TECNO POVA 5 Review – Gaming on a new perspective

In the Philippines, TECNO is creating a stir with their excellent selection of low-cost smartphones. Every product the firm has released has been a banger, giving an almost perfect balance of features to price. Competitors of TECNO should begin to stumble in their attempts to catch up

TECNO POVA is a product line that has continously pushed the limits of gaming on an inexpensive handset. And now, they have collaborated with Free Fire, a popular mobile battle royale game developed and published by Garena to enable gamers with a high-quality experience for the new TECNO POVA 5 series. Let’s see if this collaboration is worth scrambling for.

Click here for the separate unboxing and first impression article of the phone.

With the unboxing out of the way, let us proceed with the TECNO POVA 5 Free Fire Special Edition review!

An Immersive Display at a low price-point

This is one of the main selling points of the TECNO POVA 5 – it has massive improvements with its display and when compared to the TECNO POVA 4, which only offers a 90hz refresh rate and 720 x 1600 pixels, this is a respectable boost. The TECNO POVA 5 has a 6.78-inch LCD display with a resolution of 1080 x 2460 pixels. The phone also has a 20:9 aspect ratio and a pixel density of 395 PPI along with being protected by a layer of Gorilla Glass 3. The display is also HDR 10+ certified and supports 120Hz refresh rate

The Tecno Pova 5 display is a large and vibrant display that is perfect for watching videos, playing games, or browsing the web. The 120Hz refresh rate makes the display smooth and responsive, and the HDR10+ certification ensures that colors are accurately reproduced. It is quite respectable that TECNO has managed to create a phone with this display for its pricepoint.

What about its Performance? (Gaming + Battery)

The Helio G99 octa-core CPU in the TECNO POVA 5 is great for everyday workloads and provides a respectable gaming experience. This is already an excellent value for a phone at this price range, especially when combined with a lot of storage—8GB RAM and 256GB ROM.

With an AnTuTu score of 409,416 , we expect the phone to have a decent gaming performance. The phone’s UI is also quite snappy especially when coupled with the 120Hz refresh rate and albeit smothered by various bloatware, we have an easy time scrolling and exploring the interface. TECNO’s software optimization is on point here, allowing for a hassle-free experience, making it good for casual users and gamers alike.

Gaming Test w/battery test

The TECNO POVA 5 can handle most games at their highest settings along with great framerates thanks to a pretty powerful Helio G99 processor. It will struggle with more demanding games though such as Genshin Impact, but it still performed great nonetheless, especially with more casual games like Mobile Legends: Bang Bang and Call of Duty: Mobile.

Battery Test

The TECNO POVA 5 includes a large 6000mAh battery that enables it to sustain a respectable amount of juice throughout the day. Additionally, it supports 45W wired charging, which enables hassle-free gaming all day long because recharging is so speedy. With the embedded video above, the gaming phone only used 13% of its battery capacity within 30 minutes which is decent enough for a gaming-oriented phone. For a separate article on the battery test, go here.

Camera quality

The TECNO POVA 5 has a surprisingly good camera for a budget phone. The main 50MP AI camera takes bright and clear photos in well-lit conditions. It also has a range of built-in features, such as beauty and sky filters, which are fun to use. The phone isn’t really marketed as a camera phone but the image quality produced by the phone is quite decent to say the least and the features in the phone’s camera app is quite helpful to produce decent images.

However, low light can have a negative impact on image quality and make it difficult for the camera to concentrate on moving objects..

In well-lit environments, the 8MP front-facing camera can also capture quality selfies. Low light, however, might result in poor image quality. Although the selfies have quite decent details, the colors are inaccurate and there are prevalent noise, sufficient lighting is recommended for selfie shots. This is still quite decent for its price though, we really cannot expect much from a gaming oriented handset.

Although typically decent, the Tecno POVA 5’s video quality is not the best in its class. Although the dynamic range is somewhat constrained, the colors are true to color and the details are fine. In poor light, the movies might also be a little soft. Additionally, as can be seen from the video up top, a bokeh effect is used as the AI processes the footage in real time.

What we like:

• Impressive 120Hz LCD display
• Huge battery capacity
• 45W fast charging
• Turbo Mecha inspired design
• Decent rear and selfie camera quality for a casual user
• Decent gaming performance

What we don’t like:

• Plastic back, easily smudged by fingerprints
• Only modest improvements over its predecessor
• Unique packaging
• The AI over-processes the images captured

Final Remarks

The TECNO POVA 5 is the successor of the TECNO POVA 4, but it did not improve much over its predecessor. Nevertheless, the phone still embodies the TECNO brand by having good specs for an affordable price. The phone may be used as a dependable daily driver without becoming an eyesore for casual gamers and users.