Tecno Pova 5 Pro review

Introduction and specs

Tecno is slowly making a name for itself in the smartphone world and is expanding to different markets across the globe. The Pova series is the budget selection of Tecnos limited to a few markets, with India being one of them.

This year's Pova 5 series is more about gaming, and the Pova 5 Pro is more so. The handset runs a Dimensity 6080 chipset paired with 8GB of RAM, a fairly potent setup for its class. The body styling hints at the Pova 5 Pro's gaming heritage with its LED-illuminated Mecha design. It definitely stands out from the crowd in the sub-INR 15,000 segment.

The device also boasts a rather big vapor chamber that Tecno says is enough to keep the Dimensity 6080 about 2°C cooler.

Tecno Pova 5 Pro specs at a glance:

Body: 168.5x76.5x9.0mm, 220g; Glass front, plastic frame, plastic back; Multiple LED lights on the back (notifications, low battery, game actions).
Display: 6.78" IPS LCD, 120Hz, 580 nits (peak), 1080x2460px resolution, 20.5:9 aspect ratio, 396ppi.
Chipset: MediaТek Dimensity 6080 (6 nm): Octa-core (2x2.4 GHz Cortex-A76 & 6x2.0 GHz Cortex-A55); Mali-G57 MC2.
Memory: 128GB 8GB RAM, 256GB 8GB RAM; microSDXC (dedicated slot).
OS/Software: Android 13, HIOS 13.
Rear camera: Wide (main): 50 MP, PDAF; Depth: 0.08 MP.
Front camera: 16 MP.
Video capture: Rear camera: 1440p@30fps, 1080p@30fps; Front camera: 1080p@30fps.
Battery: 5000mAh; 68W wired, 50% in 15 min (advertised).
Connectivity: LTE; Dual SIM; Wi-Fi 5; BT; NFC; FM radio; 3.5mm jack.
Misc: Fingerprint reader (side-mounted); stereo speakers.

Unlike some of its competitors, the Pova 5 Pro brings a 120Hz display to the table. You may wonder whether the Dimensity can maintain HRR gaming, and luckily, Tecno has worked closely with some of the developers to optimize the gaming experience, so the Pova 5 Pro should be able to hit 120fps in Mobile Legend: Bang Bang, for example, and even maintain stable frames above 80fps. Free Fire, on the other hand, can run at 90fps, whereas PUBG Mobile makes use of the linear motor and provides contextual tactile feedback.

The whole hardware runs on a 5,000 mAh battery supporting fast 68W charging, another rare find in this price bracket. Additionally, the software allows bypass charging to preserve battery health over time if you play games while charging.

One of the cool things about the Pova 5 Pro is the camera setup. It's a no-nonsense setup consisting of a 50MP main shooter and a depth sensor. Given that any other auxiliary camera wouldn't add much value to the phone, it's good that Tecno kept it simple and went for a simple camera setup.

Unboxing the Tecno Pova 5 Pro

The handset comes in an unusual triangle box containing all the usual user manuals, the appropriate 68W fast charger, and a USB-C to USB-A cable.

The box also carries a transparent silicone case and a pair of wired earbuds. You rarely see that nowadays.

Design and ergonomics

Due to the industrial-inspired Mecha design language, the Pova 5 Pro reminds us of the Infinix GT 10 Pro. However, the Pova 5 Pro has a more impressive light show. The back of the device has RGB LED lighting in the shape of three lines crossing. The rest of the ornaments on the back fit the overall style as they pop like 3D objects under the glass. But only the camera island actually protrudes.

Silver Fantasy and Dark Illusion colors

The camera bulge isn't as prominent, though, but the camera rings are maybe a bit excessive, given the tiny sensors they house. We like the design overall. It's fresh and targets a specific audience. We have the Dark Illusion and Silver Fantasy versions but there's also the Free Fire Edition available, which comes with special themes for the UI.

Of course, the whole build is made of plastic and thus, it's pretty lightweight too. The Pova 5 Pro tips the scale at 187 grams and it's reasonably thin at 8.1 mm - somewhat impressive for a 6.67-inch device.

Speaking of inches, the front isn't anything out of the ordinary. Aside from the thick chin, the rest of the bezels are thin enough, while the punch-hole is centered and a bit bigger due to the LCD panel. OLEDs allow for a more precise cutout.

The side is flat with a glossy finish that attracts a lot of fingerprints. The left side is reserved for the SIM card tray, which holds a dedicated microSD card slot as well, while the right holds the volume rocker and the power button. The latter lies too flat for our taste as it's easy to miss it when reaching for it. It's also a bit too high up the frame so you need to stretch your thumb a bit.

Tecno Pova 5 Pro

The top and bottom hold the loudspeaker grilles and the latter is also home to the USB-C connector and the 3.5mm audio jack. One cool feature about the USB connector is that it has moisture detection, so the handset will warn you if it's wet and immediately unplug the charging cable to avoid damage.

Overall, the design is nice but may also be too much for some users. Keep in mind that it's a big device with a 6.67-inch screen so the sharp edges and the flat frame aren't contributing to a comfortable grip. However, the flat edges are desirable when gaming, which is supposed to be the main purpose of the handset.

120Hz LCD panel on a budget

Even though the Pova 5 Pro is a lower mid-range device, it offers an impressive display for its class. The device is built around a 6.78-inch IPS LCD panel with a 120Hz refresh rate. Resolution is pretty standard - 1080 x 2460px, and there are no HDR certifications, not that we expected any. They are not standard in this price range.

Tecno advertises 580 nits of peak brightness, and we managed to measure up to 509 nits, which is pretty close to the advertised peak brightness. There's no brightness boost, so those nits would have to do. And in our experience, outdoor usage is somewhat uncomfortable on a bright sunny day.

Color accuracy isn't the best out of the box. The average dE2000 is 8.4, which is a lot. Colors are a bit oversaturated, which is fine, but the whites and grays appear straight-up blue. You can adjust the display's color temperature to a warmer hue, but entire presets are unavailable.

HRR control

Leaving the refresh rate in Automatic Switch mode would probably save you some battery as the display would default to 60Hz when not in use and when watching videos. The software tends to go for 120Hz in most scenarios, but we found that Google Chrome, among other Google apps, for example, is limited to 60Hz. Forcing the apps with the 120Hz mode helps, but you lose the auto switch to 60Hz.

Battery life

The device runs on a 5,000 mAh battery, and one would expect that when coupled with the energy-efficient Dimensity 6080 SoC, battery life will be nothing short of great. However, the overall score is somewhat disappointing. The screen-on runtimes are also not great. Web browsing is fine but the video playback is quite shorter than on a device with an OLED screen.

There are barely any phones in this price bracket scoring under 100 hours of endurance rating.

Our battery tests were automated thanks to SmartViser, using its viSerDevice app. The endurance rating denotes how long the battery charge will last you if you use the device for an hour of telephony, web browsing, and video playback daily. More details can be found here.

Video test carried out in 60Hz refresh rate mode. Web browsing test done at the display's highest refresh rate whenever possible. Refer to the respective reviews for specifics. To adjust the endurance rating formula to match your own usage patterns check out our all-time battery test results chart where you can also find all phones we've tested.

Charging speed

Charging is where the Pova 5 Pro shines. The device is unmatched in its class when it comes to charging speed. The 5,000 mAh battery can take up to 68W with the provided proprietary charger and cable. The smartphone blows everyone out of the water and posts impressive charging times. In just 30 minutes, you get 70% of the charge back. Only a few competitors get close to that. A full charge takes only 50 minutes.

Speakers

The Pova 5 Pro runs a pair of stereo speakers, but it's a hybrid setup, meaning the left channel (usually the top speaker) doubles as an earpiece as well. A small grille on the top side of the frame lets the sound come out freely.

Loudness-wise, the speakers are "Very Good", scoring -25.6 LUFS. We also noticed that the right channel (the bottom speaker) is noticeably louder than the other one. And the setup leaves more to be desired when it comes to quality. They sound a bit flat and distorted at higher volume with virtually no bass. Notably, this is a budget speaker setup, so it's expected.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.

A 50MP camera aided by a depth sensor

The Pova 5 Pro offers a no-nonsense camera setup, for the most part, that is. The primary 50MP f/1.6 camera is aided by a 0.8MP depth sensor, and that's pretty much it. We are surprised to see such big aperture, though. Unfortunately, we weren't able to identify the sensor, so we will just go with megapixel count here as the main spec.

The selfie on the front uses a 16MP f/2.0 camera with 1.0µm pixels.

Even though most competitors offer some sort of usable auxiliary camera, such as 8MP ultrawide or 2MP macro shooters, they don't appear to contribute to the overall camera experience that much. So we can't be mad at Tecno for not including them. The 50MP main camera here seems more than adequate on paper.

Camera app

There is nothing particularly special about the camera app. It's business as usual, with modes on one end of the UI and quick toggles on the other. One thing specific to the Pova 5 Pro is that it has high-resolution toggles for its main camera. The 50MP toggle is on the top of the viewfinder.

Camera modes and settings

It has a Pro mode, which is pretty standard as well. It offers exposure correction, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, autofocus and metering mode. Unfortunately, no RAW mode is available, nor is there anything else fancy like a histogram.

Daylight photos

Main camera

During the day, the main camera produces solid photos, leaving little to complain about. The stills look impressively sharp, with no detectable noise, wide dynamic range and plenty of detail all around. Colors also look natural. If we have to be nitpicky, we would like the exposure metering to be adjusted, as it tends to be slightly brighter and can leave some clipped highlights behind.

Main camera daylight samples

The dedicated 50MP mode, on the other hand, is quite noisy but offers a superior level of detail. You also get limited dynamic range, so keep that in mind when shooting high-contrast scenes.

50MP daylight samples

2x zoom

Unlike the 1x photos, the 2x zoom samples are largely unimpressive. It appears that Tecno tried to mitigate some of the bad effects of cropping with additional sharpening, but that has had a minimal impact. Photos are still somewhat soft, with little to no detail. Still, we believe the 2x zoom samples would be perfectly fine to the unpretentious eye for social media posting, as long as the lighting conditions are appropriate.

2x zoom daylight samples

Low-light photos

Main camera

For a budget smartphone, the low-light photos are more than decent. Even without resorting to the dedicated "Super Night mode", the stills turn out with a wide dynamic range, a fair amount of detail in the shadows and virtually no noise. If you look a bit closer, you will notice that the shadows are a bit too fuzzy, but that's probably the trade-off for not having noticeable grain in the darker areas of the image. Colors and contrast are also good, and overall performance seems consistent in this mode.

Main camera low-light samples

The dedicated Super Night mode improves the dynamic range, brightens up the shadows and adds quite a bit of sharpness. In fact, Tecno went a bit overboard with the sharpening, as some of the scenes look digitally rendered. The added sharpness, though, makes the details pop, but images remain a bit on the soft side. We still think the device produces pretty solid low-light stills. Our only serious complaint is about the Night mode's consistency. Many of the samples were blurry due to camera shake. So keep that in mind when you take the Tecno Pova 5 Pro for a spin at night.

Main camera Super Night mode samples

2x zoom

With or without Super Night mode, the 2x zoom mode at night is hard to recommend. The photos are blurry and lack detail. Once the algorithm sharpens things with Night mode, it turns the samples into oil paintings.

Low-light 2x zoom: Normal • Night mode

Here's how the primary camera on the Tecno Pova 5 Pro stacks against the rest of the competition in the controlled environment of our Photo Compare Tool.

Tecno Pova 5 Pro against the Redmi Note 12 and the Galaxy A14 5G in our Photo compare tool

Portraits

The handset performs well in Portrait mode as well. The samples look clean, with plenty of detail, natural colors (including tone) and a wide dynamic range. However, the spotty edge detection ruins it. The algorithm produces a rough background blur around the subject, even in not-so-demanding scenarios. And interestingly enough, the depth sensor doesn't work at all. Covering it with a finger doesn't really do anything, leading us to believe that the software doesn't use the depth sensor. It's all software.

Portrait samples: Portrait • Normal

Selfies

Aside from a few fuzzy selfies, which are mostly in sub-optimal lighting conditions, the selfies look excellent. The subject is always well-exposed, colors are nice and realistic, the detail is great, and sharpness is rather impressive.

Selfies

Video recording

Since the Dimensity 6080 chip caps at 2K video recording, Tecno decided to give you that unorthodox video resolution, which is 2560 x 1440px, to be exact. Stabilization isn't available at this resolution, but as you'd expect, the 1080p video is stabilized.

The 2160p video is pretty good, though. It offers superior quality to the 1080p - it has good amount of detail, it's sharp enough and dynamic range isn't too bad either. There's something off with the white balance, though, as the footage looks a bit warmer than you'd expect. Some of the trees look almost yellow instead of green.

[embedded content]

The Full HD footage looks the same but not as sharp and detailed.

[embedded content]

And here's how 2K looks without EIS.

[embedded content]

The Full HD video with EIS looks rather smooth.

[embedded content]

You can also take a look at our video compare tool to see how Tecno Pova 5 Pro stacks against the other phones we've reviewed.

Tecno Pova 5 Pro (1440p) against the Redmi Note 12 (1080p) and the Galaxy A14 5G (1080p) in our Video compare tool

HiOS 13 coupled with Android 13

The Tecno Pova 5 Pro runs on the latest available Android 13 and the most recent version of Tecno's proprietary HiOS 13 Android overlay. If you are familiar with the older HiOS versions, this one won't look too different, and you will feel right at home. In fact, there are little to no changes compared to the older HiOS 12.

Tecno has been running and refining its own skin for some time now, which we've generally found to be quite good in the past, with a few on-and-off caveats here and there. These mostly come down to pre-installed bloat and ads, but the experience on the Pova 5 Pro is actually pretty clean, as the bloat and the ads are noticeably reduced.

That's not to say there aren't many pre-installed apps and utilities. Tecno is still sticking to its traditions of developing and deploying its own set of apps to cover the basic features. You get an in-house gallery and video player and an app store, even two, depending on how you count them. These can still get annoying at times, but we can understand the angle Tecno is coming from.

Getting into the Pova 5 Pro is business as usual, with both fingerprint and face recognition available. You can choose to either unlock upon touch of the power button or a full-on press. The latter option is advisable if you don't want to have frequent misreadings with your phone in your pocket, for example, because the software will always be looking for a fingertip.

Once you're past that, you arrive at a standard homescreen interface. The leftmost pane, called the Zero screen, holds cards with suggested news, weather and quotes widgets and an app usage widget. You can disable the Zero screen in the 'Desktop settings'.

Lock screen, home screen, recent apps, notification shade, quick toggles, app drawer

There's an app drawer by default, which you can access from the old-school A-Z orange icon at the bottom or with an upward swipe from the bottom.

Themes are available as part of HiOS, and there is a dedicated Theme store for this purpose.

Themes and customizations

Tecno has a long-standing selection of advanced features that generally get carried forward from older models. That includes the Game mode with all the settings, statistics and parental controls. There is also a Smart panel with slide-from-the-side shortcuts.

Special features, Game mode

Social Turbo toolset is rather interesting (a WhatsApp enhancer of sorts) - it can change your voice, enhance your face during video calls, record your WhatsApp calls, and allow you to read messages without marking them as Read.

Social Turbo and Smart panel

MemFusion is Tecno's name for virtual RAM. The Pova 5 Pro has 8GB of physical RAM chips on board and can extend that up to 16GB with another 8GB of virtual memory. By default, MemFusion is set to 5GB.

The special features menu also controls the LED backlight. You can choose different animation styles and colors for each action, such as playing games, receiving notifications, calls, etc. You can even schedule the active time for the backlight effect, too.

Backlight effect

Performance is pretty solid, overall. HiOS feels fast, snappy and responsive on the current handset, and aside from a few weirdly-named menus and features, it feels surprisingly polished.

Synthetic benchmark performance

This is the first time we get to see the MediaTek Dimensity 6080 chipset, which was released not long ago in Q1 2023. The chipset is part of the mid-range Dimensity 6000 series of SoCs and slots in between the Dimensity 6020 and 6100+. It's based on the 6nm N6 manufacturing process from TSMC and features an octa-core CPU and a Mali-G57 GPU running at 950 MHz.

The CPU consists of 2x Cortex-A76 cores running at 2.4 GHz and 6x Cortex-A55 cores ticking at 2.0 GHz for not-so-demanding tasks. The device we reviewed pairs the Dimensity 6080 with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, but there's a lower-tier version with 128GB of internal storage as well.

Here's how the Pova 5 Pro and its chipset fared against the similarly-priced competition.

The Dimensity 6080 fares very well in its own price category and even edges out its competitors in most tests. The CPU-intensive and combined tests, such as AnTuTu, seem to be its strongest suit. In pure GPU scenarios, the device falls short mostly in offscreen tests at higher resolution.

However, in 1080p and in the 1440p offscreen 3DMark Wild Life Vulkan tests, the Dimensity 6080 proves to be more powerful than the Snapdragon 690 and Snapdragon 685.

Sustained and gaming performance

Somehow, Tecno was able to cram up a vapor chamber into the tight budget. The company advertises a 2,820mm2 vapor chamber coupled with a huge 10,159mm2 graphene-based heat sink. But it looks like it paid off.

The Pova 5 Pro fared great in our CPU torture test and maintained above 90% of the CPU's clock speeds. The device didn't get warm either, so it felt pleasant in hand.

CPU throttle test: 30 min • 60 min

Even after 1 hour of continuous load, the CPU dropped only to 89% of its theoretical performance. To be fair, the Dimensity 6080 isn't very demanding to begin with, as it offers just two Cortex-A76 cores. Still, believe the applied cooling solution does make a difference.

We also tried playing Mobile Legend: Bang Bang and Free Fire, which are advertised to maintain 80 and 90fps. However, we could not force the display above 60Hz, so you won't be able to take full advantage of the fast display during gaming.

Competition

Although the competition in this price segment in India is pretty packed, the Tecno Pova 5 Pro stands out not only with design but with decent performance, fast charging, good camera experience and highly customizable and feature-rich HiOS. It's not the most popular Android overlay out there, but we are surprised by its responsiveness and functionality.

The first two competitors that come to mind are the popular Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 4G and 5G. The former is slightly more affordable than the Pova 5 Pro, while the latter starts at INR 17,000 - about INR 2,000 above the target price. Both devices offer superior display quality as they rock OLED panels at 120Hz instead of LCDs and have longer battery endurance. The Pova 5 Pro surprises with an arguably better camera, faster charging and a marginally faster chipset. Depends on the scenario, though.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 4G • Xiaomi Redmi Note 12

Alternatively, Samsung has a couple of phones in the same price bracket - the Galaxy A14 5G and the Galaxy M14. Both are very similar phones with little to no difference. The A14 5G usually comes with Dimensity 700 for most markets but can also be found with an Exynos 1330, just like the M14. The latter also has faster wired charging.

Samsung Galaxy A14 5G • Samsung Galaxy M14 • Realme 11x

However, neither Galaxy offers better value than the Tecno. The Dimensity 6080 is noticeably faster, the charging speed on the Pova 5 Pro is far superior, and the base storage is 128GB instead of 64GB. The only real advantage of the Samsung duo is their battery endurance.

Lastly, we have the recently released Realme 11x, which comes with a similar chipset (Dimensity 6100+) and almost identical display. It's too early to comment on the camera performance, but the Pova 5 Pro has the more recent camera sensor, as the 64MP variety is pretty dated. And interestingly enough, Tecno's offering is faster at charging, too, and that used to be Realme's territory up until recently.

Verdict

All in all, the Tecno Pova 5 Pro is a solid midranger, with the only glaring drawback being battery life. Pretty much all competitors out there have better endurance, but no one can beat the Pova 5 Pro when it comes to charging. We hope that will be enough to persuade you because the Pova 5 Pro is an easy recommendation. There are only a couple of rivals running better displays, too.

Moreover, the Pova 5 Pro has exceptional sustained performance, dependable performance, great camera experience all-around (even supports 2K video recording, which is a rare find in this class), unorthodox design and feature-rich software. We understand how big-brand names sound more enticing, but the Pova 5 Pro seems like a great proposition for anyone in India looking for a smartphone in the sub-INR 15,000 segment (regardless of whether gaming is a priority or not).