Review Verdict: TECNO has set a new standard for budget gaming phones in the Philippines with the POVA 5. Aside from its gamer aesthetic, the POVA 5 offers the best price-to-performance ratio–as long as you don’t prioritize camera performance. 

Pros

-Incredible price-to-performance ratio

-Unique back panel design

-Long and efficient battery life

Cons

-Mediocre camera performance in low-light situations

-A bit on the heavy side

 

TECNO wants a slice of the lucrative budget gaming phone market in the Philippines, and it has refined the POVA 5 to be a compelling pick. With a unique design and incredible price-to-performance ratio, is the POVA 5 the new benchmark for budget gaming phones in the Philippines?

TECNO POVA 5 Review Philippines: Design

TECNO does not shy away from making the POVA 5 a budget gaming phone with its cyberpunk aesthetic. The back panel simply stands out with those lines and varying textures underneath a glossy surface. TECNO really paid attention to the details of the back panel–you even get screws and an asymmetrical camera module to complete the look.

As much as we love the cyberpunk aesthetic of the POVA 5, we wished that TECNO opted for a matte finish–the glossy surface does sometimes attract fingerprints and smudges. Good thing TECNO included a clear case to protect the back panel from smudges and still let you appreciate the unique design.

Being a phone that’s geared toward gamers, you get niceties like stereo speakers, a headphone jack, and a huge 6000mAh battery that’s arguably the best in its class. The slight tradeoff with a large battery is that the POVA 5 is on the heavy side, tipping the scales at around 220g.

 

TECNO POVA 5 Review Philippines: Display

While you’re not getting an AMOLED panel like what the competition is pushing for lately, the POVA 5’s IPS display is smooth and responsive with its 120hz refresh rate and 240hz touch response rate. As a phone branding itself as a budget gaming device, the POVA 5 gets the job done with its display of choice: beyond its responsiveness, the display is also bright and colors are vibrant–and not oversaturated like how other brands tend to calibrate their displays.

Having a Full HD+ resolution, the POVA 5 also has Widevine L1, which means you can enjoy your Netflix shows in Full HD–and be immersed in your favorite movie or TV series using either the POVA 5’s stereo speakers or through wired or wireless earphones.

If we were to nitpick the POVA 5’s display, it has to be those thick bezels and chin. But then, we’re giving the POVA some slack given the internals it packs–more on that later.

 

TECNO POVA 5 Review Philippines: Cameras

Since the POVA 5 focuses primarily on gaming, camera performance is not a priority with this budget phone. To be fair with TECNO, the POVA 5 does have one decent camera with a 50-megapixel main camera. Its depth sensor is very lackluster with just a mere QVGA resolution, while the selfie shooter is just an 8-megapixel one.

Focusing on the POVA 5’s main camera, the photos are average at best when shooting in daylight. Overall image quality takes a dip when shooting in low light, with photos losing a lot of detail and saturation compared to photos taken in daylight. Should you want to use the POVA 5 for its cameras, we suggest that you should have good lighting to maximize its main camera.

When it comes to videos, the POVA 5 can shoot up to 1440p at 30FPS, but you will need to have either a steady pair of hands or a gimbal to keep footage stable since you don’t get OIS or EIS.

 

TECNO POVA 5 Review Philippines: Internals and Battery Life

The main highlight of the POVA 5 is the internals it packs, where you get a Helio G99 processor that’s paired with 8GB RAM and up to 256GB internal storage. Considering that it’s priced at under Php 9k (Php 8499 to be specific) for the 256GB variant, the POVA is an absolute runaway winner against the competition if internals are the basis.

Aside from being a very affordable device to have 256GB internal storage (and MicroSD expansion no less), the POVA 5 is one of the most affordable phones in the market to use a Helio G99 processor, which is MediaTek’s best 4G-only processor right now.

Just as we speculated, the POVA 5 can confidently run Genshin Impact at high settings, and the same can be said with Honkai Star Rail, which is a new title from the same developers behind Genshin Impact. Thermals are relatively stable too: we would play either game for an hour, and the POVA 5’s back panel only got slightly warm—still enough to hold it comfortably after a long gaming session.

On the software side of things, the POVA 5 comes with Android 13-based HiOS 13. Compared to TECNO’s previous releases, the POVA 5 has less bloatware and fewer annoying notifications, making it boast a much cleaner overall UI. It’s nice to see phones from TECNO tone down on the bloatware, and we look forward to seeing their future releases have a lighter and much cleaner Android UI.

Aside from the internals, the other standout feature of the POVA 5 is its huge 6000mAh battery. We got 17 hours and 1 minute on PCMark’s battery benchmark test, which is very impressive and at par with what we expect of the Helio G99’s power efficiency. That makes the POVA 5 one of the best battery life on a phone we have reviewed for 2023–all while offering decent overall performance with its processor of choice.

A big upgrade of the POVA 5 over its predecessor is that the 6000mAh battery supports fast 45w charging, The faster charging speeds translate to being able to top up the battery in around 1.5 hours, which is a decent charging time given the large 6000mAh cell that’s needed to fill up.

 

TECNO POVA 5 Review Philippines: Wrap-up and Conclusions

TECNO’s new approach to the POVA series proves to be a hit in the Philippines with the POVA 5 being a budget gaming phone. With a gamer-inspired design, powerful internals, and a very compelling price, the POVA 5 has set a new benchmark for under Php 10k smartphones in the Philippines that is focused primarily on gaming.

 

TECNO POVA 5 Review Philippines: Price

The POVA 5 Free Fire Edition is priced at Php 7,999 for the 8GB/128GB model and Php 8,499 for the 8GB/256GB model and will be available at TECNO’s official Lazada, Shopee, and TikTok stores.