Xiaomi’s Pocophone started off as “Flagship Killers,” but with the Poco F5 Pro, they have made a move into the flagship territory, at least in terms of pricing. With a higher price tag, higher expectations naturally follow. In this review, we will examine whether the Poco F5 Pro lives up to the standards set by other high-tier phones.
Design and Build:
Xiaomi has taken a slightly different approach with this year’s Poco F5 Pro. It is not specifically aimed at gamers, and it comes with a price closer to a flagship rather than a mid-ranger. At first glance, the camera arrangement on the back remains the same as the regular Poco F5, despite some rearrangement of the camera bump.
The Pro model stands out with some notable upgrades, including a higher-tier chipset, a higher-resolution screen, a slightly larger battery, and wireless charging. The glossy glass design with neat accenting cameras and stripes running towards the plastic frame gives the phone a nice feel in hand, although it can be a bit slippery. It also offers ingress protection rated at IP53, similar to other Xiaomi mid-rangers.
Screen Specs:
The Poco F5 Pro boasts a sharp QHD resolution on its 6.67-inch AMOLED display. With a 120Hz refresh rate and Gorilla Glass 5 protection, the screen delivers a smooth and visually pleasing experience. Additionally, it supports 12-bit color, Dolby Vision, and HDR10+ video. The color accuracy is quite good, depending on the chosen color settings.
The maximum brightness of 520 nits is sufficient for comfortable outdoor use, and it can go over a thousand nits in auto mode. The screen’s 120Hz refresh rate can automatically adjust to 60Hz when idle or when using certain content or apps.
Fingerprint Reader and Audio:
The Poco F5 Pro features an under-display fingerprint reader for convenient unlocking. This is a step up from the side-mounted reader found on the vanilla model. However, it lacks a headphone jack, requiring an adapter for traditional headphones.
Instead, it offers stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos support. The speakers produce good loudness, and the sound quality is decent, with clean vocals, highs, and a bit of bass.
Storage and Performance:
The phone comes with either 256GB or 512GB of onboard storage, which unfortunately cannot be expanded via microSD. The Poco F5 Pro is powered by the flagship-grade Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, although it is a modified version with slightly lower clock speeds for theoretical energy savings.
Nonetheless, it performs exceptionally well in benchmarks and keeps up with phones running on the original version of the chipset. The performance is undeniably flagship-worthy. However, it is worth noting that the vanilla Poco F5 with its new Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 chipset manages to keep pace with the Pro variant.
The F5 Pro features an advanced passive cooling system, but in prolonged stress tests, its thermal management was just average. It maintained stable performance until a certain point, where it started throttling heavily with repeated dips, which could potentially lead to stutters while gaming.
Battery And System Interface:
With a sizable 5160mAh battery, the F5 Pro offers decent battery life, although slightly less impressive than the F5’s endurance rating. The phone supports 67W fast charging, allowing it to reach 86% in just half an hour. Additionally, it offers wireless charging, a feature not available on the vanilla model.
The Poco F5 Pro runs on Xiaomi’s latest MIUI 14, based on Android 13. While it shares many similarities with MIUI 14 on other Xiaomi devices, it comes with a few unique features tailored for Poco phones, such as an always-on app drawer.
Camera Performance:
The Poco F5 Pro’s camera setup consists of a 64-megapixel main camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide camera, and a 2-megapixel macro camera. The photo quality from the main camera is excellent during the day, comparable to the regular Poco F5. It captures detailed and sharp images with good dynamic range, contrast, and vibrant colors.
Portrait mode shots from the main camera exhibit sharpness and, under ideal lighting conditions, detailed subjects with competent edge detection. In low-light scenarios, the default output from the main camera appears soft and noisy, with dull colors.
However, the night mode significantly improves the photo quality, producing cleaner images with more detail and slightly enhanced colors, albeit with visible artificial sharpening.
The Poco F5 Pro supports recording 4K videos with impressive sharpness, detail, and dynamic range. The colors are punchy and lively, with a warmer color temperature. Electronic stabilization is available in 4K mode and performs well. The phone also supports recording in 8K, which offers similar quality to 4K but with slightly crisper details.
On the other hand, the ultra-wide camera’s performance is mid-range and unimpressive. The photos lack fine detail, exhibit dark shadows, and suffer from visible noise. The camera struggles in low-light situations, even with the night mode, resulting in subpar image quality. The ultra-wide camera’s video recording maxes out at 1080p and appears soft, lacking detail, and having limited dynamic range.
The 2-megapixel macro camera does not deliver good close-up shots, as expected for its resolution.
Selfies from the 16-megapixel front-facing camera are decent, with good colors, detail, and minimal noise. However, artificial sharpening can be noticeable.
Conclusion:
The Poco F5 Pro offers impressive specifications that would fit well in a “Flagship Killer” category. However, the issue lies in its pricing, as Xiaomi is asking for a similar price to last year’s actual flagships.
The camera performance, which is on par with mid-range devices, falls short when compared to alternatives like the Samsung Galaxy S22. Additionally, many features available in the F5 Pro can be found in the more affordable Poco F5.
Nevertheless, the F5 Pro is a solid phone without any significant shortcomings. If the price drops, it could become a recommended option. For those seeking alternatives to the Poco F5 Pro, the Samsung Galaxy S22 and Google Pixel 7 are worth considering.
