Xiaomi Poco F5 5G Dual 256GB 8GB RAM Factory Unlocked (GSM Only | No CDMA - not Compatible with Verizon/Sprint) Global - Blue

£9.9
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Xiaomi Poco F5 5G Dual 256GB 8GB RAM Factory Unlocked (GSM Only | No CDMA - not Compatible with Verizon/Sprint) Global - Blue

Xiaomi Poco F5 5G Dual 256GB 8GB RAM Factory Unlocked (GSM Only | No CDMA - not Compatible with Verizon/Sprint) Global - Blue

RRP: £99
Price: £9.9
£9.9 FREE Shipping

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Description

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. You’ll have to activate it in the Settings menu, however, and this iteration of Xiaomi’s MIUI doesn’t always seem to be particularly well prepared for it. The default camera widget doesn’t resize properly, as you can see from the pictures.

When it comes to media usage, an hour of video streaming sapped 7% of a charge, while half an hour of gaming drained around 14%. An hour of music streaming barely dropped the battery level a single percentage point. All in all, the Poco F5 Pro’s efficient processor and large battery serve it well.

Power at the Top of its Range

The Poco F5 and Poco F5 Pro are expected to be aggressively priced to take on the competition in the mid-range smartphone market. The Poco F5 Pro’s lead component, even more than its super-sharp display, is its processor. Both the brand in general and the F-series in particular have always been about excellent performance at a price, and the Poco F5 Pro is the fastest Poco yet. Proximity Sensor, Light Sensor, Gyroscope Sensor, Accelerometer (G-Sensor), Fingerprint Sensor, Infrared Sensor The F5 is equipped with a Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 processor and the F5 Pro has a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor.

You’re getting MIUI 14 layered on top of Android 13 with the Poco F5, just like with the Poco F5 Pro, not to mention the Xiaomi 13 and the Redmi Note 12 Pro. It’s no less cluttered or clumsy here. And so we come to the part of the review where we mention the key weakness with most if not all Xiaomi phones: software. The day-to-day performance of the phone shows that it occupies the slot between recent flagship models and upper mid-rangers, which is to be expected of the Snapdragon 7 Plus Gen 2. This means that general scrolling, web browsing, and multitasking work fine, although I do notice occasional lag when returning to the home screen. That said, this does not occur often enough to be a major issue. The camera has no trouble turning out shareable photos in good lighting, and the selfie camera is fine. The portrait mode on the main and selfie lens struggles with edges and stray hairs, but it produces a decent bokeh effect. The main camera has a night mode that does a passable job, but inevitably noise creeps in the darker it gets. It cannot match something like Google’s Pixel. 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.

Xiaomi POCO F5 5G

Shots from the main sensor also tend to be a little too saturated, and the noise levels tend to increase in darker areas, with images becoming over-sharpened in this case. This is solved when you switch to Night mode, which does a solid job of lifting the brightness and reducing noise, likely owing to OIS that allows for slower shutter speeds. On the other hand, the default Photo mode doesn't produce bright shots at night.

Xiaomi is also keeping things the same with the camera on the POCO F5, which is the same setup as the POCO F4. It's also the same set of shooters for the F5 Pro, and while that's not entirely a bad thing, the auxiliary cameras are not quite the best on the market. 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. Paired with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage, this model really is a very well specced mid-ranger. There are 8GB/256GB and 12GB/512GB variants out there in some markets, but they’re not being sold in the UK. 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.

Large Screen with Seamless Fluidity

Xiaomi has given the Poco F5 a 5000mAh battery, which is much larger than the Poco F4’s 4500mAh cell. Considering last year’s model was quite a bit heavier, that’s quite a feat. As for the selfie camera, it’s high-resolution at 16MP, and that translates to great shots in bright environments. At night, though, it gets very washed out, so you’ll need to fire up that blinding front flash. Poco F5 verdict Decidedly less premium is the provision of an IP53 rating. We’ve seen mid-range phones such as the Nothing Phone (1) and the Samsung Galaxy A54 offering IP67, so it’s possible to get proper waterproofing for an even cheaper price. 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.



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