Some of you have already bought a Poco X5 Pro and taken advantage of early bird pricing, although judging by last week’s poll, the phone is just as likely to turn people away as it is to attract them. Surprisingly, the vanilla X5 ended up being the more popular option. What happened?
Brief overview: Poco X5 Pro and Poco X5
Price and features are the short answer. For the former, the old Poco X4 Pro can be found for about the same price as the vanilla X5, and the old Pro is the better phone. The new Pro has some upgrades, but also some downgrades.
The big upgrade is the Snapdragon 778G chipset, which was well received by commentators. It’s actually quite powerful for this price range, although it and the Snapdragon 870 have been around for a while, so it’s not that hard to find similarly priced phones with these chips.
As for downgrades, some people really love their microSD cards, and the X5 Pro removed the slot. The X4 Pro had a microSD slot, the X5 still has one, the new Pro does not. It is a self-inflicted wound on Xiaomi’s part.
The Poco X5 fared better – most looking at the X5 duo would rather have the vanilla model than the new Pro. The lower price certainly helps, as does the microSD slot. The 48MP camera isn’t much to write home about, although the 108MP module in the Pro lacks OIS and 4K @ 60fps video, so the camera isn’t the main reason people want one anyway.
As a criticism, the X5 duo are phones launching in 2023 with Android 12, and Pocos aren’t known for their frequent or timely updates.
The Poco X series still has life left in it, but in the minds of many of our readers, it peaked back in the days of the X3 series.
