News

POCO Unveils New X5 Pro And X5 5G Smartphones

The company claims the handsets will offer amazing value and the most satisfying user experience of a smartphone under AED 1000.

Published

4 years ago

February 8, 2023

Nour Nasir

POCO

To celebrate its 5th anniversary, POCO has launched two new smartphones in the United Arab Emirates, the POCO X5 Pro and POCO X5 5G.

The handsets boast several upgrades over previous models and promise to delight tech enthusiasts looking for flagship features at a lower price point. While the Pro model packs in more advanced tech, the mid-range X5 5G also looks well-specced for its modest outlay.

Here are the specifications of both new devices:

POCO X5 Pro

The POCO X5 Pro comes with a 6.67″ Flow AMOLED display with a 120HZ refresh rate, similar to most modern flagship devices. The screen is said to be lighter and thinner than previous devices thanks to “flexible display technology” and promises ultra-smooth scrolling and stunning color reproduction.

The X5 Pro is powered by a Snapdragon 778G 5G chipset, which should make day-to-day operation extremely snappy, though POCO is keen to point out that camera processing will also be much more efficient. The tech firm claims that the 108MP camera has seen processing speeds and responsiveness jump by 69% for general photography and 38% for night mode shooting.

Finally, the X5 Pro will come in black, blue, or yellow colorways. There’s only one storage and RAM variant on offer, shipping with 256GB and 8GB, respectively.

POCO X5 5G

The POCO X5 5G is said to “redefine ideas about mid-range smartphones with everything Gen Z users need.” To that end, there’s a super light 6.67-inch AMOLED Dot display which helps the handset to achieve a weight of 189g.

poco x5 5g smartphone

The display gets the same smooth 120HZ refresh rate as the Pro model, though it sees a slight processor downgrade, utilizing the Snapdragon 695 chipset.

The POCO X5 5G will ship in green, blue, and black, with two RAM and storage variants: 6GB+128GB and 8GB+256GB.

Price & Availability

The X5 Pro will cost 1549 AED, while the X5 5G will set smartphone shoppers back between 799 AED and 999 AED, depending on spec.

Both handsets are available as of February 7th.

News

Microsoft Plans $10 Billion-Plus Gulf Expansion Despite Iran Conflict

Security is shaping Microsoft’s approach, from resilience work with governments to what it will say about how the money splits by country.

Published

4 days ago

September 24, 2026

Nour Nasir

Microsoft

Microsoft is planning more than $10 billion of investment across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait through 2030, Vice Chair and President Brad Smith told Reuters, calling the spending schedule aggressive. The Iranian conflict that began on February 28 has not persuaded the company to scale back.

“We’re sustaining all the investments we planned to make before this conflict started, and we are in fact adding to them,” Smith said. The $10 billion-plus total does not, however, show how large those additions are.

The investment, which Smith described as part of Microsoft’s continued infrastructure expansion, is aimed at cloud and AI infrastructure and at the company’s growing regional operations. Microsoft also intends to put more than $400 million into subsea and terrestrial connectivity across the Middle East by 2030.

The spending fits the region’s own ambitions too. Gulf governments have been investing heavily in AI infrastructure as part of a push to diversify their economies beyond oil and gas and turn themselves into global technology hubs. Major cloud and AI providers have been drawn in part by the land and relatively low-cost energy on offer.

Microsoft is widening its partnerships with regional AI companies, though not on identical terms. In 2024, it invested $1.5 billion in Abu Dhabi-based G42 for a minority stake, and Smith currently sits on G42’s board. Saudi Arabia’s Humain and Qatar’s Qai are working with Microsoft on selected priority areas, but Smith said the company does not plan to make capital investments in either.

Also Read: Egypt’s Mobile Wallets Are Booming, But Cash Still Has Power

The conflict has added another strand to Microsoft’s work in the region. Since it began, Smith said, the company has supported regional partners with digital resilience assessments, and it is now working with Gulf countries through a digital resilience initiative focused on preparedness and the protection of critical data.

So far, the company has given no country-by-country breakdown of the investment, citing security among other factors. So while the headline figure is public, how Microsoft divides the spending among the four countries is not.