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.
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.
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
Google Releases Veo 2 AI Video Tool To MENA Users
The state-of-the-art video generation model is now available in Gemini, offering realistic AI-generated videos with better physics, motion, and detail.
Starting today, users of Gemini Advanced in the MENA region — and globally — can tap into Veo 2, Google’s next-generation video model.
Originally unveiled in 2024, Veo 2 has now been fully integrated into Gemini, supporting multiple languages including Arabic and English. The rollout now brings Google’s most advanced video AI directly into the hands of everyday users.
Veo 2 builds on the foundations of its predecessor with a more sophisticated understanding of the physical world. It’s designed to produce high-fidelity video content with cinematic detail, realistic motion, and greater visual consistency across a wide range of subjects and styles. Whether recreating natural landscapes, human interactions, or stylized environments, the model is capable of interpreting and translating written prompts into eight-second 720p videos that feel almost handcrafted.
Users can generate content directly through the Gemini platform — either via the web or mobile apps. The experience is pretty straightforward: users enter a text-based prompt, and Veo 2 returns a video in 16:9 landscape format, delivered as an MP4 file. These aren’t just generic clips — they can reflect creative, abstract, or highly specific scenarios, making the tool especially useful for content creators, marketers, or anyone experimenting with visual storytelling.
Also Read: Getting Started With Google Gemini: A Beginner’s Guide
To ensure transparency, each video is embedded with SynthID — a digital watermark developed by Google’s DeepMind. The watermark is invisible to the human eye but persists across editing, compression, and sharing. It identifies the video as AI-generated, addressing concerns around misinformation and media authenticity.
While Veo 2 is still in its early phases of public rollout, the technology is part of a broader push by Google to democratize advanced AI tools. With text-to-image, code generation, and now video creation integrated into Gemini, Google is positioning the platform as a full-spectrum creative assistant.
Access to Veo 2 starts today and will continue expanding in the coming weeks. Interested users can try it out at gemini.google.com or through the Gemini app on Android and iOS.
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