Looking for an all-around smartphone for Php12,000? TECNO Mobile has released a new device for your consideration: the TECNO POVA 6 Pro 5G.

Just by looking at the design, we can already tell that this year’s model is a good improvement over its predecessor. In our TECNO POVA 6 Pro 5G review, we’ll dissect everything it has to offer — from its intricate and aggressive design to all the internals that make up this device.

Want a detailed look of what’s in the box? Check out our unboxing here.

TECNO POVA 6 Pro 5G Specs

  • Android 14, HiOS 14
  • Dual SIM, Dual standby
  • 6.78-inch FHD+ AMOLED display
  • 120Hz refresh rate, 1500Hz touch sampling
  • 100% DCI-P3, 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 1300nits peak brightness
  • 2160Hz PWM dimming, TUV Rheinland Low Blue Light certified
  • 2.4GHz MediaTek Dimensity 6080 octa-core processor
  • Super Cooling System
  • Mali-G57 MC2 GPU
  • 12GB RAM
  • 256GB internal storage
  • 32-megapixel front camera, dual-tone flash
  • 108-megapixel + 2megapixel + AI rear cameras, dual-LED flash
  • IP53 dust and splash resistant
  • Under-display fingerprint scanner, Face unlock
  • Stereo speakers
  • Dolby Atmos, Hi-Res audio
  • 4D haptics
  • Dynamic Light mini LED
  • HSPA+, 4G LTE, 5G
  • WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band
  • Bluetooth 5.3
  • GPS, A-GPS
  • NFC, IR blaster, USB-C
  • Dimensions: 165.5 x 76.1 x 7.88mm
  • Weight: 195g
  • Colors: Comet Green, Meteorite Grey
  • 6,000mAh non-removable battery, 70W wired, 10W wired reverse charging

Design and Build Quality

TECNO phones are known for their overstated designs. But for the POVA series, they crank it up to eleven. Like the previous generation, the TECNO POVA 6 Pro 5G has a mecha-like design with a lot of things going on at the rear panel.

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The geometric lines, futuristic accents, and a whole lot more translate to a creative, eye-catching design. It would be a shame to put a case on this, but thankfully, TECNO included a clear one. The case also matches the color of the device itself. The colorway we have is Comet Green, which means that we also got the green case. The Meteorite Grey probably has a matching case, too.

TECNO claims that the shiny surface has a Lithography Precision Technology Texture. That’s a mouthful, but what we do know is that the glass-like plastic material is very shiny and prone to fingerprint marks, making the back panel look even more busier to the eyes.

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But if you think you’ve already seen everything, you’re wrong. It has 210 single-point ultra-micro mini LEDs that TECNO calls Dynamic-Eye Design. The light can be seen on the Y-shaped line next to the camera and even on one of the lenses. It lights up when charging, listening to music, and more. We’ll detail its features later.

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Like most modern phones, the TECNO POVA 6 Pro has flat edges that provide a good grip. But considering how large the device is, going with curved sides would’ve made it more comfortable to hold.

The color of the flat sides matches the back, so it unfortunately attracts a lot of fingerprint marks as well.

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Overall, there’s no denying that the TECNO POVA 6 Pro is a stunner. Still, for the price, it’s not perfect. We tried doing minor flexing and bending and we’re hearing squeaks all over. So, make sure you take care of the device and use the case it comes with (or buy a new one).

Taking a tour, we have the 6.78-inch AMOLED display on the front. The bezels are not the thinnest we’ve seen but are an improvement from its predecessor. In fact, the bottom bezel is 57.6% thinner, but that’s expected after TECNO swapped the IPS panel to an OLED.

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At the top, we have the secondary microphone, speaker, and the IR blaster.

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Below, you can spot the 3.5mm headphone jack, primary microphone, speakers, and the USB-C port.

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On the top left, there’s the SIM tray where the two nano SIMs and the microSD card sit back-to-back.

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The right side has the lock/power button and the volume controls. The button quality is okay for the price — clicky and tactile enough.

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Apart from the aggressive design, the rear also houses the triple camera setup in an iPhone Pro-like layout. Stamping some of the key specs seems unnecessary, but it definitely complimented the overall design.

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TECNO did a great job of designing the POVA 6 Pro 5G for its target market, as it this would appeal to gamers and young consumers alike. It may not be the most robust and strongest phone around, but it’s hard to complain about the price you’re paying.

Display and Sound Quality

TECNO phones, no matter the price, have some of the most feature-packed displays, and the TECNO POVA 6 Pro 5G is no different.

This one has a big 6.78-inch FHD+ AMOLED display with a high 120Hz refresh rate, 5,000,000:1 aspect ratio, and 1500Hz touch sampling.

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It also has a high 2160Hz PWM to prevent eye strains from screen flickers and of course, TUV Rheinland Blue Lowlight certification to keep your eyes safe from harmful blue light emissions.

The refresh rate can be switched easily. In the settings, you can have it enabled for better efficiency. Or, set it to stay in 60Hz, 90Hz, or 120Hz.

You can also adjust the screen color profiles to your liking. Plus, there’s a High Brightness Mode, so it’s more usable when it’s sunny outdoors.

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Display quality is quite good for the price. Going with OLED is an appreciated upgrade over the POVA 5, but it’s definitely not the most colorful and contrasty OLED screen we’ve seen.

The smoothness from the high refresh rate is felt, with the occasional and acceptable jitters you’d expect from a midrange phone. We also had no problems seeing the screen outdoors, even on direct sunlight.

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TECNO also managed to include a stereo speaker setup that offers stellar performance. It even has Hi-Res audio certification and Dolby Atmos. The speakers provide loud volume with the right balance of treble and bass. The stereo separation is also great, especially for action movies and shooter games. If you have a good pair of cans or TWS earphones, it can sound even better for a more immersive gaming experience.

Hardware and Performance

The TECNO POVA 6 Pro 5G is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 6080 5G processor, with Mali-G57 MC2 GPU, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of expandable storage.

TECNO POVa 6 Pro 5G Benchmark Scores

Performance was really impressive during our testing, especially for the price. It’s speedy and snappy enough for most users. Expect no issues if you spend a lot of time web browsing, video calls, taking pics on a trip, streaming content on your day off, and more.

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Gamers on a budget would also be satisfied with the TECNO POVA 6 Pro. Shooter games like Call of Duty Mobile, PUBG Mobile, and Farlight 84 ran consistently under medium to high settings. The same goes for MOBAs like Mobile Legends and League of Legends: Wild Rift, with enough power to spare if you want to better visuals.

While it did start to accumulate heat after about 12 minutes of playing, overheating was not an issue, as long as you’re playing under the right settings (in most cases, it’s the default).

Like in other midrange smartphones, handling Genshin Impact was challenging for the POVA 6 Pro, but it did better than a lot of its competition in this segment.

GameGraphics Settings
Call of Duty: Mobile• Graphics Quality: Medium
• Frame Rate: Medium
Farlight84• Graphics Quality: Smooth
• Frame Rate: High
• Resolution: Medium
PUBG Mobile• Graphics Quality: HD
• Frame Rate: High
Genshin Impact• Graphics Quality: Lowest (Default)
Mobile Legends: Bang Bang• Graphics Quality: Medium
• Frame Rate: High
• HD Mode: On
Asphalt 9: Legends• Visual Quality: Default
• Frame Rate: 60

Software and User Interface

The TENCO POVA 6 Pro 5G runs on the latest Android 14-based HiOS 14 user interface. We’re not a big fan of HiOS 13, so it’s nice to see improvements on the the lastest version. For one, we like the window on the first desktop with the global search, and app suggestions, and shows your To-Do list, steps, RAM usage, and battery usage. It also shows news and whatever you want to see thanks to a dedicated Settings menu.

Hardcore users will appreciate TECNO’s Phone Master app which will let the user optimize the system in a press of a button.

As expected, we’re seeing some bloatware here. Since almost all of Google’s native apps are included, you’re getting two browsers, galleries, and more: one from TECNO and one from Google. On the upside, third-party preinstalled apps can be removed.

Customization is also aplenty. You can pick from different Always On Display (AOD) wallpapers and even mess with the interface colors.

TECNO has also included different gesture options. However, I would accidentally trigger some of them whenever I use two fingers to do other tasks, say when I pinch to zoom photos. You can customize as you like, though, so you can just disable them if you like.

The in-display fingerprint scanner worked incredibly fast in my tests, as well as the face unlock. TECNO’s MemFusion technology lets you convert 6GB, 9GB, or 12GB of space from the storage to virtual RAM for an extra performance boost, but since it already has 12GB of physical RAM, we didn’t find a reason to enable it.

Oh, and for those who are worried about running out of space on its large 256GB of storage, you should know that the ‘System’ only takes about 16.75GB out of the box.

Like most brands that imitated Apple’s Dynamic Island, TECNO’s Dynamic Port only works with a couple of features: Face Unlock, Call, Recorder, and Charging. In those features, the special UI animation worked well, but we wish it was compatible with other notifications like messaging and delivery apps.

More gesture features are also present. You can use your three fingers to swipe up within an app for a floating window, take screenshots, etc.

One interesting feature of the TECNO POVA 6 Pro is the Dynamic Light Effect on the back, which is accompanied by a pretty comprehensive customization section in the settings. You can customize how and when it will light up. Unfortunately, the light working in real-world use is a hit or miss. We just hope TECNO pushes a software update to get it more polished.

Avid gamers will like TECNO’s Game Space app that consolidates all the games installed on the device and manages your system per game, so it runs to its potential. The app’s High Boost feature can be accessed anytime while you’re in-game which gives you data such as CPU and GPU usage, real-time fps, block notifications, and more.

The TECNO POVA 6 Pro 5G uses Emoji Keyboard by default, which is okay to use, but we immediately replaced it with Google Keyboard as it is more familiar and convenient to use. The camera app is clean and straightforward, no problems here.

Camera

The TECNO POVA 6 Pro 5G has a sharp 108-megapixel main camera, which is an impressive feat for the price. What’s disappointing is the lack of an ultra-wide lens. Instead, we only got an unnecessary 2-megapixel depth sensor and an AI lens.

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For its asking price, daylight shots from the main 108-megapixel camera look impressive. Photos are well-detailed, the contrast is decent, and the dynamic range is passable. Color rendering could also be improved, but still okay for a budget smartphone.

Thanks to the dedicated depth sensor and the sharp main camera, Portrait Mode shots look clean with a nice background blur. You can shoot photos in 1x and a more appropriate 3x zoom. The blur is not the most realistic out there, but decent enough.

While the TECNO POVA 6 Pro 5G lacks a dedicated telephoto lens, the 108-megapixel sensor lets you do 3x of digital zoom. Swipe the lens toggle to launch a dial that lets you zoom up to 20x.

Like most phones, the POVA 6 Pro’s cameras struggle in low light. Images look noisy and even blurry at times, so make sure your hands are extra steady when shooting at night.

The camera app also has a cool feature called Sky Shop. It can analyze a shot to find the sky and apply a filter of your choosing. The look is actually very convincing on some filters as the overall color and exposure of the shot match the filter you’ve chosen. There are 12 options available ranging from rainbow all the way to milky way.

Finally, we have the 32-megapixel front-facing cameras. Selfies look fine for the price with ample amount of details, nice skin tones, and decent low-light performance. Although, with a megapixel count higher than most phones around, we were expecting images to be sharper and more detailed.

While we would’ve loved to see a more usable ultra-wide or macro lens on this thing, the main and selfie cameras — the shooters most people would be using most of the time anyway — were enough to safely cover the camera department.

Battery

One of the highlights of the TECNO POVA 6 Pro is its large 6,000mAh battery paired with a 70W wired fast charger. You can also take advantage of that large battery by using the device like a power bank thanks to its 10W reverse wired charging feature.

We ran PCMark’s battery test, which repeats different workloads until the battery drops to 0% from 100%. It scored a screen-on time of 12 hours and 17 minutes, which is oddly lower than the average 14 hours score we get.

But in real-world use, it had a much better screen-on time of 7 to 8 hours. Around 2 hours of that was consumed in our gaming test where we tried titles like PUBG Mobile, Call of Duty Mobile, and Genshin Impact.

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The bottom line is, if you’re a light to moderate user who spends most of their time at work or school, then you might get two to three days worth of juice on a single charge.

But if you’re a hardcore gamer, then you might need to recharge the device every night. Don’t worry, though, as the 70W adapter can fully charge the device in about an hour. The adapter also has a built-in LED that lights up to let you know it’s plugged in and has power. It would’ve been cooler if it changes colors when the device is fully charged, though. See our charging test results below:

  • 15-minute charge: 0-25%
  • 30-minute charge: 52%
  • 45-minute charge: 78%
  • 1-hour and 2-minute charge: FULL

Verdict

The TECNO POVA 6 Pro is easily one of the best phones you can get for its price tag. Like its predecessors, it exceeds expectations in design, performance, display, charging speed, camera, and battery life.

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The Farlight84 x TECNO POVA 6 Pro is exclusive to the Philippines.

But it’s undeniably far from perfect. For one, we were disappointed with the lack of an ultra-wide lens. In addition, while the Dynamic Light effect on the back looks cool, it is currently unreliable and doesn’t really do much other than being aesthetically pleasing.

With good performance, display, decent cameras, and excellent battery life, we can definitely recommend the TECNO POVA 6 Pro 5G for those who want to get the most out of their money.

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TECNO POVA 6 Pro 5G pricing and availability details

The TECNO POVA 6 Pro 5G has an introductory price of Php10,499 against an SRP of Php11,999. It’s available in TECNO stores and authorized dealers nationwide. You can also get it online at TECNO’s official Shopee and TikTok Shop.

Pros

  • Interesting, eye-catching design
  • Reliable performance from basic tasks to gaming
  • AMOLED screen with 120Hz refresh rate
  • Loud stereo speakers
  • Aesthetic rear LED lights
  • Long battery life with fast charging

Cons

  • No ultra-wide, macro cameras
  • Dynamic Light effect is a hit or miss
  • Flimsy build quality

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