Verdict
The Poco F5 Pro is a mid - range specialist , offering the good combination of execution and display that you could get for less than £ 600 . If you ’re after a agiotage intention , a strong photographic camera , or crisp and uncluttered software , there are much better shipway to spend your money . Gamers and medium heel on a slightly qualified budget , however , need look no further . Its arena of focus looks rather narrow-minded in 2023 , specially at this price , but the Poco F5 Pro is clearly the best at what it does .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Xiaomi ’s Poco sub - brand first made a name for itself with thePocophone F1 , which provided an rare level of performance for mid - range money . Since then , Poco ’s F - serial has always been one of the first place you wrench to for carrying into action on a budget .
Last class saw the brand straying away from its original mission statement somewhat , launch thePoco F4 GTin place of the expected Poco F4 Pro . It was an impressive enough package , but with performance flaws and an unforgiving £ 700 price tag .
This twelvemonth Xiaomi is n’t messing around , releasing a Poco F5 and a Poco F5 Pro at suitably mid - market prices . We ’re here to put the £ 559 ( £ 499 if you ’re fast ) Pro through its paces , and to come up out whether Xiaomi has rediscover the price - performance odoriferous spot .
Design and screen
There ’s a lot of crossover between Xiaomi ’s various hero sandwich - stain , which explains why the Poco F5 Pro looks an awful lot like the Redmi K60 – a mid - range phone that launched in China towards the end of 2022 – and very unlike the vanilla Poco F5 .
When I say ‘ looks an dread passel like ’ , what I really mean to say is that the Poco F5 Pro essentiallyisthe Redmi K60 , just with a different badge and more limited black and whitened coloring options ( and a smaller barrage fire , but that ’s for a dissimilar section ) .
Poco phones have never been particularly interesting to appear at , and the Poco F5 Pro does n’t threaten to set the pulse racing . The camera module has a interrogatively gawky look , with a orthogonal glass cover flanked by sloping alloy bookends . The Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus on my desk is path more stylish , and it ’s hardly a stud .
The F5 Pro is construct pretty well , with an aluminium frame and a glass back . But that spyglass back is passing reflective and thus prostrate to fingerprint grease ( on the black model at least ) , and there are slightly cheap - looking carbon character - outcome strip running up either curved edge .
At 162.78 x 75.44 x 8.59 mm and 204 g , the Poco F5 Pro experience in the big - but - not - gigantic district that mostmid - chain phonesexist in . It feel full-bodied and easy in the hand , though you ’d never err it for something more expensive .
In term of port wine and buttons , the Poco F5 Pro is closer to Xiaomi ’s premium own - brand handsets than other Poco or Redmi phone . There ’s no side - mount fingerprint sensing element , with a classier under - display variant offering secure biometric authentication . There ’s no 3.5 mm headphone diddlyshit on the top edge either , but there is still a signature IR chargeman . bring up up the Mi Remote app and you ’ll be able to take direct control of your boob tube or Hi - Fi .
Decidedly less premium is the preparation of anIP53 military rank . We ’ve seen mid - range phones such as theNothing Phone ( 1)and theSamsung Galaxy A54offering IP67 , so it ’s possible to get right waterproofing for an even cheaper price .
As underwhelming as the Poco F5 Pro ’s design is , there ’s simply no disputing that it offer a great display for the money . It ’s a 6.67 - inch AMOLED with a120Hz refresh charge per unit , which is a familiar list of specs for the Poco and indeed Redmi lines .
Decidedly less familiar is the proviso of a 3200 x 1440 or WQHD+ resolution . That ’s the sort of spec you only really see inflagship phonesselling for £ 730 and upwards .
You ’ll have to activate it in the configurations menu , however , and this iteration of Xiaomi ’s MIUI does n’t always seem to be particularly well prepared for it . The default camera widget does n’t resize properly , as you may see from the characterisation .
Minor UI quibbles aside ( I lean to switch to the stock Google appointment / calendar / atmospheric condition widget anyway ) , this is likely the good mid - range display on the market . Besides being extremely discriminating , it can get nice and bright to the tune of 1400 nits ( visor ) . It ’s also impressively colour - precise , at least when you switch away from Vivid to the Original colour scheme .
Camera
With speedy execution , a superb concealment , and a mid - range price , something had to give . In Poco F - series world , that something is always the camera .
for sure enough , the Poco F5 Pro has a profoundly ordinary camera frame-up . It ’s led by the same tiddly 1/2 in 64MP wide sensor from Omnivision that we ’ve seen previously in thePoco F4and theRealme GT Neo 3 T – another low-cost headphone that prioritize performance over all else .
Indeed , Xiaomi seems to have sustain the precise same tv camera setup from last year ’s Poco F4 , with the same underwhelming 8MP radical - wide and 2MP macro back - ups . That was dead forgivable in a £ 379 phone , but less so in a £ 550ish handset .
Ultimately , this is a camera system that skin to compete with much more modestly price phones like the Redmi Note 12 Pro ( not even the Plus ) and theOnePlus Nord 2 thymine , both of which with their higher-ranking Sony IMX766 main sensing element . Needless to say , thePixel 6acamera run away ring around the Poco F5 Pro .
It ’s far from a write - off , with the phone capable of seize satisfactory results in potent daylight precondition . Xiaomi ’s punchy colour science really lifts blue - sky scenes , albeit with the kicker of some overexposed highlighting . Things can get a little washed out in cloudier environment , meanwhile .
Night modality shots are n’t unusable , aided as they are by OIS , but that small image sensing element simply ca n’t suck up the necessary light to vie with those aforementioned mid - range rivals . There ’s noticeable disturbance in dark fourth dimension skies , and a general deficiency of clarity in foreground elements compared to the mid - range competition .
Any liveliness in that main sensor die out of the door as soon as you flip to the 8MP ultra - panoptic , which struggle for detail , tone , and dynamical range . It ’s no sorry than most other mid - rangers , but the Poco F5 Pro ’s flagship - style display and that rapid central processor might have you expect more .
Zoomed shots are actually 2x crops on the main sensor , and they really show up what a special component part it is . There ’s a critical lack of detail here when you get up stuffy and personal .
The less order about that 2MP macro the better . We ’re used to regard this pack into Xiaomi ’s budget - branded phone ( and others , to be average ) , and we ’re used to them being a waste of blank space .
You get a 16MP selfie photographic camera around front . It does a typically mediocre job , washing out skin tones and generally stimulate that not - quite - locked - on appearance . You ’ll need to plow Xiaomi ’s smudgey beautifying effect off straight away .
Performance
The Poco F5 Pro ’s lead component , even more than its super - precipitous display , is its central processing unit . Both the brand in general and the F - series in particular have always been about fantabulous execution at a price , and the Poco F5 Pro is the fastest Poco yet .
It runs on Qualcomm’sSnapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 , which until a few calendar month ago was the fastest Android chip in the business . It remains an excellent performer , and you wo n’t get a more capable speech sound ( brand new at least ) for £ 500 .
couple with 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of inner storage , this manikin really is a very well specced mid - ranger . There are 8GB/256 GB and 12GB/512 GB discrepancy out there in some markets , but they ’re not being sold in the UK .
Gamers , in particular , will need to pay attention – at least those who do n’t project the gaudy ‘ gamer ’ aesthetic of theRedmagic 7S Pro . I was able to play a upstanding minute of 3D console table racer Wreckfest , with all of the graphical options maxed out , with nicely playable ( if not flawless ) results . What ’s more , the phone did n’t fire up up unduly , unlike last year ’s Poco F4 GT .
Annoyingly , Xiaomi does seem to importune on blocking the usual suite of GPU benchmark run , so I ’m ineffective to provide numerical substantiation of the Poco F5 Pro ’s graphic capabilities . But the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 has proved to be a dependable chip in a whole compass of manikin factors .
CPU - focused Geekbench 5 and 6 results bear that out , with very good average scores that only a 2023 flagship or an iPhone 14 - series will thrum .
There ’s a reproducible weak point with any Xiaomi - affiliated earpiece , of course of study , from the Redmi A2 to theXiaomi 13 Pro . The brand ’s customs duty MIUI computer software is n’t awful , and can be quite usable once you get it set up as you like . But it take a spate of oeuvre to get to that stage , with an excess of duplicate apps , unwanted game , and fussy UI elements such as a rip notification pane .
Here on the Poco F5 Pro you get MIUI 14 on top ofAndroid 13 , but there ’s small meaningful difference to last year ’s version . It ’s fine , but you may get a cleaner and ultimately dear experience for interchangeable or less money , include the Motorola Edge 30 Fusion and any of Google ’s more low-priced Pixel phones .
Battery life
While the Poco F5 Pro is super standardised to the Redmi K60 , one major difference is that it wad a smaller barrage fire . There ’s nothing to worry about , though , as this is still a larger - than - average 5,160mAh cubicle .
That ’s a welcome inclusion in light of the F5 Pro ’s unusually sharp and bright WQHD+ display . I cranked the resolution mightily up from the root of my time with the phone , albeit with the option active to switch to a abject solvent where appropriate . I also flipped the refresh charge per unit to the maximum 120Hz . Presumably , this will have put considerable strain on the battery study this is n’t a flexibleLTPO panelthat can smartly drop to 1Hz when appropriate .
Sure enough , I did n’t get outstanding battery carrying out from the F5 Pro under these term . A farseeing 16 - hour day with 3 hour 30 of CRT screen on time – what I ’d call fair restrained usage – would pass on me with about 30 % leave alone in the storage tank .
course , if you keep the screen to its nonpayment FHD+/60Hz configurations , you ’ll get much better fuel consumption rate , probably edging towards true two - day usage . But unless you ’re going camping , the former scenario is more likely .
When it comes to media custom , an 60 minutes of video streaming sapped 7 % of a bearing , while half an time of day of gaming debilitate around 14 % . An minute of music streaming hardly dropped the battery layer a single percentage item . All in all , the Poco F5 Pro ’s effective processor and large battery serve it well .
This is n’t the fastest affordable Xiaomi phone when it comes fourth dimension to reload , with a 67W pumped up charge in the box . Together with that larger cell , it leads to the phone getting from 0 to 69 % in 30 proceedings , and to a full charge in around 56 minute of arc . That ’s still not bad , but bear in mind that the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus gives you a 120W courser and a full flush in 30 minutes .
The most telling specification here is the provision of wireless charging . You do n’t generally see such a provision for this sorting of money , outside of a few exceptions , and even few with the Poco F5 Pro ’s faster 30W wireless speed .
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Should you buy it?
the Poco F5 Pro is very tight , runs nerveless , and it has a super - sharp display , making it great for gaming .
As always , Poco has compromised on the television camera system . It ’s fine , but not outstanding .
Final Thoughts
The Poco F5 Pro is the Xiaomi zep - firebrand ’s libertine , sharpest telephone yet . With a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 , it ’s one of the best mid - range performers we ’ve seen outside of a specialist gambling phone .
Meanwhile , at £ 559 , this is the cheapest telephone we ’ve seen with a super - sharp WQHD+ resolution video display . It ’s a brilliantly clear , bright , color - accurate cover for the money . Add in slight touch like wireless charging support , and the Poco F - series is close to being back to its troubled best .
It wo n’t be the best pick for everyone shopping at this goal of the market , however . you’re able to get a more premium design , cleaner software program , and a upright camera experience elsewhere – and for even less money at that .
But if speedy performance and medium playback in general is your outstanding priority , you wo n’t do best for £ 559 than the Poco F5 Pro .
Trusted Score
How we test
We prove every wandering phone we review thoroughly . We employ industriousness - standard tests to compare features properly and we practice the phone as our chief gadget over the reappraisal period . We ’ll always tell you what we retrieve and we never , ever , accept money to review a production .
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FAQs
Up to two days out of the box , but a full mean solar day of moderate usage with the screen at full firmness of purpose .
Yes .
6.67 inches , but the main matter is its WQHD+ resolution .
Yes , and 30W at that .
