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

Samsung And Spotify Offer Free Premium Deal In MENA

Nearly seven in ten streams in the region come from 18-to-34-year-olds — the audience Samsung is hoping to entice into its ecosystem.

Published

6 days ago

August 7, 2026

Nour Nasir

Samsung

Samsung has announced a partnership with Spotify spanning the Middle East, North Africa, and Türkiye, bundling Spotify Premium with select devices across its ecosystem. The headline offer — up to four months of Premium for free — is a first for the region.

Customers in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Türkiye who buy any OLED or 98-inch television, or any Galaxy S or Z series mobile device, get four months of Spotify Premium. The offer, tiered by market and device, is available at retail and on Samsung.com, and redeemed through the Samsung Promotion and Samsung Members apps.

For Samsung, the strategy is less about free music than about lock-in. The Korean tech giant’s pitch is continuity: a track starts on a Galaxy smartphone through Galaxy Buds on the commute, moves to a Samsung TV and soundbar in the living room, and stays controllable from a Galaxy Watch. The more seamlessly music travels between those devices, the harder it becomes to swap any one of them for a rival’s.

“Technology should bring people closer to the things they love, and few things connect people the way music does,” said Omar Saheb, Regional VP of Marketing and Online Business at Samsung Electronics MENA. The partnership, he added, gives customers “a genuine reason to choose Samsung for the experience, not only the product”.

Also Read: Shokz OpenFit Pro Review: Open-Ear Audio Finally Grows Up

For subscribers, Premium brings the usual package: ad-free listening, offline downloads, richer audio quality on Galaxy Buds and Samsung sound devices, and Jam, which lets friends build a shared queue.

“At Spotify, we are always working to make every listening moment feel more personal, meaningful, and worth it,” said Rami Jamal, Head of Partnerships at Spotify for South Asia, Middle East, and Africa.

The demographics go a long way to explaining the strategy. Across MENA, Türkiye, and Pakistan, nearly seven in ten Spotify streams come from listeners aged 18 to 34, according to the company — precisely the audience Samsung wants inside its hardware ecosystem before buying habits harden.