Poco F5 Professional overview: Wonderful worth flagship

Having delivered an underwhelming improve to its common F-Sequence telephone alongside the F4 GT in 2022, we had been curious to see how Poco would strategy the 2023 vary. The regular F4 was primarily a rinse-and-repeat of the F3 however with a worse design. The F4 GT was a Black Shark telephone with a special model identify.

Because it seems, issues are fairly totally different this 12 months. The common F5 is joined by the F5 Professional which has a correct flagship mind, however a price ticket far under the extremely high-end flagships from its mum or dad model, or some other model for that matter.

For these unfamiliar, the F-series is Poco’s “flagship” vary. It is the one which delivers efficiency and specs which are near a number of the top-tier premium Android telephones however at a fraction of the worth. The 2023 Poco F5 Professional delivers high-end options and efficiency, making it one of the thrilling sub-$500 telephones out there.

Design

• 162.8 x 75.4 x 8.6mm – 204g
• Glass back and front – IP53 water/mud resistance
• Obtainable in black or white

One large factor we’re glad to see for 2023’s flagship F-series is a return to specializing in a beautiful, comfy machine. The Poco F4 was bland, straight-edged and fairly cheap-looking. The F5 Professional could not be a lot farther from that, with quite a few components that present Xiaomi’s sub-brand has been extra purposeful about design for the newer mannequin.

The rear panel has curves in the direction of the perimeters to make it sit comfortably within the hand. And – not solely that – has a few slim aramid fibre-like strips working down the again; one on either side of the telephone. That is joined by an oblong digicam protrusion which – reasonably than simply being slapped straight on the telephone with no embellishment – encompasses a chamfer on either side. It seems good, enticing even, with an aesthetic that feels stylish and fairly distinctive.

Our solely actual grievance about it’s that the shiny glass on the again is liable to slipping off issues if the telephone is positioned down on a floor that is not utterly straight. It additionally collects fingerprint smudges actually simply, rapidly turning into a smeared foggy mess. In case you’re planning on getting one, we might suggest maintaining a microfibre material close by.

We do get some minor water resistance this 12 months, with the IP53 rating providing a lightweight barrier in opposition to slight spray and moisture. In any other case, it is fairly the standard affair. The entrance is dominated by a big show, with skinny bezels across the edges and a small punch-hole digicam close to the highest.

• 6.67-inch AMOLED WQHD+ show – 3200 x 1440 decision
• As much as 120Hz refresh charges – 1400 nits peak brightness
• In-display fingerprint sensor
• MIUI 14 primarily based on Android 13

Lately, the development for Android telephone shows has been to equip them with a full HD (1080p) decision panel. That is true throughout a variety of worth factors, however right here (as with many areas) Poco outperforms a whole lot of its direct competitors. The F5 Professional has a WQHD+ decision display which implies – from a sharpness perspective – it is on par with the S23 Ultra, Xiaomi 13 Pro and OnePlus 11.

Like most with QHD+ equal resolutions, it is not enabled by default. Out of the field, the decision is ready to 1080p. The concept being that by setting it to a decrease sharpness it would not drain the battery as rapidly. Based mostly on our testing, it definitely does assist having a decrease decision if what you need – greater than something – is longer battery life.

As we have found with so many gadgets, the total HD+ setting is greater than sufficient to present you sharp photographs. You’d battle to see particular person pixels even shut up, however there is not any denying the additional sharpness you get from enabling the total decision. Smaller, finer particulars turn into crisper and cleaner.

Sharpness is not its solely power. It is vivid, colour-rich and options just a few different flagship-level strengths. One under-appreciated functionality is the variety of brightness ranges and the pace at which it could actually adapt and alter to match its environment.

The auto brightness is so pure and easy that we by no means as soon as needed to attain for the brightness slider within the drop-down management centre. Relatively than simply leap from one brightness to a different in a step, it regularly ramps up or decreases, to the purpose the place you’ll be able to’t simply see it occurring. It’s miles much less jarring than what we have seen on quite a few different telephones, notably within the mid-range market.

What’s extra, its typical display brightness can attain as much as 1000 nits when crucial with peaks – when required for small vivid spots in HDR video – that may attain as much as 1400 nits. That is successfully as excessive as what you could possibly look forward to finding on a whole lot of the extra premium smartphone shows.

You even get refresh rates up to 120Hz, so the whole lot gliding on the display’s interface is easy and sharp constantly. It does have a type of adaptive refresh know-how, but it surely’s to not the identical stage because the really top-end shows on the likes of the OnePlus 11 or Xiaomi 13 Extremely. That is to say it could actually swap between 60Hz and 120Hz, however cannot do extra granular shifting. Nonetheless, you will seemingly by no means discover it when watching motion pictures or gaming. That kind of function is usually designed to permit the show refresh to drop actually low and – in doing so – save battery.

The tip result’s a extremely good display for its place out there. Particulars are crisp, and it is actually vivid, permitting you to see it fairly clearly even outdoors when in vivid daylight. In its default color setting we discovered it to be a bit too contrast-heavy and over-saturated, however there’s loads of customisation out there to tweak that. Within the show ‘Color Scheme’ settings menu, underneath ‘Superior settings’, there are alternatives for each P3 and sRGB. We discovered that setting it to sRGB produced the colors we most popular, however there’s a whole lot of alternative right here to tweak it till you are utterly completely satisfied.

There are alternatives for adjusting the purple, inexperienced and blue tint, in addition to adjusting the saturation, distinction and gamma, till the image calibration is nailed down.

We have spoken so much lately in regards to the MIUI software program on Poco telephones. Among the decisions are counter-intuitive, and require some taming. Nothing has modified right here on the Android 13-based Poco F5 Professional. Swiping down from the highest will ship notifications or the management centre relying on whether or not you swipe on the best or left facet of the display. You aren’t getting notifications and fast settings collectively until you alter the model.

One factor we’re pleased with is that it would not appear as insistent on making you strive the wallpaper carousel function because it has in earlier variations. It does, nonetheless, proceed to whisk you off into the themes retailer everytime you need to change your wallpaper or ringtone, which is a bit irritating. It additionally defaults to spreading your apps throughout all the house screens once you first set it up.

On the entire, the software program continues to be fairly heavy handed, however it’s fluid and really customisable, so it is not all unhealthy. It is simply not as mild as what you’d get on a Pixel, Nokia or Motorola telephone.

Efficiency, battery and charging

• Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 platform – 8GB/256GB, 12GB/256GB and 12GB/512GB variants
• 5160mAh battery – 67W wired quick charging – 30W quick wi-fi charging

Within the part of the market the place Poco competes, we’re used to seeing telephones with a ‘first rate but-not-quite-flagship’ processor inside. Consider the likes of Samsung’s Galaxy A54 or the top-level OnePlus Nord fashions, and also you get a succesful, however not tremendous speedy platform working the present. It is secure to say, Poco’s gone someplace the opposite mid-rangers have not gone earlier than.

Contained in the telephone you will discover the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1. And, simply so you’ll be able to ensure that it is not a typo we’ll repeat that: it is bought the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 inside, which – till lately – was essentially the most highly effective and environment friendly Snapdragon platform in the marketplace. It is what’s contained in the likes of the Galaxy Z Fold 4 (Samsung’s most costly telephone) in addition to the OnePlus 10T, Xiaomi 12T Professional and the Asus ROG Telephone 6 Professional.

That is to say it is not a mid-range processor powering the telephone. It might not be essentially the most up-to-date flagship chipset, but it surely’s a substantial step up from the Snapdragon 870 which powered each the Poco F4 Professional and the F3 Professional earlier than it. Poco’s not messing about right here.

The tip result’s precisely what you’d count on from a telephone with this engine: pace. It flies by means of each process and not using a stutter or delayed response. That is partly all the way down to the chipset, however can also be the results of the 120Hz show guaranteeing animations keep easy and quick, plus the 12GB RAM. All advised, it is a speedy, highly effective system.

One other good thing about the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is that it would not appear to get too sizzling underneath load. We might play video games for prolonged intervals and the telephone hardly ever felt too heat to the contact.

The sensation of pace and fluidity is matched by the battery refill instances too. Its 67W means even a 10-15 minute top-up is sufficient to get you thru nearly a complete day. An entire refill from empty takes roughly 40 minutes. It is not as quick because the likes of Xiaomi’s personal 120W wired charging that ships with the Xiaomi 13 Professional, but it surely’s nonetheless actually fast in comparison with the likes of Apple, Samsung and Google’s efforts.

We have famous prior to now that it is the kind of pace that permits you to change your charging habits. With 67W wired charging you will not must plug your telephone in in a single day, each night time. You may fairly simply await it to drop to the dreaded 20 per cent mark, plug it in for quarter-hour or so, and decide it up once more.

It is the type of pace meaning there is not any actual battery nervousness right here as a result of you understand that even for those who do handle to empty it earlier than the tip of the day, you’ll be able to plug it in and be in your manner swiftly. Not that the battery would trigger you any actual concern anyway. Its 5160mAh capability is fairly beneficiant, and even with the QuadHD+ decision enabled and with 2-3 hours of display use in a day, we by no means managed to get near draining it earlier than the tip of a piece day.

With our personal typical reasonable to mild utilization, most days we might end with close to sufficient 40 per cent left on the finish of the day. That is with taking the telephone off cost at 8am, utilizing it for 2-3 hours (normally cut up between Twitter, informal gaming, net looking and YouTube) and going to mattress at 11pm. That meant we might usually get to mid-afternoon on a second day earlier than eager to plug it in to cost. Or you’ll be able to relaxation it on a wi-fi charger – making it much more handy to high up.

Cameras

• 64MP foremost digicam – f/1.79 – OIS
• 8MP ultrawide digicam – f/2.2
• 2MP macro digicam – f/2.4
• 4K and 8K video recording – OIS and EIS stabilisation

If there’s on space that is not fairly as as much as flagship ranges as the remainder of the telephone, it is the digicam division. The first 64-megapixel digicam is okay sufficient, but it surely’s joined by two fairly low decision sensors. These are the 8-megapixel ultrawide and the 2-megapixel macro. Each noticeably poorer than the primary digicam.

In good daylight you will get comparatively sturdy photographs from the primary digicam. However not as sturdy as what we noticed from the likes of the Galaxy A54 or the Pixel 6a. The images processed from the Poco telephone have a darkish, fairly crushed look to them in mild circumstances the place there’s various contrasting shadow and vivid mild.

Within the landscapes above you will discover the timber within the background turn into one thing of a feature-less, blotchy element within the background, notably once you hit the 2x zoom which digitally zooms in on the primary digicam.

You may nonetheless get photographs with plenty of vibrant color in these photographs, so it is not a nasty digicam in any respect. And since you need to use the 2x zoom perform to good impact (so long as you are not coping with sophisticated topics stuffed with high quality element), it makes extra sense to make use of that perform than attempt to use the macro digicam.

The ultrawide digicam photographs aren’t pretty much as good as the first snapper. They’re significantly much less detailed, with barely extra muted colors and noisier within the shadows, notably from photographs taken in lower-light conditions.

Verdict

Our finish feeling with the F5 Professional is one we have not felt from Poco because the Poco F3 Professional two years in the past: it is astonishing worth for cash (so long as the digicam is not your foremost concern). You get a shocking, large show, nice battery life and actual flagship ranges of efficiency in a telephone that prices lower than half what the ultra-premium telephones price. It is wonderful worth for cash.

If Poco might be taught to tame a number of the consumer interface/MIUI software program and ship cleaner software program, much less crushed photographs from the primary digicam, it could be close to sufficient excellent. Including wi-fi charging, a Quad HD show and a extra considerate design has improved issues massively from the F4.