POCO F5 5G Review – Flagship Performance at Mid-Range Price

The POCO F5 5G has been launched in India in two RAM variants. The base variant costs Rs. 29,999 for 8GB RAM and 256GB internal storage while the top variant costs Rs 33,999 for 12GB RAM and 256GB internal storage.

The phone is available in three different colour options: Carbon Black, Electric Blue and Snowstorm White. You will be able to buy the phone directly from the official website of POCO and other platforms like Flipkart.

The POCO F5 5G packs the following items inside the box:

• Handset
• 67W Charger
• USB Type-C Cable
• Sim Ejector Tool
• Protective Case
• Quick Start Guide
• Warranty Card

Before we talk in detail about the POCO F5 5G review, let’s see what the on-paper specs look like:

• Display: 6.67 inches AMOLED
• Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 2
• RAM & ROM: 8GB 256GB, 12GB 256 GB
• Software: Android v13
• Rear camera: 64MP + 8MP + 2MP
• Selfie camera: 16MP
• Battery: 5000 mAh
• Weight: 181 grams
• Dimensions: 161.1 x 74.9 x 7.9 mm

Starting with the design, the POCO F5 5G looks simple yet killer at the same time. I have the black colour option with me, which boasts a smooth carbon fibre look at the back. It does attract fingerprints quickly, so better use it with the bundled case. However, I faced some difficulties in pressing the power button with the case.

One thing that I felt a bit weird about was that the front side is flat while the back is a bit curved around the edges. Don’t take it wrong, it doesn’t feel bad but offers a different feel. The phone has a plastic built but it doesn’t feel cheap at any point. The frame is flat with curved corners and offers a good grip.

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There are two big and one small lens on the back along with POCO branding on the bottom. While the phone is big in size, it’s very light to my surprise, weighing just about 181 grams.

Coming over to ports and buttons, the right side has the power button, which doubles as the fingerprint scanner along with volume rockers. The left side is clean while the top has the 3.5mm audio jack, IR blaster, and secondary speaker. Lastly, the button side has the type-C port, primary speaker and SIM card slot.

POCO F5 5G features a triple camera setup on the back which captures quite good shots in daylight conditions. It includes a 64MP main camera, an 8MP ultra-wide lens and a 2MP macro lens. The front side has a 16MP selfie camera inside the punch-hole cutout.

The main camera takes some really good shots in outdoor conditions. The images were punchy and vibrant with good details. Dynamic range was also good. Even low-light shots were decent until you zoom in. There is some level of noise in the images but that’s acceptable, considering it’s not a camera focused phone.

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Ultra-wide shots were also good with decent detailing. There is a very minor colour shift when compared to the main camera. The macro lens is nothing special to talk about.

The 16MP front camera captures bright and crisp selfies in daylight conditions. However, indoor shots were not very good. Skin tones were not accurate and the overall images were a bit on the softer side.

POCO F5 5G packs a big 5000mAh battery that delivers a solid battery backup. You can easily get around 2 days of battery backup on light usage. A heavy user can still use the phone for a whole day and might need to plug in the charger at the night.

I got more than 7 hours of screen on time which is really impressive. There is also battery saver mode which we usually see in every phone which further extends the battery life.

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You get a 67W fast charger in the box that takes almost an hour to fully charge the phone from 0 to 100 per cent. A quick charge of just 5 minutes will juice up the battery to around 20 per cent.

The POCO F5 5G features an FHD+ 6.67 inches AMOLED display that offers a really immersive viewing experience. It has a 120Hz refresh rate and a peak brightness of 1000 nits. The display gets pretty bright in outdoor conditions and I did not face any issues while using it under direct sunlight.

Talking about display quality, the phone offers vibrant and punchy colours. The content on the screen looks amazing. Be it watching videos on the YouTube or scrolling reels on Instagram. The 120Hz refresh rate enhances the overall experience.

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Moreover, the phone has very thin bezels on all the sides which makes the viewing experience really immersive and gives it a flagship vibe. It comes with HDR 10+ certification along with Widevine L1 support which means you can enjoy high quality content on OTT platforms like Netflix and Prime Video.

Overall it’s a great display and surely one of the best displays in this price segment.

POCO F5 5G is powered by the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 2 which makes it the first phone in India to pack this chipset. It is paired with up to 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. You even get the memory extension feature which can increase the RAM by another 7GB (12GB variant) using the internal storage.

The phone runs smoothly while performing day to day activities. Apps open up quickly and switching between apps was seamless. Even heavy apps like Instagram and Snapchat run without any jitters.

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Since it’s a performance focused phone, I had to run some heavy games on it. And as expected, the phone did not let me down anywhere. I ran New State Mobile and Asphalt 9. Both the games ran flawlessly on high settings.

New State could run at Ultra graphics and Max frame rate without any lags or jitters. You even get support for 90fps on New State as well as CoD Mobile. I played for around half an hour and the gameplay was quite smooth. The phone got a little warm but that’s okay considering the hot weather in Delhi.

The POCO F5 runs on MIUI 14 skin which is based on Android 13. Good to see that the phone comes with Android 13 out of the box. The overall UI was simple and smooth. It comes with a bunch of customisation and personalisation options.

You get features like gesture shortcuts, quick ball, screen recorder, floating window, second space, dual apps and more.

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While all these are good to have, you also get bloatware in the phone, including third party apps like Amazon, Prime Video, Moj, LinkedIn, Spotify, Snapchat and more. Good thing is that you can uninstall them from the app settings.