So POCO has just unveiled its latest Mid-range phones for 2023 the POCO X5 And the POCO X5 PRO and in this article I Will be going through my experiences With the POCO X5 Pro. I will also be Dropping the POCO X5 review in a few Days so watch out for that too.

  Xioami POCO x5 Pro,

POCO x5 pro,

XIOAMI products,

Xioami POCO x5 Pro 2023,

Mid range mobile 2023

Affordable mobile 2023,

New lunched Xiaomi POCO x5 Pro /Review 

This guy is the successor to one of my  favorites mid-range phones of 2022 the POCO X4 Pro. So it comes as no Surprise that the company has not tried to do anything differently this time since the only notable upgrade on the X5 Pro versus the X4 Pro is in the chipset department. So can the POCO X5 Pro carry On that value for money Heritage like Its predecessor or are you better off With something like the Redmi note 12Pro in ad by spending a little more Let me get into all that, but first let’s talk about what you get inside this box. 

On opening up the box we first get a Sim ejector, Some documents and a Clear Case. Keeping that aside for a moment we then Have the phone itself in this yellow finish. Although it does not look as bright as some other POCO phones we’ve seen over the years. We also have pre-applied Screen protector is always nice to see, And then we have a 67 watt power adapter, Alongside a USB A to USBC cable and That’s about it.

 The first thing You’ll notice about the POCO X5 Pro is that it copies a bunch of design Elements from last year’s X4 Pro. It has got the same flat Edge design at the Back and a wide camera layout that’s sure to turn some heads. What’s good to see here is you get an official ip53 Dust and splash resistance while the IR Blaster and the headphone jack continue To live on as well nice. But when actually holding this phone in my hands I immediately noticed quite a few Downsides. While the POCO X4 Pro had a Glass back POCO is using plastic construction this time. I really dig this Shift to a matte finish this playful Colorful power button and everything but the X5 Pro simply does not feel as Premium. The move from glass to plastic has also shaved off a chunk of the phone Suede. I also find that heft to be missing on this guy. Not that it feels Utterly Hollow or anything but that’s another downside to using a plastic back Panel.

Display

 Unlike the build quality its Display is pretty great though. Here You’re looking at a gorgeous 6.6 inch AMOLED screen with a smooth 120 hertz Refresh rate that should serve just fine no matter what you’re doing.  Be it Playing games, watching YouTube videos or scrolling through your Reddit feed for Hours at a time. it can even play Dolby Vision mastered content on Netflix now. 

Brightness 

 Thanks to its incredible 900 nits Of peak brightness. I have had no trouble Using this phone Outdoors either. Now That number sounds awfully low compared To X4 Pro 1200 nits but as I said in my Redmi note 12 Pro Plus  review article Global Peak brightness and HDR Peak brightness are two completely different things so rest assured this is not a downgrade of any kind but rather a nice upgrade to 700 nits of Max brightness on the x-core Pro. The one thing I’m still noticing is That the X5 Pro is a little slow at adjusting brightness on its own sometimes. Hopefully POCO will fix this With a future update. 

Speakers

POCO X5 Pro stereo speaker complement the binge watching experience quite nicely, however They sound a bit sharp at max volume. 

Performance

  As for performance we get the Snapdragon 778g here which we know is almost two Years old chip but its maturity actually work in its favor instead of against it Since smartphone makers and app developers have had plenty of time to Optimize their products for the Snapdragon 778g. And this Qualcomm chip Still stands its ground against other Mid-range processors in 2023 like Mediatek’s Taman City 1080. Hence needless to say the X5 Pro has handled my everyday tours without breaking a sweat even multitasking and aall

Gaming

 When it Comes to gaming the  in Snapdragon 778g’s Arduino GPU has been better optimized to Push higher settings in almost all popular titles take Apex Legends for Instance. While Diamond City 1080 powered Redmi note 12 Pro caps out at 50 FPS POCO X5 Pro hits a steady 60fps with Better visual fidelity. Other games like Ancient impact and Asphalt 9 also manage higher average FPS here but all this comes at the cost of a slightly hotter Temperatures in most cases. And since this phone has a pretty slim design it Seems that POCO is deliberately limiting performance on high FPS games since having to constantly render more than 60 FPS would wreak absolute havoc on the Thermals. As a result high performance Games like Injustice 2 and Macarena never hit 120 FPS finishing off with Just 58 to 55 FPS average after Significant frame drops throughout the Gameplay. Now I’ve tested many 778g Powere s before so I know performance throttling when I see it and this is where I’m a little disappointed With POCO for a brand that has built its reputation within the mobile gaming community since it’s very foundation I think they could have given Vapor Cooling system here to tackle the throttling issue.

 Moving on the POCO X5 Pro boots on the latest MIUI 14 but it is still based on Android 12 and not the latest android 13. You know POCO already does not have a good track record with Software updates so maybe they should have shipped this phone with the newer Android 13 here. Anyhow MIUI 14’s updates are mostly on the inside instead of Anything cosmetic. Xioami says that it has mainly worked on optimizing system Performance and resources this time. 

The number of lottery apps is also Remarkably low MIUI 14 and you can uninstall almost all of them except for the core system apps. And I also like the fact that POCO is committing two generations of OS and three years of Security updates for the POCO X5 Pro

Cameras 

 Let’s talk about the cameras now. Here despite using the same sensors from last year I am actually surprised By how good the POCO X5 Pro’s cameras are. Maybe this has something to do with Snapdragon 778g’s Superior image signal Processor as well but Poco has really Managed to get the most out of the Cameras on this phone. I feel like POCO has taken a page out of Samsung’s image Optimization book to deliver photos with Vibrant colors and Punchy contrast that looks very pleasing to the eyes. You Might prefer Redmi note 12 Pros shots if you are a fan of neutral colors but  I guess most people will be happy with X5 Pro’s images. It’s only in some scenarios that I have wished POCO could tune the colors better but otherwise the cameras are good overall. As for low light images I like how it retains good color details Alongside Rich contrast and exposure. However unlike the note 12 Pro the POCO X5 Pro does not have have Ois so the Photos might come out blurry sometimes But with a steady Pair of hands I won’t Say that you will be missing out on a lot, but the one thing I am not a fan of Is how this phone handles human subjects. The way POCO's algorithm tries to maintain a subject’s skin tone from both the main and the selfie camera is a wild Hit or miss. For videos if you remember POCO X4 Pro could not record videos at 4K resolution Because of the chipsets limitation but 4k recording is back on the X5 Pro. To compensate for the lack of ois POCO is heavily relying on frame cropping to help with stereo footages. It does not work perfectly all the time resulting in a weird pulsing effect so for videos I would say that this Phone has really average capabilities. 

Battery 

Anyway the battery life on this thing is Crazy impressive. The POCO X5 pro has easily been getting me through an entire day with roughly seven hours of screen on time on average which is a solid a in my book. And as for juicing it up the Included 67 watt charger takes just 15 Minutes to fill it up to 50 percent or About half an hour more till 100 percent.

 So wrapping it all up I must say the POCO X5 Pro is a very good mid-range Phone. This is especially true in 2023 because there aren’t as many value for money between devices these days compared to what we used to get not too Long ago. Even Xiaomi’s own Redmi note Series which is all about aggressive Pricing failed to deliver on that front this year because if you don’t consider the bank discounts and all the new Redmi Note 12 lineup is not the usual bargain that we expected. Yes the X5 Pro is not Perfect by any means either and I really Wish POCO would come up with some Original designs instead of resorting to Simple rebranding’s but if you’re looking to buy a well-rounded mid-range phone For some 20 to 23 000 Indian rupees right now this looks like a good value especially compared to the Redmi note 12 Pro Gamer on the other hand will although have very better lock with the Redmi k50i or the Poco F4 which bring a More powerful processor alongside an Equally competent cooling system. So that was for my unboxing and Full review of the all-new POCO X5 Pro I Will also be coming up with the Poco X5 review  soon so do follow to  if you don’t want to miss out on That content.

🛒Get this from Amazon now