Ever since its inception, Poco -the Xiaomi offshoot- has been a brand defined by its pursuit of bringing high-end performance down to a more comfortable price point.
Nowhere is that seen clearer than with itsX-series models, and for 2023 it’s launched two new additions: the X5 and the X5 Pro. We’ve been testing the ‘Pro’ model for a couple of weeks to see exactly how much bang you get for your buck.
Poco X5 Pro
Great value mid-ranger
Over the past few years we’ve seen a number of smartphone makers move away from phone designs with curved edges and rear panels. It’s a shame really, since those shapes are far more comfortable to hold than the right-angled, squared-off designs. Poco is among those, with the X5 Pro delivering flat edges and tight angles around all sides and corners.
Visually it is cleaner than any rounded or curved shape would be, offering that clean break between each surface of the phone, but it does mean that ergonomics suffer a little.
Of course, being Poco means there’s a bright yellow and black option of the X5 Pro, and of all the colours, it’s clearly the most eye-catching. This Bumblebee paint job is delivered in a phone that’s predominantly made from plastic, in an effort to keep material costs down.
This isn’t that shiny, bendy plastic you used to get on cheap smartphones of yesteryear though. It’s got an almost shimmering finish to the surface, which adds visual texture to the point of almost being sparkly, but not quite. One benefit of the finish is that it’s not glossy and slippery, so you shouldn’t find it randomly sliding off surfaces like a polished oleophobic glass finish might.
Otherwise, a lot of its design seems very much about being practical and not getting in the way of what you want to do. The bezels around the display - for instance - are really skinny and don’t encroach on the visible surface area. Thepunch-hole camerais small and unobtrusive, placed in the centre of the top edge. There’s even a 3.5mm headphone port in the top edge so you can plug in wired earphones or headsets.
Being nearer the lower end of the market than the top also means one more thing: a physical fingerprint scanner. It’s placed in the wake/sleep button on the side, and works quickly and reliably. We didn’t suffer with too many phantom touches. Having to input our PIN code because of those ‘failed’ accidental touches only happened once in our testing.
Display and software
The display on the Poco X5 Pro is - we think - the biggest reason to buy it. Usually, when buying phones in the lower end of the market you have to sacrifice somewhat in the display area, and yet with the X5 Pro, it doesn’t seem significantly hampered in any discernible area.
It’s bright, colour-rich and featuresrefresh rates so smoothand responsive it almost feels like using a high-end device. It can go as high as 120Hz and that means when you’re scrolling through elements of the interface and software, the animation is really smooth and clear the entire time. In that regard, it feels just like using a premium flagship.
There are - of course - differences between using this and using a much more expensive phone screen. Most of that is invisible to the naked eye though. For instance - Poco’s won’t adapt at incremental steps between 1Hz and 120Hz to save lots of battery over-use. Instead, it switches between 60Hz and 120Hz depending on the content.
Still, for pure video-watching enjoyment, there’s very little we can say that’s negative about the X5 Pro’s screen, considering the price bracket it’s being launched in.
The only thing that tarnishes the experience of using the phone, somewhat, is the software. MIUI continues to be one of the more heavy-handed Android skins, with a number of - at best - counter-intuitive choices and - at worst - completely nonsensical ones.
For instance - as we’ve mentioned with other Xiaomi software-equipped phones recently - the wallpaper picker in the settings menu. Instead of allowing you to simply pick from a pre-loaded set of still and live wallpapers, it forces you into Xiaomi’s theme store.
Other elements include the fact that it still has the control centre/settings widgets and notifications split between the two sides of the screen, so you can’t just swipe down from the middle to get notifications anymore. At least, not by default. You can enable the ‘old style’ if you want to, but it’s just another step to get MIUI 14 working and acting in a more intuitive manner.
That’s without mentioning the fact it really wants you to have a wallpaper carousel on the lock screen and pesters you with notifications to enable it.
Performance and battery
Snapdragon 778G 5G processor - 6nm
6GB/128GB or 8GB/256GB (+ Dynamic RAM expansion)
5000mAh battery - 67W wired charging
As we mentioned in the display section, there’s a really feeling of speed and fluidity about the Poco X5 Pro. It handles tasks effortlessly, and it doesn’t seem to matter what those tasks are. Part of that, of course, is down to the 120hz refresh rate ability of the display, and another part is down to the processing power behind it.
It’s powered by the Snapdragon 778G chipset, which isn’t Qualcomm’s ultimate top-tier platform, but it’s more than good enough to ensure you have a fast, responsive experience. Loading games and any apps was done without any real noticeable lag or delay. It may not be quite as instant and snappy as aSnapdragon 8-seriesphone, but unless you had one of those side-by-side with this, we don’t think you’d notice.
It’s backed up with plenty of RAM and storage too, to ensure there’s enough memory to cope with all of your biggest demands. Our review unit came with 8GB RAM (plus an extra 3GB borrowed from the storage) and 256GB of said storage. All things considered, that’s a decent chunk of memory that shouldn’t run out in a hurry. This is the highest RAM/storage variant of the two, however. The cheaper entry-level model comes with 6GB of RAM and 128GB storage (again with RAM expansion).
We only really noticed one issue with the phone in our testing period and that was to do with listening to music. While we’re accustomed to phones pausing songs or lowering the music volume when notifications come through, there were times when the Poco would just stop the track altogether and need to be manually resumed when listening with a pair of Bluetooth earbuds.
Wi-Fi, similarly, should be strong and consistent, but there was the odd time we experienced data hang-ups when the phone would seemingly need a few seconds to catch up with itself and load images on Twitter. Now, Twitter hasn’t always been the most performative of apps, so it’s not easy to tell whether it’s the app’s problem or the phone’s in that particular instance. With that said, using music apps we did notice a couple of instances where songs would pause and buffer as it stopped pulling in that streaming data.
As for battery life, that seemed decent enough in our testing. It’s not a two-day battery, and on heavier days with 3-4 hours of gaming, we’ve managed to drain it down below the red-accented 19 per cent mark. However, on our more typical days, it’s been more than capable of finishing the day on over 30 per cent.
That’s no real surprise given the 5000mAh capacity of the battery. It’s more than good enough to get most people through a full workday, and the 67W fast charger that ships in the box means you’re never gripped by battery anxiety. It’ll give the phone a full 1-100 per cent charge in under 40 minutes. In fact, in a pinch, you can plug it in for 15 minutes or so and know you’ve got at least half a battery to get you through the next few hours of your day.
With any accessibly-priced phone, tempering expectations is always good practice. Especially when you see a phone at a good price with a triple camera system. Having tested a number of lower and mid-range phones over the past few years we weren’t surprised to see that - of the three cameras on the back - two of those are relatively low resolution, and one is arguably completely redundant.
That junk lens - sometimes affectionately called ‘sticker camera’ - is a 2-megapixel macro camera in this instance. And just like 2-megapixel macro cameras that came before it, it’s difficult to get a decent image with it. Sure it lets you get close to objects and focus, but the lack of sharpness is very obvious. It doesn’t particularly do well with colours or depth of field either, offering a crushed, dark and flat image with lots of grainy noise.
Like the macro sensor, the 8-megapixel ultrawide (again comparatively low resolution by modern standards) delivers results without much sharpness, often quite blurry and particularly distorted towards the edges. Colours aren’t always that well-balanced to match the primary lens, often appearing darker and more contrast-heavy. It’s fine in a pinch when you need that extra width for your shots, but it isn’t a particularly strong camera.
For the most part - if you buy this phone - you’ll want to stick to the primary camera. It’s a 108-megapixel sensor, like we’ve seen on a few other accessible phones, but means that if you’re in good lighting conditions you may snap a quick shot and know it should turn out well.
It’s detailed, has some good colour and - for the most part - copes find with contrasting light conditions using HDR processing to good effect. Its clarity and depth of field aren’t going to compete with the most expensive phones on the market, of course, but it’s plenty good enough for social media sharing.
Arguably its strength is that - with its extra pixels - you can zoom in 2x and still get a pretty sharp image without too much in the way of blur and noise.
With any phone looking to squeeze as much as possible in, while keeping costs down for the buyer, there are always compromises to be made. Whether that’s in design and build - like the X5 Pro - or in other areas. The trick is getting all the important things right so that you feel as though you’re using a phone that performs really well day-to-day.
That’s exactly what Poco has managed to do with the X5 Pro. By skimping a little on design and build, it’s managed to make a phone that - in many ways - acts like a more expensive device. It’s got a big, vibrant screen with fast refresh rates, it’s a smooth performer, has fast charging and at least one decent camera.
Some data hangups and the lower-quality ultrawide and macro cameras do tarnish the experience a little, but when you’re not spending buckets, those elements are almost a given. With a slightly more refined, durable design and more stripped-down software, it could be a stunning device.
The end feeling though is one we’ve often felt with Poco: you do get a lot of phone for your money, and sometimes the ambition of packing in lots to a cheaper phone means a few quirks in other places. If you’re happy with those, you’ll love this phone.
