Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
The 67W charging speed on the F4 is not a new feature, but it's still a must-have for people who are always on the go. Personally, it's great to be able to top up my phone in a short amount of time, so I don't have to worry about running out of battery when I'm out and about. I'm able to charge the phone from zero to 100% in 45 minutes. That’s a welcome inclusion in light of the F5 Pro’s unusually sharp and bright WQHD+ display. I cranked the resolution right up from the beginning of my time with the phone, albeit with the option active to switch to a lower resolution where appropriate. I also flipped the refresh rate to the maximum 120Hz. Presumably, this will have placed considerable strain on the battery considering this isn’t a flexible LTPO panel that can smartly drop to 1Hz when appropriate. One way in which it’s actually gotten a little worse, however, is with a touch sampling rate of 240Hz rather than the Poco F4’s 360Hz. For the vast majority of users, this won’t be remotely consequential. But given that Poco often courts the gaming crowd and bigs up the gaming performance of its phones, it’s not a particularly good look, at least on paper. This isn’t the fastest affordable Xiaomi phone when it comes time to recharge, with a 67W wired charge in the box. Together with that larger cell, it leads to the phone getting from 0 to 69% in 30 minutes, and to a full charge in around 56 minutes. That’s still not bad, but bear in mind that the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus gives you a 120W charger and a full charge in 30 minutes.
I have no complaints about the Poco F5 screen staying much the same. It’s still an agreeably big, bright, responsive, and colour-accurate panel for the money, and one that’s well suited to consuming media on the go. Thanks to its modern chipset, the POCO F5's performance is beyond reproach, and I am able to play PUBG Mobile on maxed-out settings with no annoying stutter. Titles like Genshin Impact and Call of Duty Mobile also deliver a fluid experience, with the frame rate set to 60 fps. Stutters are inevitable on occasion, though.Here on the Poco F5 Pro you get MIUI 14 on top of Android 13, but there’s little meaningful difference to last year’s version. It’s fine, but you can get a cleaner and ultimately better experience for similar or less money, including the Motorola Edge 30 Fusion and any of Google’s more affordable Pixel phones. Battery life
On the other hand, the Poco F5 Pro has an additional 2MP depth sensor. For selfies, both phones feature a 16MP front-facing camera. Poco battery power Game Turbo attempts to auto-detect any games you install and lets a pull-out overlay sit unassumingly at the side of the screen as you play.It doubtless helps that my test model came with a generous 12GB RAM, which is the only spec available in the UK. You’ll get 256GB of storage in that sole model, too, which is similarly generous. It would have been nice to have a lower-capacity option (perhaps 8GB/128GB) at a cheaper starting point, though.
The triple lens cameras in the F5 and F5 Pro are identical, consisting of a 64-megapixel main lens, an 8-megapixel ultrawide, and a 2-megapixel macro lens. You also get a 16-megapixel selfie camera in each phone, and while you can dig into settings to snap a full 64-megapixel shot, I don’t advise it. Likewise, for extreme close-ups, you might dig into the menu to find the macro option, but you can expect woefully inferior shots. There’s a certain symmetry to the top and bottom bezels, which is always nice to see in a cheaper phone. You still only get an IP53 rating, however, which is inferior to the likes of the Pixel 7a and the Samsung Galaxy A54. There’s Gorilla Glass 5 around front, which beats the Pixel 7a’s GG3 for toughness. The Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 2 chipset is one of the most powerful processors on the market, so you can be sure that the POCO F5 will be able to handle anything you throw at it. The 67W charging is incredibly fast, so you can go from empty to full in just a few minutes. The Full HD+ 120Hz OLED display is incredibly smooth and responsive, making it a pleasure to use for gaming, watching videos, or just browsing the web.
In This Article
You can watch the launch on the Poco Global YouTube channel from 1300 BST. But what do we know so far about the specs of these new phones? Ultimately, like the Poco F5 Pro, the Poco F5 is something of a mid-range specialist, offering a strong media and gaming-focused experience for decent money. If your priorities lie elsewhere – flagship-level design, clean software, or a genuinely good camera, say – there are plenty of better options for similar or even less money. The POCO F5 is a step up from its predecessor in some ways, but it also has some flaws. Sure, the main sensor gets the job done, but the auxiliary sensors are an afterthought. The software is better out of the box than the previous POCO phone. It is more user-friendly and has fewer bugs. However, there are still loads of unwanted apps that can be annoying.
Great Deal 
New Comment