Naturally, if you keep the screen to its default FHD+/60Hz settings, you’ll get much better mileage, probably edging towards true two-day usage. But unless you’re going camping, the former scenario is more likely. Here on the Poco F5 Pro you get MIUI 14 on top of Android 13, but there’s little meaningful difference to last year’s version. It’s fine, but you can get a cleaner and ultimately better experience for similar or less money, including the Motorola Edge 30 Fusion and any of Google’s more affordable Pixel phones. Battery life I have no complaints about the Poco F5 screen staying much the same. It’s still an agreeably big, bright, responsive, and colour-accurate panel for the money, and one that’s well suited to consuming media on the go.

This isn’t the fastest affordable Xiaomi phone when it comes time to recharge, with a 67W wired charge in the box. Together with that larger cell, it leads to the phone getting from 0 to 69% in 30 minutes, and to a full charge in around 56 minutes. That’s still not bad, but bear in mind that the Redmi Note 12 Pro Plus gives you a 120W charger and a full charge in 30 minutes. The other colours, however, look much more traditional, and that’s great for options, as we actually really like the overall design and build of the Poco F5.

POCO's latest mid-range phone offers a premium gaming experience for the money, but it's more expensive than its predecessor.

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 Poco F5 is quite clearly a better phone than the Poco F4, with impressive performance, a nicer design, and superior battery life adding to an already impressive AMOLED display.

Proximity Sensor, Light Sensor, Gyroscope Sensor, Accelerometer (G-Sensor), Fingerprint Sensor, Infrared Sensor 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. With rapid performance, a superb screen, and a mid-range price, something had to give. In Poco F-series world, that something is invariably the camera. If you're looking for a phone that can handle even the most demanding games, the POCO F5 is a great option.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 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. 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. 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. 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.

Ultimately, this is a camera system that struggles to compete with much more modestly priced phones like the Redmi Note 12 Pro (not even the Plus) and the OnePlus Nord 2T, both of which with their superior Sony IMX766 main sensor. Needless to say, the Pixel 6a camera runs rings around the Poco F5 Pro.

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It would have been a lot better to swap out the macro sensor with a telephoto shooter. Since this isn't the case, the phone crops in on the main camera when you're zooming in on a scene. This is generally fine on a bright sunny day, with a respectable level of detail, decent exposure, and a good dynamic range. However, images tend to become soft when the sky is overcast.

There’s a lot of crossover between Xiaomi’s various sub-brands, which explains why the Poco F5 Pro looks an awful lot like the Redmi K60 – a mid-range phone that launched in China towards the end of 2022 – and very unlike the vanilla Poco F5.At 162.78 x 75.44 x 8.59mm and 204g, the Poco F5 Pro lives in the big-but-not-gigantic territory that most mid-range phones exist in. It feels robust and comfortable in the hand, though you’d never mistake it for something more expensive. Once again there’s a rather compact 1/2in 64MP main sensor, a mediocre 8MP ultra-wide, and an inconsequential 2MP macro. OIS makes a return for that main sensor, which is good news, but again nothing new. 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. 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.