Poco X5 Review – It sails through without any major hiccups

At least in the first half of the year, Poco will rely mainly on the X5 model in the lower middle class, which offers trumps in the form of a really high-quality AMOLED display, 5G support or a 48-megapixel camera. There is no power or battery to throw away. In combination with the price of around 6 thousand crowns, it doesn’t look bad at all…

Package contents: the case is not missing

In addition to the phone itself, you will also find a USB cable in the black and yellow sales package, which has USB-C on one side and USB-A on the other. There is also a quick charger and a silicone protective case.

Construction: sympathetic design

Poco phones focus primarily on the best possible price-performance ratio, which means that any major work on the appearance is not on the agenda of the day. The Poco X5 is therefore a larger and classic-looking smartphone with rounded shapes that fit well in the palm of your hand. On the Czech market, you can choose between black, yellow and the blue version we tested. The first one is conservative, the yellow is bold-looking and matches the brand, the blue is pleasantly fresh and won’t offend anyone. However, we can see a light hacking in the unattractively large logo of the brand, which has to constantly litter the back.

The comfort of the grip is also enhanced by the thin sides, which this time are rather beveled and can be pressed into with your fingers. Around the perimeter is a set of classical elements. USB-C is complemented by a 3.5 mm jack, the drawer contains a slot for two nanoSIMs, or one nanoSIM and a memory card. The buttons on the right side are perhaps too thin, but they are quite comfortable to press. A fingerprint reader is integrated into the bottom, which works well and is fast.

The processing of the all-plastic phone is exemplary, there is nothing missing anywhere. The fact that the manufacturer went for a matte finish that almost doesn’t get dirty with fingerprints will also make you happy.

Display: the competition should be shaking

The big trump card of the Poco X5 will be a 6.7″ AMOLED display boasting a Full HD+ resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. It will thus be among the highest quality panels in its category. The colors are beautifully saturated, the black rendering is impressive and the readability is very good. old, albeit older, but still very durable Gorilla Glass 3. Although the phone has an AMOLED display, the standard Always-On mode is missing. You can only set the active mode, where the display remains lit for 10 seconds after locking and then also when tapping the display.

Sound: weakness

As soon as the producer gets excited somewhere, he has to cut back elsewhere. The sound is a perfect example. As we have already said, the presence of only one and not very high-quality speaker freezes. Especially considering that the Poco X5 will often find its way into the hands of teenagers, as a quality and affordable phone.

Hardware performance: solid

Inside the phone is a Snapdragon 695, and on the Czech market it always has 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, of which roughly 113GB is left for your data after the first power on. The performance of the phone is quite sufficient, even for playing games. If by chance the internal memory is not enough, you can always reach for a memory card (max. 1 TB).

Battery life: won’t let you down

Durability is ensured by a battery with a slightly above-average capacity of 5,000 mAh, which reliably ensures endurance of up to two days with moderate use. Replenishment of energy is quite quick, thanks to the power of 33 W, a complete replenishment of energy is a matter of about an hour. You have to forget about wireless charging, but this is no shortage for a mobile phone at this price level.

Connectivity: 5G plus

The mobile phone is very well equipped in terms of connectivity. It has Wi-Fi ac, Bluetooth 5.1 or 5G, which is a fundamental advantage for a phone with a price of around 6 thousand crowns. It is also possible to pay contactless with a mobile phone thanks to NFC. You can always and reliably find your location thanks to GPS, GLONASS and BeiDou positioning systems. USB-C is also available and there is already mentioned Dual SIM support.

Camera: simple numbers

There is a trio of cameras on the back, which is a kind of golden middle ground. The main 48-megapixel sensor is especially good in good lighting conditions, when it takes a decent picture. In poor lighting conditions, the quality drops rapidly.

The secondary 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens with a 118° field of view will certainly come in handy, which even more than the main sensor needs enough light so that the entire image is not grainy and blurry. The list of rear cameras ends with a 2-megapixel macro camera, which would be useful, but the low resolution almost excludes its use.

Selfies are taken by the 13-megapixel front-facing camera located in the display aperture, which is fully sufficient for the needs of social networks.

Unfortunately, the used processor fundamentally affected the video recording, which is only possible in Full HD resolution with 30 frames per second, while the fluidity is not good at all. It is therefore only suitable as an emergency for playback on the phone screen.

Poco X5 (test video) – 1080p, 30 FPS

Software: older Android

The Android 12 environment with MIUI 13 is also very well tuned, but it may not suit everyone due to its slight lack of transparency. But more fundamentally, the manufacturer does not look for updates and the new Android has not yet arrived. Security patches are valid as of November last year.

Evaluation

The Poco X5 is an honest phone of the lower middle class, which has several advantages. The top AMOLED display, well-optimized environment, 5G support and sufficient performance are worth highlighting. In combination with a price of around 6 thousand crowns, this means an interesting cocktail of equipment at an adequate price. The mobile phone has no major flaws, only minor stumbling blocks, in the form of, for example, old Android or a lower-quality loud speaker.

Competition

Competitors include the Motorola Edge 20 Lite, which is still being sold, with a similarly high-quality OLED display, a high-quality camera and, for some, a clearer environment.

If you don’t like AMOLED, you might be interested in the Honor Magic4 Lite with a 120Hz IPS display, an identical processor and a slightly higher price. But it compensates for this with significantly faster charging.

Photo: Michal Pavlíček, mobilenet.cz