Tecno POVA 5 PRO 5G REVIEW: A GAMING PHONE

The Pova 5 Pro, Tecno’s latest affordable smartphone, stands out from competitors with a unique rear design. The Pova 5 Pro, Tecno’s latest affordable smartphone, stands out from competitors with a unique rear design. TECNO, which has been a busy brand this year with its Spark series, Phantom V Fold, and Camon 20 series, has now added the POVA 5 Pro to the mix, and the new phone will compete directly with the recently launched POCO M6 Pro 5G, Realme 11x, and others. This device performs well on most fronts, although low-light photography may be improved. Overall, the POVA 5 Pro is a simple recommendation for most people.

TECNO POVA 5 PRO KEY FEATURES

Tecno is quietly building a name for itself in the smartphone industry and is growing into new areas throughout the world. The Pova series is Tecnos’ affordable line, available in only a few markets, including India. This year’s Pova 5 series, particularly the Pova 5 Pro, is more gaming-focused. The handset is powered by a Dimensity 6080 CPU and 8GB of RAM, which is a rather powerful setup for its class. The Pova 5 Pro’s physical appearance, with its LED-illuminated Mecha design, alludes to its gaming roots. It certainly sticks out from the throng in the sub-INR 15,000 category.

The gadget also has a rather large vapor chamber, which Tecno claims is sufficient to keep the Dimensity 6080 roughly 2°C cooler. Unlike some of its competitors, the Pova 5 Pro features a 120Hz display. You may be wondering if the Dimensity can support HRR gaming. Fortunately, Tecno has collaborated closely with some of the developers to optimize the gaming experience, so the Pova 5 Pro should be able to attain 120fps in Mobile Legend: Bang Bang, for example, and even keep consistent frames above 80fps. Free Fire, on the other side, can run at 90fps, but PUBG Mobile uses a linear motor and offers contextual tactile input.

UNBOXING THE TECNO POVA 5 PRO

The device arrives in an interesting triangle box with all of the normal user instructions, a 68W fast charger, and a USB-C to USB-A connection.

The packaging also includes a transparent silicone casing and wired headphones. That’s unusual these days.

CAMERA

Let’s get down to business first. The POVA 5 Pro includes a 50MP primary wide-angle sensor with PDAF and a 0.08MP depth sensor. In terms of exposure, I didn’t notice that the phone made the scene appear particularly bright or dim. I believe the camera did an excellent job of balancing out the scene. In terms of color, I believe the camera did a good job capturing some great hues from the landscape. However, I believe that it could have gone a little further. In scenes with strong and vibrant colors, this camera generated photographs that felt just a little subdued, rather than uninteresting.

The greens of the plants should be vivid and bold in the strong sunlight, however, I felt they were a little muted. It looks like someone used a photo editor and reduced the saturation by around 10%. This is particularly useful when working with reds and other warm hues. Most cameras produce images that will cause your eyes to burn. The lowered saturation helped to keep the reds in the floral image under control.

This is where I observed the Camon 20 Pro’s influence. It’s not as horrible as what I got with the Camon 20 Pro’s camera, but it is visible. The contrast I received with the photographs from this phone was quite low. I didn’t think it was horrible, but I could have done with a little more contrast to make the visuals more dynamic.

The decreased contrast dulled what could have been some quite delicious images. Images of plants in the sun could have been more striking with a little more contrast. You could put this in a photo editor and increase the contrast slightly, but it negates the purpose of having a nice camera. The consistent focus in low-light conditions is a nice feature. The camera was able to focus on things even in extremely low light. I can see finer elements like writing and elaborate artwork in dim light.

When using the Super Night mode, I believe it is a “pick your poison” situation. The Super Night mode employs a longer exposure to extract more light from the image, resulting in an immensely brighter scene. However, clarity is significantly reduced. Cameras in more costly phones do a better job of keeping detail while taking long-exposure photos. The image of the Pova 5 Pro 5G contains some strong artifacts.

DESIGN AND SCREEN

While we generally begin our reviews by discussing the smartphone’s design, this makes more sense than ever with the POVA 5 Pro. The TECNO POVA 5 Pro was created to capture your attention, and it succeeds thanks to its LED strip design and back camera module. First, let us talk about the back panel, which the brand refers to as the ‘Arc Interface’. The phone has many backlight effect options, including Soft, Racing, Dreamy, Breathe, and Party. These effects can be applied to both incoming calls and bootups. Other variations of this lighting effect, including Sunrise, Starburst, Halo, Pure, and Lightning, can be used for notifications.

Does the Arc Interface improve the phone’s visual appeal? Short answer: yes. However, I’d want to point out that the advantage of this design element is confined to its looks. Unlike the Nothing phones, there are no customizing options for the LED strip here.

The camera module in the back is trapezium-shaped and features two huge circular elevations for the dual camera lenses. With its enormous 6.78-inch IPS LCD panel, the phone’s overall form factor is pretty large, yet with even weight distribution, it doesn’t feel too heavy in the hand. However, if you have small hands, it may be difficult to control. Having said that, you should be able to reach the power button, which also functions as a fingerprint sensor, with your thumb.

When it comes to the display panel, the 120Hz refresh rate and FHD+ screen resolution provide an excellent viewing experience, whether you’re navigating the UI or watching YouTube videos. The phone’s viewing angles are adequate, but outdoor visibility in direct sunlight isn’t very good because this isn’t a brilliant panel.

HOW’S THE PERFORMANCE?

The TECNO POVA 5 Pro is equipped with the 6nm MediaTek Dimensity 6080 5G chipset, which includes two 2.4 GHz Cortex-A76 cores and six 2.0 GHz Cortex-A55 cores. The processor is aided by the Mali-G57 MC2 GPU. In normal use, I had no glitches with the phone, and the animations when switching between apps were mainly seamless. I even tried gaming on the phone, and while playing for more than an hour at a time, the phone did not overheat, which should reassure anyone considering purchasing this phone for portable gaming.

One of the things I noticed while using this phone for the past few days was that I never felt like I was lacking in performance while using any app or playing any game. I won’t go so far as to state that this is the best-performing smartphone in its price bracket, but it can easily handle any task that you throw at it.

In terms of software, the POVA 5 Pro runs HIOS 13, which is based on Android 13. The phone comes with a collection of pre-installed apps that I didn’t use during my review. Some of the useful features provided by this UI include Game Space (which optimizes games for better performance), MemFusion (which allows RAM expansion by up to 5GB by utilizing internal storage), and Video Assistant (which prevents notifications from bothering you while watching videos in select apps). The settings menu now has a Micro Intelligence section, which allows you to customize some quality-of-life features like Lift to Wake, Flip Mute, and more.

The phone scored 413805 on the AnTuTu benchmark, which is quite consistent with other phones in this price range that provide good performance. In Geekbench testing, the phone received a score of 747 in the single-core test and 2047 in the multi-core test, which is consistent with other phones such as the Realme 11x and POCO M6 Pro.

Buy it if...

• Unusual design with an RGB LED strip on the rear.
• Unrivaled quick charging.
• Excellent long-term performance at a reasonable cost.
• Excellent camera experience day and night.
• HiOS, which is packed with features, runs on top of Android 13.
• 3.5mm jack, dedicated microSD slot, and 128GB base storage.
• A generous retail package.

Don't buy it if…

• Battery life could be improved.
• You can find phones with OLED displays for the same price.
• No 120Hz gameplay, even in optimized games.

FULL SPECIFICATION