Poco F5 Pro, an average smartphone that looks like it’s grown up

Little but not very little. Or anyway not a little as before and as Little had accustomed us. No more puns, the gist of the test of the new F5 Pro 5G smartphone is all here and it’s all in a number: 630. Which are the euros needed to buy it in the version with 12 GB of Ram and 256 GB of internal memory that we were able to test for 3 weeks.

Perhaps they are not many in absolute terms and certainly not many in relation to the technical characteristics of the product, but there are many more than in the past. Precisely compared to what Poco di was used to: in spring 2021, the X3 Pro (here the proof) it cost about 300 euros; a year later the X4 Pro (trial) was close to 350; a year later and we are close to 650.

Poco F5 Pro 5G, the technical characteristics

It’s true: more or less all phones have gradually increased in price, especially in the mid-range (which is where customers are, as companies know very well). And it is equally true that the range starts much lower, from the 430 euros of the normal Poco F5, and that whether the price is right or not will be decided by the market, above all a difficult market like the Italian one. And it is also true that this F5 Pro 5G has all it takes to do well.

The display is a excellent 6.67 “Amoled, with a refresh rate that reaches up to 120 Hz, QHD resolution and integrated fingerprint sensor: it is a pleasure to have it under your eyes and it is clearly visible in practically any light condition, even outdoors. The beautiful rear shell hides a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor with 8 or 12 GB of Ram and 256 or 512 GB of internal memory; there is support for 5G, Bluetooth 5.3, Wi-Fi 6 and NFC as well.

The operating system is the MiUi 14 based on Android 13 and, as we have been repeating for some time, it would need some updating and some more finishing (and less bloatware). There are 3 rear cameras: the main one has 64 MP sensor and is optically stabilized (a detail that we appreciated), the wide angle is 8 MP and the third is 2 MP and honestly it is not clear what it is for.

How does the Poco F5 Pro 5G fare in daily use

There battery is 5160mAh, which is a remarkable figure but which we now look at less and less in modern phones: almost all of them equipped with fast charging (like this F5 Pro), they are hardly devices that will be found empty when needed. Poco’s new smartphone has more, including in the package, a 67W power supply which gives 50% of autonomy in more or less a quarter of an hour. In any case, even with relatively heavy use, it is difficult to drain the battery in less than a day and a halfif not even two.

By “relatively” we mean relatively to how we used it during the test: chat, social networks, email management, many phone calls (with a few too many problems with the proximity sensor), surfing YouTube and online, playing video games. All situations in which the Poco F5 Pro has never shown any uncertainty. The photos are also decidedly good, more or less always, even in complicated conditions prospectthanks to the aforementioned optical stabilization.

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