POCO, Xiaomi’s subsidiary, launched the POCO X5 and X5 Pro a few days ago. Again, fans are furious, as the new releases did not repeat the success of 2021 when POCO deployed the excellent POCO X3 Pro with Snapdragon 860 processor.
Did Xiaomi make a mistake with the POCO X5 and X5 Pro? Let’s find out!
Where to find the POCO X5 Pro at the best price.
What exactly is POCO line X
The POCO X line debuted in 2020 with the POCO X2. The smartphone arrived in order to be the global version of the Xiaomi Redmi K30, launched in 2019.
With virtually identical configurations and features, these two cell phones had only changes in the ROM and its boxes and brands. As my father would say: “ under the hood ”, they are the same.
In the same year of launch of the X2, in September 2020, Xiaomi decided to accelerate the launch of the POCO X3. Device would bring only a slight variant of the X2’s Snapdragon 730G, the 732G.
At the beginning of the POCO X line, Xiaomi made a point of showing that it would come to “ mess up ” a little bit. After all, the evolution from X2 to X3 was minimal, almost zero, but the jump really came with the X3 Pro.
The spectacular POCO X3 Pro
In March 2021, during the announcement of POCO F3 ( the main line of POCO is F ), Xiaomi decided to place the POCO X3 Pro with Snapdragon 860.
Line X then became the public’s darling in terms of cost benefit. Because the X3 Pro was even better than POCO F3 in terms of cameras.
Then the wrong perception was created that the main line of the POCO was line X, and not line F.
And the worst was yet to come.
Has the POCO X line stagnated?
The apparent decline of line X would come with the POCO X4 Pro in February 2022. There is no point in arguing, Snapdragon 695 is less than 860 in all aspects.
To try to remedy things, Xiaomi brought MediaTek Dimension 8100 to the POCO X4 GT, but in sales it was not consolidated due to the public’s prejudice with MediaTek line processors.
For 2023, Xiaomi then brought to the POCO X5 the same processor as the X4 Pro, the Snapdragon 695, and in the POCO X5 Pro, the Snapdragon 778G.
Although the Snapdragon 778G is a powerful processor and comparable to the legendary 860, it still lags behind the 860 in the performance of some games and emulation ( for very little ).
The situation gets even worse when we remember that the Snapdragon 778G already existed in 2021 and was in the Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE.
So yes! You can say that POCO line X has stagnated!
If it’s any consolation for someone, so did line F, but there are some reasons for that people! Calm down, it’s not Xiaomi’s fault.
The reason: the shortage of chips
The reason why the POCO X and F line give us the impression of stopping over time is due to the shortage of chips caused by the pandemic.
You may not know it, but making chips for smartphone processors, GPUs, PCs, consoles, etc., is extremely complicated and time-consuming.
The creation of a single batch of chips takes up to four months. It is an extremely complicated and technological process that needs to be done only in some places in the world. Any delay means a problem for the huge chip search chain. Imagine, three years of pandemic? Yeah!
The production of chips suffered some “ overhead ” due to the pandemic and the industry focused on meeting the demand for line tops.
Do you want proof of that? Look for smartphones for sale with Snapdragon 7 gen 1? There is no right? In addition to coming with low efficiency, the 7 Gen 1 did not exceed 778G.
As a result, manufacturers had to reuse some chips and POCO’s X and F line had these problems.
What would line X and F look like
In my view, the natural would be for line F to use, in 2022, Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 and line X to use Snapdragon 888. However, there were not enough chips for the demand and the production of these older chips was closed to focus on the line tops.
So, line X and F got this mess, with POCO needing to go back to 778G, which again is not a bad chipset, but only equivalent to 860.
I imagine that if there was a new “ furnace ” from Snapdragon 888, it would be perfect for line X in 2023.
In case you don’t know, POCO simply repeated the POCO F3 processor on the POCO F4 and postponed the evolution too ( except for the GT line that won the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, with cooling problem, but won! ).
According to rumors, the POCO F5 may be equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, while the POCO F5 GT will come with Snapdragon 8 Gen 2.
Thus, line X was the most affected in this whole story, with its evolution literally walking sideways for 2 years in a row.
Now it’s time to see what Xiaomi will do with the POCO X6 and X6 Pro.
POCO X5 Pro is not that bad
However, if your bid is games, the alert remains that the POCO X5 Pro is not a major breakthrough over the X3 Pro.
However, if your bid is games, I leave the alert that the POCO X5 Pro is not a big step forward compared to the X3 Pro. In many cases, it is even worth looking for a POCO F4 or even a Realme Q5 Pro ( both with Snapdragon 870 ).
If you are one of those who think POCO manufactures the X3 Pro until today, know that it stopped manufacturing in 2021.
