Confession time: I almost missed my deadline this week because I was having too much fun playing Free Fire on the Techo Pova 5.
“Fun,” meaning, I was finally racking some kill streaks and placing in the top five most of the time. And for someone who sucks at first-person shooters (I always lose to my nephew Tomi in Call of Duty—and he’s five), it’s given me back some dignity, enough to keep me playing the past few days.
The Pova 5 is the latest entry-level gaming phone from Tecno Mobile, a brand that has been getting quite the attention from gamers and tech enthusiasts for its streak of great-value smartphones. It is the first in the Pova 5 series that’s set to be released with the Pova NEO 3 and the Pova 5 Pro probably in the next few weeks.
The Pova 5 Series is a special collaboration with the popular mobile Battle Royale game Garena Free Fire, which probably explains why it’s so optimized for the game, but we’ll get to that later.
I was able to review the first couple of Pova phones a few years back, so I was quite curious how it’s improved and if it stood a chance in the very competitive budget gaming segment. Well, I’d say from the moment I got my hands on its oddly-shaped box, I was immediately impressed. The Pova 5 arrives snugly nestled within a triangular box, reminiscent of a giant Toblerone, setting it apart from the conventional brick-shaped boxes all other phones use, while also making me crave for some chocolate.
This “prism” box has an explanation behind it, as the Pova Series is committed to three performance selling points in every generation, namely, power system, processor, and high refresh rate. These selling points form the golden triangle for a smartphone, showcased by the unique product packaging design of the series. Since this is also a special edition collab with Free Fire, you get a special sleeve that features Kelly. I heard that this is just part of a bigger artwork, which will be completed once the Pova 5 Pro and NEO come out and we get to place the boxes side by side. I also like how you can also use this prism box as a phone stand so you don’t need to lean your phone on a mug or bottle when you want to watch a video.
The box opens at the bottom. Inside, you’ll find everything you need to get you started. There’s the phone unit, paper documents, a 12+1 warranty card, a beefy 45W wall charger and USB-C cable, and some Free Fire stickers that you can use to personalize the plastic case. Techno also chucked in a Free Fire gift card, which you can redeem on the official website for some goodies. I was also surprised they included a pair of earphones, which is a rarity these days.
After the initial setup, you’ll be greeted again by Kelly, this time as your wallpaper. This Free Fire partnership also gives you a set of customized live wallpaper (Hayato/Kelly/Moco/Maxim/Wukong), app icons, and a lot of customized ringtones for incoming calls and notifications—in several languages. My favorite tone is Unstoppable, but spoken in Indonesian. I just wished they had a couple of other Free Fire themes to choose from.
Mecha awakening. As far as design goes, the Pova 5 is one of my top favorites and probably among the best-looking this year. I’m not much of a fan of its previous diamond-cut patterns, but this Turbo Mecha Design is hardcore cool. It’s available in Mecha Black, Hurricane Blue, and Amber Gold. The Black is too shiny and such a fingerprint magnet, while the blue doesn’t feel too mecha for me. The Amber Gold variant? Just fabulous. The 3D look, turbo stripes, and patterns remind me of armor plates and there are even some “screw” marks to add even more details. I’m also a fan of how its camera module is flush with almost no camera bump.
The volume rocker and power button/fingerprint reader are on the right. On the left is a hybrid SIM tray slot, while on the bottom you’ll find the speaker grill, USB Type-C port, microphone, and headphone jack. The other speaker grill is located on the top.
The Pova 5 is a big hefty device measuring 168.61×76.61×9.00 mm with a 6.78-inch Full HD display. The screen is crisp and vibrant and gives you a couple of color options to further personalize your display. This size is perfect for gaming and watching videos. It’s worth noting that you could watch HD streaming content on the Pova 5 as well. You also get a 120Hz refresh rate and a 240Hz touch sampling rate for responsive, smooth control, which is quite rare for phones at this price point. For audio, the dual speakers have both DTS and Hi-Res certification, which makes the entire viewing and gaming experience more immersive.
On fire performance: The Techo Pova 5 is powered by a MediaTek Helio G99 chipset, which allows for a smooth and fast experience. Besides Free Fire, I also tested out a range of games including, Asphalt Legends, Mobile Legends, PUBG, and Genshin Impact, as well as my favorite casual puzzle games. It comes with 8GB of RAM that you can further expand to 16GB via extended RAM. You can choose from an 8GB +128GB or 256GB configuration and The Pova 5 had no noticeable issues with any of the games. I was impressed by how well it ran everything smoothly with almost no lag or slowdown. Keeping things cool for the Pova 5 are the 10749 mm2 ultra-large Heat Dissipation Area and 1399.65 mm2 Vapor Chamber cooling + 9349.39 mm2 Graphene heatsink. With up to 10 layers of heat dissipation, chip temperature reduces by over 5°C while reloading game scenes, delivering 2x better cooling performance than the previous generation, according to the brand.
The Pova 5 has a dedicated Gaming Center called the Panther Engine 2.0. This feature offers a lot of options to optimize your gaming experience, from blocking notifications to automatically rejecting incoming calls so you can play without distraction. With AI intelligent and real-time monitoring of frame rate, intelligent scheduling performance continues to stabilize frames, avoiding cliff drops and improving the stability of frame rate for long-time use applications, allowing you to run your games more smoothly and stably.Footfall Audio also helps a lot with those FPS games. It can be frustrating if you can’t hear the footsteps of approaching enemies. To enhance the sound effect of footsteps, the game provides improved audio effects, allowing you to clearly discern the direction of your enemies.
Cameras. While the Pova 5 isn’t made for photography, its 50MP main camera does not disappoint. You can still get excellent shots outdoors and with ideal lighting conditions. Indoor shoots can be a bit trickier. You can also get that bokeh effect on portraits, thanks to the secondary depth sensor camera. Worth noting are the 12 sky-themed filters that can help you create one-of-a-kind photos magically with just one tap and dual video that lets you shoot using both back and its 8MP selfie camera, a must for aspiring vloggers and content creators. Beauty mode also comes with all the filters and adjustment options and even an AI smart beauty effect feature to make sure you look your best. For those who like adding watermarks to their photos, the Pova 5 lets you add not only a customized text but also the brand, time, and city, and even arrange the order of your watermark.
Mega Battery. To make sure that the Pova 5 can keep up with those marathon gaming sessions, it comes equipped with a 6000mAh battery with 45W smart charging capabilities.
You can get a 10 percent charge in 3 minutes, 50 percent in 21 minutes, and fully charge in just over an hour. It also supports 10W reverse charging so you could charge your smart watches, headphones, etc. In our tests, it was able to last us two days with light gaming and our usual social media and streaming apps.
FINAL WORD: Priced at P7,999 for the 8GB+128GB variant and P8,499 for the 8GB+256GB option, the Techo Pova 5 is an easy recommendation for gamers on a budget or those looking for a secondary phone for gaming. It has a huge and clear display, a very cool-looking mecha design, snappy performance, and a long-lasting battery that keeps it going long after your hands tire out from those intense shootouts.
Tecno Pova 5 review: New budget gaming king?
Source: News Paper Radio
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