POCO F5 Review

POCO has been one of the most anticipated smartphone brands in the country as they are known for budget-friendly gaming smartphones. The POCO F5, along with the F5 Pro, is the newest entry in their flagship line. This is also the first time that we get to check out the newest Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 and see how it performs as a gaming chipset.

Check out our full review of the POCO F5 below.

Design and Construction

The POCO F5’s design looks very minimalistic. The back Panel is made out of a high quality polycarbonate material with a carbon-like pattern, but do note that the back panel has a glossy finish making it prone to fingerprint smudges. Also here at the back we can find some POCO branding as well as its triple-rear camera setup along with a dual-LED flash.

Up front, we get a sizable 6.67-inch display with a punch-hole cutout in the middle for the selfie camera and call speaker. The frame, however, does feel like it is milled from an alluminum material. Pretty neat.

For buttons and ports, starting on the right side, we have the volume rocker and the sleep/wake button that doubles as a fingerprint scanner, nothing can be found on the left side.

Up top, we have the second speaker, secondary microphone, IR blaster and 3.5mm headphone jack.

Lastly, at the bottom, we have the dual-SIM card tray, primary microphone, speaker grill and the USB Type-C port.

Even though it’s a plus-sized smartphone, it is very easy to grip, all thanks to those chamfered edges and flat sides. In addition, it also has an IP53 Spash-resistant rating which is a plus!

Display, Multimedia and Biometrics

For the display, the POCO F5 boasts a 6.67-inch Flow AMOLED DotDisplay. It has a resolution of 2400 x 1080 and a 120Hz refresh rate with 240Hz touch sampling rate.

As expected of an AMOLED panel, we have punchy colors with real blacks which is also viewable when used outdoors. The display also looks clean as the bezels are asymmetrical. Gone is the chin that we always complain about on most smartphones in this tier.

The 6.67-inch display is a sweet spot when it comes to watching content on Netflix, YouTube and even when browsing TikTok or reels as it the aspect ratio of those platforms takes advantage of this device’s display.

When it comes to speakers, the POCO F5 has a dual speaker setup, one at the bottom and one at the top of the device. Well, the speaker quality is okay – nothing exceptional about it.

It sounds okay and is loud enough for when you casually want to listen to music but when watching movies, we recommend you to use the 3.5mm headphone jack or pair it up with your favorite TWS for a much more optimal experience.

For biometrics, the phone comes with a side-mounted fingerprint scanner, and AI face unlock features.

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the POCO F5 is a Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 that features an Adreno 725 GPU, up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 256GB of standard internal UFS 3.1 storage with LiquidCool Technology 2.0. I didn’t encounter any issues or whatsoever when using this device as my daily driver.

And coming from an iPhone 14 Pro – though not really comparable in so many aspects, but surprisingly, the POCO F5 handled all the things I threw at it. From basic social media and web surfing to editing Tiktok videos for our YugaTech Tiktok account and even editing RAW photos in Adobe Lightroom.

I’m not much of a gamer type of person, but I tried running those graphic-heavy games such as Asphalt 9 and Call of Duty Mobile, I haven’t encountered any issues. I’m mostly running it on medium settings, but when I tried bumping it up to the highest graphic settings available, surprisingly, the POCO F5 handled it pretty well.

Sure, there are frame drops from time to time, but it is barely noticeable. The POCO F5 will feel a bit warm to the touch when playing games or even doing some heavy multitasking for prolonged periods of time, but this is quite normal.

If you are interested in benchmark scores, here are the results that we got.

PCMark Work 3.0 – 13,656
GeekBench 6 CPU – 1093, 4059
GeekBench 6 GPU – 3431 (OpenCL)
Antutu Storage – 1967.8MB/s(R), 1472.6MB/s(W), 384.3MB/s 311.1MB/s(RND)
Antutu 9.6 – 925,777

The benchmark scores you are seeing here are pretty much a hair close to the ones we got on the POCO F5 Pro with Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset. Very impressive, if you ask me.

Camera

When it comes to the POCO F5’s camera, we have a triple camera setup here consisting of a 64MP main with f/1.79, an 8MP ultra-wide lens f/2.2, and 2MP macro camera with f/2.4. For selfies we have a 16MP shooter with f/2.45.

When it comes to the camera quality, well, the output is pretty average for its class. The image looks okay, colors are accurate, HDR is observed, and there is an ample amount of detail on every shot. Things might change a bit in dark environment as both the main and ultra-wide camera can sometimes struggle on capturing the right color of the subject, as well as producing detailed images.

You can also shoot using the full 64MP camera, but there isn’t much of a difference between a photo taken using normal mode.

Night mode is present here, but it doesn’t really do anything other than boosting the saturation of the photo. Macro lens is also present. Yeah, it is cool, but forgettable. We are not a fan of this and the quality is also just okay.

Video, on the other hand, is surprisingly good. The POCO F5 can shoot up to 4K at 30fps on primary camera and a maximum of 1080p at 30fps on ultra-wide. It does have OIS making the video output buttery smooth. And just like what we see in photos, colors are accurate with ample amount of details. HDR is also present here.

OS, Apps and UI

Running on the POCO F5 is Android 13 skinned with MUIU 14 for POCO. If you happen to have a Xiaomi or a Redmi device before, you will feel at home here. The UI feels clean – aside from those pre-installed games and apps in which you can easily remove or uninstall.

Haptic feedback is also good on this device. It is a little weak as compared to Apple’s, but comparable to that of some Android flagship devices in the market. From typing to even just clearing your notifications from the status bar, the haptic feedback on the POCO F5 makes the devices feels much more alive.

Other features include Always on Display, raise to wake, and double tap to wake. There’s also a wallpaper carousel which I find very annoying, but if you want to have different wallpapers everytime, this feature is here.

If you want to fully customize and personalize your POCO F5, you can also download themes on the wallpaper app – pretty cool.

Connectivity and Battery Life

For connectivity, the POCO F5 has all the standard connectivity features such as WiFi, 5G connectivity, Bluetooth 5.3, and Dual SIM.

Poco F5

For battery, the POCO F5 packs a 5,000mAh Li-Ion battery with support for 67W Turbo Charging that promises 0 – 100% full charge in just 46 minutes.

During our testing, the POCO F5 lasted us a good one and a half days of casual usage, which includes browsing the web, and scrolling through my social media accounts on WiFI. Meanwhile, we are getting almost a day when doing heavy multitasking and editing photos and videos, and scrolling through my social media accounts under mobile data.

In our book, this real-life battery benchmark is actually good. See the results of our test below.

Video Loop Test – 21 hours 08 minutes
PCMark Work 3.0 Battery Test – 14 hours 21 minutes

Conclusion

To conclude this review, the POCO F5 is a good smartphone. It is playing in between the mid-range and flagship device segment in the Android world. Considering that the POCO F5 is the first smartphone that has a Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 chipset, you can really expect that this device won’t fail you when it comes to performance. Cameras are also promising, aside from that macro lens that we really hate – in general, as it could’ve been a telephoto lens instead. Battery on the other hand is also decent.

Nonetheless, we can’t really say anything negative about this device. For now, we can give the POCO F5 a recommendation score of 8 out of 10.

Specs and Pricing

The POCO F5 will come in three colors — White, Blue, and Black. It will be available in two variants: 8GB+256GB and 12GB+256GB. The 8GB+256GB variant will have a recommended retail price of Php 20,999 while the 12GB+256GB variant will have a recommended retail price of Php 22,999 via official e-commerce channels.

POCO F5 will be available for purchase at an early bird price of Php 18,499 and Php 20,499, respectively starting May 9 via POCO’s Official Store in Shopee.

POCO F5 specs:
6.67-inch FHD+ AMOLED DotDisplay (2400 x 1080)
120Hz refresh rate
Corning Gorilla Glass 5
Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2
Adreno 725
8, 12GB LDDR5 RAM
256GB UFS 3.1 Storage
Triple-rear Camera:
• 64MP wide f/1.79
• 8MP ultra-wide f/2.2
• 2MP macro f/2.4
16MP front camera f/2.45
MIUI 14 (Android 13)
5,000mAh Li-Ion battery (67W Turbo Charging)
WiFi, Dualnano-SIM
Bluetooth 5.3
5G connectivity
Side-mounted fingerprint sensor
AI Face Unlock
IR Blaster
IP53 spash-proof protection
USB Type-C
NFC
161.11mm x 74.95mm x 7.9mm
White, Blue, Black
Weight: 181grams

What we liked:
• Great Display
• Decent Cameras with OIS
• Clean and Ergonomic Design
• Good Performance
• Good Haptics
• Fast Charging

What we didn’t like:
• Macro Lens
• 64MP feels like a gimmick