Poco F5 Review in Five Minutes: Is this a Contender for Best Phone Under 30000 INR in India?

The Poco F5 series has officially been released in India and globally. The line-up includes the Poco F5 and Poco F5 Pro. However, only the vanilla Poco F5 made its way to Indian shores, which is the subject of today's first brief hands-on review.

Let's start with some of the key highlights of the Poco F5, which include the new Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 SoC, the 120Hz AMOLED display, 5,000 mAh battery, 67W fast-charging support, and the 64 MP triple-camera setup. So how much does the Poco F5 cost?

Poco F5 Price in India

The Poco F5 price in India is set at Rs 29,999 for the base 8GB/256GB model. The phone also comes in a 12GB/256GB variant that will set you back Rs 33,999. The Poco F5 will be available for purchase in India from May 16 via Flipkart.

The Poco F5 comes in Carbon Black, Electric Blue, and Snowstorm White shades. On a separate note, the Poco F5 Pro price starts from $499 (roughly Rs 41,000). Now, let's get back to our short Poco F5 review.

Design & Build

Our model of the Poco F5 came in the Carbon Black colour option with a textured back. The three camera modules are placed individually on the back panel. While the all-black finish does look sharp, the glossy panel isn't immune to smudges and fingerprints.

The Poco F5 features glass protection on the front, while the back and frame are made of plastic with a carbon fibre effect. The screen is surrounded by slim bezels and has a hole-punch camera cut-out on the top. The volume and power buttons sit on the right of the phone, the latter doubles as a fingerprint reader. At the bottom sits a speaker grille, USB Type-C port, and SIM tray.

The Poco F5 also has somewhat of a box-shape as opposed to a rounder design. However, the phone is still quite comfortable when held and not sharp around the sides. The overall design and build quality of the Poco F5 is solid, although I'm not a fan of the glossy finish.

Display

The Poco F5 sports a 6.67-inch FHD+ OLED display with a 20:9 aspect ratio. Poco says it is the first 12-bit panel in the segment. The screen boasts a 120Hz refresh rate and a 240Hz touch sampling rate. The display also supports HDR10+ and Dolby Vision.

It boasts a peak brightness of 1,000 nits, which is adequate when using the phone under direct sunlight. The quality of the screen here is top-notch and a level above the competition. The panel is smooth and colours pop while watching shows and movies on it.

Performance

The Poco F5 is the first smartphone in India to use a Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 chipset paired with the Adreno GPU. The phone also comes with up to 12GB of LPDDR5 RAM and up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. The Poco F5 packs a 3725 mm2 VC cooling area with 14 graphite layers and introduces a new Hyperboost Gaming mode.

In my brief Poco F5 review, I found the phone's performance to be excellent. I tested a few titles on the phone including Call of Duty: Mobile and Diablo Immortal, both of which ran smooth on their highest settings. Additionally, Geekbench 6 results also reveal major performance gains over the Snapdragon 778G chip.

Cameras

For optics, the Poco F5 gets a triple-camera setup on the back. The setup consists of a 64 MP primary sensor with an f/ aperture and OIS support, an 8 MP ultrawide lens with an f/2.2 aperture and a 120-degree FOV, and a 2 MP macro unit. Up front, there's a 16 MP selfie camera.

The main camera on the Poco F5 takes detailed shots in daylight with accurate colours, although the AI mode does bump up saturation a bit. In low light, night mode does kick in to increase the level of detail to the subject and brighten up scenes, while reducing noise. However, it does struggle a bit with background images.

While the ultrawide camera does maintain colour consistency with the main camera, the level of detail is reduced and there's quite a bit of distortion around the edges. I'm not a huge fan of macro cameras and this one didn't quite sway me, much like the rest.

The 16 MP selfie camera captures a good amount of detail in daylight, but skin tones appear brighter than they are. The background blur and edge detection in portrait shots were spot on. The Poco F5 can capture 4K video at 30fps on the main camera but is limited to 1080p at 30fps on the ultrawide unit.

The front camera was limited to 1080p video at 60fps though. The main camera features OIS and a super-steady mode, which supports 1080p video at 30fps. In my brief Poco F5 review, I found overall camera quality to be solid as you'd expect of a mid-ranger. But for the best camera performance in the segment, you'll have to look elsewhere.

Battery & Charging

The Poco F5 packs a large 5,000 mAh battery that comes with 67W fast charging support. I couldn't fully test out the battery here, but I think the 5,000 mAh capacity coupled with the more efficient 4nm chip should easily deliver all-day battery life. There's nothing much to say about the 67W fast charging, other than the fact that it is impressive but not the fastest around.

Software

The Poco F5 runs Android 13-based MIUI 14 for Poco phones. MIUI does come with a ton of customisations, but I found the interface on the Poco F5 to be a bit too cluttered. Poco also offers two years of Android updates and three years of security updates with the vanilla F5. Additionally, Poco is also offering consumers a 1+1 warranty in India.

Final Thoughts

My Poco F5 first impressions were positive for the most part. The new Snapdragon 7+ Gen 2 chipset delivers superb performance, allowing you to play most titles at their highest settings. The phone also features one the best displays in the segment and a large battery with fast charging. Then there's the solid build quality and minimalist design.

However, the phone isn't without its flaws with a cluttered operating system as well as sub-par camera performance outside the primary sensor. The back panel was also prone to smudging. I will dive into the Poco F5 camera, performance, battery life, and software in our full Poco F5 review.

From my brief experience with the Poco F5, I'd say that it is the best phone under 30000 rupees for gaming. The Poco F5 excels at gaming through its high performance and superb visuals, while the 5,000 mAh battery keeps it running throughout the day. It also has versatile cameras and highly customisable software. But I'll withhold final judgement until the full review.