of the Poco X5 Pro 5G is quite natural in our opinion; the color came out at a very natural tone with a tint of a warmer tone in the images we took. Detail-wise, it is undeniable that it delivers a great level of detail and sharpness. When you get closer to the subject, the background and foreground are deliciously blurred.
The ultra-wide-angle lens produces a very usable image. The image is sharp and has great contrast, possibly matching the main camera with no problem at all.
Generally, I really like how the image came out of the phone; it has real potential to become a street photography tool with the sharp image and natural color.
Audio:
The Poco X5 Pro 5G comes with stereo speakers that deliver clear and loud audio. The device also has a 3.5mm headphone jack, which is a feature that is becoming increasingly rare in smartphones nowadays.
The stereo speakers should be one of the key highlights users look forward to. The speaker is relatively loud as it is, and its sound has a good amount of detail in mid- and high-frequency ranges. The treble is crisp and sharp, while the vocals are clear but especially favour the lady’s voice.
However, with Dolby Atmos enabled, the volume becomes louder without distortion. The immediate effect is astonishing. If the user notices some instruments in the background, with Dolby Atmos enabled, they feel significantly closer now. The sound stage is also expanded to accommodate more room for sound to radiate into. Bass with Dolby Atmos is also slightly more visible, making my listening experience more balanced and harmonious.
I do notice the stereo speakers are unbalanced; this is likely due to the different speaker size and profile. The top speaker feels tighter with a sharper sound, while the lower speaker’s sound is wider with a slightly stronger push feel. But Poco has a solution for this: with Dolby Atmos enabled, the two speaker profiles are significantly more coherent. Now both profiles match close to each other without discord.
User Experience:
The Poco X5 Pro 5G provides an excellent user experience, thanks to its fast and efficient processor, large display, and high-quality camera.
On normal day-to-day use, the phone responds swiftly to touch thanks to its 120 Hz frame rate and 240 Hz feedback. Combining with MIUI 14’s initiative UI, users will experience the phone at its full potential.
Bingeing on shows on this phone is also a highly enjoyable experience. With Dolby Vision combined with Dolby Atmos, with the right streaming platform, users can watch shows for the fully intended experience.
Finally, on the gaming experience, here is where Poco’s optimization really shines. The Snapdragon 778G cannot handle Genshin Impact well; even at medium settings, we have noticed from time to time that the frame rate would be around 45 fps at max but have frequent frame drops. But Poco’s GameTurbo would remedy this; when set to boost performance, the game would have more consistently remained at 45 fps.
Poco X5 Pro 5G Conclusion:
Overall, the package that Poco X5 Pro 5G offered gave users an excellent user experience while maintaining great value for money. Yes while during our test we have found something we disagree with such as the different profile between speakers and the place hold macro camera, but the It is an smartphone that offers top-notch specifications at this price bracket that unlikely other smartphones can offer in a whole.
Help us!
So here you go, our review on the Poco X5 Pro. If you agree with us and want to pick one up, do consider purchasing via the link below. The affiliate link doesn’t cost you any extra, but will be a great help to keep our lights on here at HelloExpress.
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