The Poco X series often offers a screen with a high refresh rate, a sizable, quick-charging battery, and an affordable CPU (leaving flagship performance to the F-phones). While the camera is rarely the focus, the X5 series hits all three boxes, and the latest Pro model boasts a 108MP sensor. This time, there is also a basic phone; however, we’ll come to that later.
The X4 Pro from around this time last year, the Xiaomi Poco X5 Pro, is a straight replacement. The chassis has been thinned out, making it the thinnest X-phone to date at 7.9mm (and third thinnest in the Poco family, beaten only by a couple of F-phones). The Snapdragon 778G, a 6nm (TSMC) CPU with a high-end Adreno 642L GPU, represents the generation’s key improvement. Comparing the new chipset to the Snapdragon 695 that drove the X4 Pro, it is noticeably faster on all fronts.
Xiaomi also increased the Pro’s standard storage to 128GB this year, but kept the RAM at 6GB. If you require extra storage and memory, there is an 8/256GB option (in either case they LPDDR4X RAM and UFS 2.2 storage). The phone comes pre-installed with MIUI 14 for Poco and Android 12.
Another improvement is the display. Still, it is a 6.67″ AMOLED panel with 1,080 x 2,400 pixels of resolution, a refresh rate of 120 hertz, and a touch sampling rate of 240 hertz. The DCI-P3 colour space is now completely rendered in 10-bit colour. Additionally, the display is brighter, peaking at 900 nits (up from 700 nits). A high frequency 1,920Hz PWM system controls dimming. Gorilla Glass 5 still provides protection.
As far as the cameras are concerned, the camera system is the same. Accordingly, the main module has a 108MP 1/1.52″ sensor and is complemented by an 8MP ultra wide-angle module (120°), a 2MP macro camera, a 16MP camera on the front, and two more cameras.
That being said, the Snapdragon 778G delivers a quicker ISP (2 gigapixels per second) and a more potent NPU, so the camera is not without room for development (12 TOPS). The most noticeable improvement is the ability to record 4K video (up from its predecessor’s embarrassingly slow 1080p@30fps). Additionally, using the camera has been speed up by 38% in night mode and 69% in photo shooting.
Additionally, the new processor supports Bluetooth 5.2 and Wi-Fi 6 (axe) for quicker local connectivity (up from Wi-Fi 5 and BT 5.1). A 3.5mm headphone connector, an IR blaster, and (in some places, at least) NFC are also included. The phone also boasts a USB-C connector, which can supply 67W to recharge the 5,000mAh battery.
