A recent market share report from IDC points to the Transsion groups the top smartphone brand in the second quarter of 2023. The impressive 38% market share of smartphone shipments in that period also revealed that Tecno contributed to about half of that group’s total. That still puts Tecno at around 19% share, still ahead of 2nd runner up realme at 16.3%.
This month, Tecno is once again pulling another stunt with a very compelling new gaming smarpthone — the Tecno POVA 5 Pro 5G.
Table of Contents
Design and Construction
The Tecno Pova 5 Pro 5G immediately catches your eye with its sleek and very eccentric design language. It actually kind off resembles the Nothing Phone 25 design aesthetics. We are seeing a few smartphone manufacturers that are jumping into this kind of design language and we are pretty excited to see other take on this aesthetics.
At the back we have this industrial looking design with LEDs that glows whenever you have any notifications, if the phone has low battery, or for when gaming. Up top we do have two circular bump that houses its cameras, along with a dual LED flash.
Up front we have that sizable 6.78-inch LCD display with a selfie camera cutout up top as well as the call speaker.
For buttons and ports, we have the power button that also doubled as you fingerprint scanner and the volume rocker. On the left hand side, we have here the dual-SIM with a dedicated microSD card slot. Up top we have the secondary speaker, while down at the button we have the main speaker grille, USB Type-C port for charging and data transfers, call microphone, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
All these IOs are placed in a plastic frame that is painted in a glossy finish to conceal that polycarbonate material. We think it looks good as it does look somewhat posh which adds a little bit of a premium look to the device.
Display and Multimedia
When it comes to the display, the Tecno POVA 5 Pro 5G packs a 6.78-inch IPS LCD panel with a resolution of 2460 x 1080 pixels that is capable of producing 396ppi pixel density.
The display quality is good for its tier. Saturation is good, contrast is okay – as you would expect on an IPS LCD panel. When it comes to the brightness, sadly, it can only go up to a maximum of 580 nits peak brightness, and that being said, you might have some legibility issues when using this device outdoors.
Viewing angles are also okay, although the display can look a bit dark on certain angles. Overall, the display on the POVA 5 Pro 5G is average, but it is surprisingly sharp. And before we forgot, the bezels are also thin except for the chin, which overall will give you a total of 84.7% screen-to-body ratio.
On to the speakers, we have a dual-speaker setup here, and man! They are loud. The speakers can easily fill up the room at maximum volume. One gripe we have here is that, there are cases where the speakers might sound a bit tiny, but overall, we are surprised on how loud the speaker is on this device.
If you don’t like how the speaker sounds, there’s an earphones included in the box so you can easily take advantage of that 3.5mm headphone jack.
Performance and Benchmarks
Under the hood, the Pova 5 Pro 5G packs a MediaTek Dimensity 6080 chipset, that features a Mali-G57 MC2 GPU, and 8GB of RAM which can be expanded up to an additional 8GBs (Extended RAM).
Multitasking feels buttery smooth, and even resource-intensive tasks multiple apps running in the background, causal video editing as well as well as gaming – at least when under medium settings. Things might fall apart when you try maxing it out as we need to take its chipset in consideration.
The device can also feel a little bit warm when doing intensive tasks and gaming but it is not really a bother.
We run it through our usual benchmarking apps, and here are the results that we got:
Antutu Benchmark v10: 439,432
3DMark: 1,324
GeekBench 6 CPU – 948 (Single-core), 2388 (Multi-core)
GeekBench 6 GPU: 1409 (Vulkan), 1384 (OpenCL)
PC Work 3.0 Performance- 10,131
Camera
Let’s talk about photography. The Pova 5 Pro 5G boasts a versatile quad-camera setup, headlined by a 50MP primary sensor and a 0.08MP depth sensor. Up front we have a 16MP selfie camera
Photos come out good in most cases. Although some details are a bit washed out especially when taking photos under low lighting conditions. But in general, you won’t be having any issues when it comes to image quality when taking photos in bright lighting conditions. Same goes with its front facing camera. Skin tones are okay, although the result of post processing can sometimes lead to a little bit reddish skin tone, but overall, image quality is enough for social media postage.
Video on the other hand, the Tecno POVA 5 Pro 5G can shoot up to 2K at 30fps which is amazing at this class. But keep in mind that there is no form of stabilization here so if you have shacky hands, well, you have to use some kind of stabilizer with this device.
Connectivity and Battery Life
Battery anxiety? Not with the Tecno Pova 5 Pro 5G. Its massive 5000mAh battery keeps you going throughout the day. We are getting a full day of battery life with the POVE 5 Pro 5G which includes browsing the web and social media apps on mobile data, playing hardcore games from time to time and taking photos around the city and still, we have a pretty good 20% of battery remaining.
We run it through our battery tests and we go a total score of 25 hours, 16 minutes on our standard video loop test, while on the PCMark Work 3.0 Battery test, it yielded a total score of 12 hours and 41 minutes.
These results are good making it a good tool for our LalaMove or Grab driver friends out there as this will definitely keep those bookings coming whiteout you worrying to plug it in.
But when you need, luckily, the Tecno POVA 5 Pro 5G comes supported with a 68W wired fast charging support which can juice this device from 0-50% in just a shy of 20 minutes.
For connectivity, we have 5G support, Wi-Fi 802.11, GPS, GLONASS, FM Radio – yes we do still have that, Bluetooth, and USB Type-C 2.0.
OS, App and UI
On the software front, the Pova 5 Pro 5G runs on Android 13 with Tecno’s customized UI, HIOS 13. The HIOS offers a user-friendly experience and a host of customization options. The unit we have has the Free Fire theme running which has a comic-like icons and graphics throughout the UI but you can quickly change it to the stock HIOS theme if you want to.
There are a few pre-installed apps like AHA Games, Carlcare in which you can easily put a schedule on a Tecno service service center if you are experiencing any issues with your POVA 5 Pro 5G. There’s also Game Space, Hi Translate, and Palm Store, just to name a few.
We find these pre-installed apps purposeful for users, but if you find yourself not using it, you can easily have it uninstalled.
Other features like gesture navigation, dark mode are also present here and there’s a variety of customization options, allowing you to tailor the device to your liking.
For biometrics, there’s a side mounted fingerprint scanner that works pretty fast, along with a facial recognition. But like we always say, do stick with fingerprint scanners when having this class of smartphone as it is much more secured.
Conclusion
The Tecno Pova 5 Pro 5G impresses with its stellar performance, a display that is immersive enough, 5G connectivity, a decent camera, and a battery life that can last you a day or two depending on how you use it, we can give this device a recommendation score of 8 out of 10.
Because at the price of PHP 10,999 (PHP 9,999 promo price 43), this device can be a good daily driver whether you’re a gamer, a content creator, or someone who values a dependable device, the Pova 5 Pro 5G certainly deserves a spot on your radar.
Tecno POVA 5 Pro 5G specs:
6.78” FHD+ display
1080 x 2460 pixels, 120Hz refresh
MediaTek Dimensity 6080
8GB RAM (+8GB extended memory)
128, 256GB storage
Dual rear cameras:
– 50MP AI main
– Secondary lens
16MP selfie shooter
5G, 4G LTE
Wi-Fi
Bluetooth
GPS
USB Type-C
3.5mm audio jack
NFC
Fingerprint sensor
Ambient LED lighting (rear panel)
HiOS based on Android 13
5000mAh battery
68W fast charging
168.50 x 76.50 x 9.00 mm
Dark Illusion, Silver Fantasy
