Poco X5 Pro 5G: a mid-range champion 

Xiaomi’s POCO brand has launched the successor to the Poco X4 Pro 5G—Poco X5 Pro 5G, roughly ten months after its predecessor’s launch. Like the Poco X4 Pro 5G, the company is also blazing guns with its Poco X5 Pro 5G. It has a beautiful 6.67-inch Xfinity AMOLED display, a Snapdragon 778G SoC, and 6GB or 8GB LPDDR4X RAM. It also comes with a 67W turbo charger that can juice up your phone in just 47 minutes.

Pricing and availability

The Xiaomi Poco X5 Pro 5G is launched in two variants —  6GB of RAM with 128GB of internal storage and 8GB of RAM with 256GB of internal storage. The lower-end model is not available in the UAE, but you can buy it in India for ₹22,999. The higher-end model sells in the UAE for an MSRP of AED 1,499 and costs ₹24,999 in India.

It is available in three colours — Horizon Blue, Astral Black, and Poco’s signature POCO Yellow.

This 256GB model can usually be picked up at a sale price of AED 1,149 on Amazon in the UAE, which is why it sits on the top of the best phones under AED 1,500. In India, it is available for purchase on Amazon and Flipkart, and if you have an ICICI Bank card, you can get a ₹2,000 instant discount off the price of your phone.

Specs you should know

Design and display

The Poco X5 Pro 5G carries the same design as its predecessor—an industrial design with a boxy shape and sharp edges. It makes the smartphone look modern and solid despite being purely plastic-built. It uses Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection to keep the AMOLED screen from scratching or breaking in case you accidentally drop it.

The Poco X5 Pro 5G’s display supports HDR10+ and Dolby Vision playback, and the screen brightness can go up to 900 nits when watching HDR content. Quite lower than the Poco X4 Pro, which has a maximum screen brightness of 1,200 nits when watching HDR content and 700 nits when using it normally.

However, like its predecessor, the Poco X5 Pro 5G has a screen refresh rate of 120Hz for incredibly fluid gaming, scrolling, and an all-around smoother and richer experience.

And for those who care about the microscopic details of their possible next phone, it has a ~395 ppi density, and its screen-to-body ratio is ~86.8%

Features and performance

The Poco X5 Pro 5G uses the Snapdragon 778G Octa-core processor. One of the performance cores, the Cortex-A78, is clocked at 2.4GHz. The other three performance cores are clocked at 2.2GHz. The remaining four efficiency Cortex-A55 cores are clocked at 1.9GHz, which makes the Snapdragon 778G a bit superior to its rival MediaTek Dimensity 1080.

It has an IR blaster, a fingerprint sensor on the power button, and support for playing Hi-Res audio, among many other features.

The Poco X5 Pro 5G launches with Android 12, but is upgradable to Android 13 with MIUI 14 on top. The Poco X5 Pro 5G promises to receive Android updates for two years which is not bad, considering Google only promises three years of software updates to its flagship Pixel phones.

Cameras

The Poco X5 Pro 5G has three cameras on the back, a 108 MP wide camera (main camera), an 8 MP ultrawide camera, and a 2 MP macro camera. And on the front, it sports a 16MP camera for crisp selfie shots or group photos.

The rear camera can record videos up to 4K at 30 but lacks OIS and instead uses electronic stabilization (EIS) when recording on 4K. But if you’re recording on 1080P 30FPS, you can also use Ultra Steady Mode, which isn’t available when recording in 4K.  

The camera has standard features like beauty mode, panorama mode, and portrait mode (on both the front and rear cameras) and is the same as Poco X4 Pro.

Battery & Charging 

The Poco X5 Pro 5G has a 5,000mAh Li-Po battery that can be charged from 0% to 100% in 45 minutes with the included 67W charger. The phone also supports 5W reverse wired charging to charge up your accessories on the go. The large battery and the quick charging on the Poco X5 Pro 5G should last the entire day.

Poco X5 Pro 5G Reviews

According to GSMArena, the Poco X5 Pro is an excellent sequel to the Poco X4 Pro and improves on almost everything compared to its predecessor. It delivered on every promise – display, battery life, charging speed, performance, and camera quality. What they did not like is the absence of a MicroSD slot, no FM radio and MIUI mostly remains unchanged.

ShortCircuit thinks the phone has great specs on paper and checks most boxes. The price for the phone is starting to creep up, and while the Poco X5 Pro may not be the best phone for gaming or taking photos, it is a good overall phone.

TechSpurt did not find the Poco X5 Pro 5G vastly different from the previous version of this phone but did highlight the booster performance that should give gamers an advantage and the 4K video camera.

Poco X5 Pro 5G FAQs – Frequently asked questions.