Poco M5 review: A perfect gaming smartphone at a budget price.

Poco, a subsidiary brand of Xiaomi recently launched its new M series in Nepal, Poco M5, a month ago. It is a successor to its previously launched Poco M4, packing almost the same features with few upgrades and compromisation. Poco M5 offers good performance and charming design at an attractive price range, as you wish to have on a budget segment smartphone like this.

Many of you might be curious to know about this smartphone’s features in depth for, in a hurry to buy it. So, do not worry. As, today in this article, I will be sharing my experience with Poco M5 which I have been using since right after its launch. 

Key specifications of Poco M5 

Poco M5 review 

Design and Built Quality:

Poco M5 comes with a unibody flat-edge design with a fine leather texture that is comfortable on your grip. The front panel has 6.58 inches LCD screen with a waterdrop notch for a selfie shooter. Whereas, on the back, the phone has a leather finish, which is one of the reasons for making this smartphone design attractive and stain-resistant.

Moreover, the top of the back panel houses triple camera sensors and an LED flash. And its back and frame parts are made out of plastic. This smartphone feels a little hefty, carrying 201g in measurement. On the right edge, there is a volume rocker and power button along with a fingerprint sensor, which is easy to use. 

I found this smartphone design unique and attractive. Furthermore, it has Gorilla Glass 3 protection on the front and the plus thing to note here is its IP rating of IP52, which is a good thing to get in this price segment. With this, you can be tension free to survive against drops, scratches, dust, and water sprays.

Display:

POCO M5 has a 6.58 inches IPS LCD, display enhanced by HDR10+. Whereas, its predecessor, POCO M4 excludes HDR10+. Furthermore, its resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels and its contrast ratio of 20:9 makes it capable to have a good screen for consuming multimedia such as movies, TV shows, and pictures.

The viewing angle is fine and acceptable for this price segment. Whereas, having a peak brightness of 400 nits, there is no complaint for indoor use. However, while using it outdoors in direct sunlight, I found it a little bit hard to get a clear look at the screen.

The good thing about the Poco M5 display is its 90Hz refresh rate & 240Hz sampling rate. That makes it work well across the interface and all applications while using it.

 Performance:

Poco M5 is powered by the new MediaTek MT8781 Helio G99 chipset. And it is the most advanced SoC in the Poco midrange Helio G series lineup. This chip has an Octa-core CPU which is 6nm in architecture with a clock speed up to 2.2 GHz and gets Mali-G57 MC2 GPU. Furthermore, it has an Andriod 12 operating system with an MIUI 13 on the skin top.

This chipset acted as a decent performer during my regular smartphone usage which involves checking emails and messages, using social media, browsing, and watching videos.

When it comes to gaming, this smartphone can run games like PUBG, Free Fire, and Clash Royale but offers you an average experience without any freeze or lag. On the other hand, it is good for doing casual gaming like pool 8 and Real Cricket 22. Whereas, I think this is the perfect gaming smartphone for this price segment.

If we see this device’s benchmark results, its chip scored 1,916 points in Geekbench’s multi-core test, while on AnTuTu, it netted 3,66,351 points. On the comparison side, its benchmark results performed better than its predecessor chip score. 

POCO M5 comes in two storage variants of 64GB ROM+4GB RAM, and 128GB ROM+ 6GB RAM. Moreover, it has a card slot for extra storage. So, you don’t need to get worried about getting out of the storage space early.

Camera features:

As for the camera, POCO M5 has a 50MP of main camera with f/1.8 aperture and other two macro & depth sensors of 2MP with f/2.4 aperture on the rear side. This camera features LED Flash, HDR, and panorama. Moreover, it can record videos 1080p at 30fps.

Main Camera:

The main camera clicks a nice picture only when the image is captured under the appropriate lightning. Whereas I found its dynamic range was not good enough, its color accuracy dissatisfied me. Furthermore, it lacks sharpness too. 

Macro sensor:

The macro sensor of 2MP took pictures with a very poor resolution along with the faded color and its contrast was very low.

Depth sensor:

The depth sensor was also not good enough to click pictures as the resolution was very poor.

Portraits:

The portrait was fine but the images clicked do not look very natural.

Low light:

While clicking pictures on the lowlight with or without using night mode, I found the images to be a bit similar and not good enough. Its dynamic range needs to get improvement.

Selfie camera:

Though its exposure was on the point, the clicked selfies were not good and sharp enough. The dynamic range, color, and contrast need to get improved. 

Portrait:

The portrait was satisfactory and not good enough.

Low light:

The selfie’s low light also needs to improve its dynamic range.

Battery & other features:

Moving on, the POCO M5 is fueled by a battery capacity of 5,000mAh. On a full charge, this battery got endured at least a day on my normal usage. But if you are the kind of person who continuously and heavily uses a smartphone, a full charge may not get long last for a day. Furthermore, this smartphone supports 22.5W of fast charging, which takes around two and a few minutes to get a full charge from 0 to 100 percent. I found its charging speed very low and time-consuming. 

The various connectivity option includes Wi-Fi 802.11, Bluetooth 5.3, GPS, NFC, radio, USB Type-C 2.0, and USB On-The-G. Though it does not have 5G onboard, I had no issues using its 4G LTE service on its device. On the audio side, the sound quality is just fine.

Final thoughts on the Poco M5

Poco M5 is an affordable and budget-centric smartphone that offers you a decent chipset. If you are a person, who is searching for a budget smartphone with some decent gaming performance, then I think this smartphone is best for you.

Moving on, Poco M5 is available in two memory configurations of 4+64GB and 6+128GB. The price for the base variant in Nepal is NPR 20,499 and NPR 23,999 for another variant.

Pros

• Impressive design
• Good battery life
• Decent performance for gaming

Cons

• Both the front and back camera needs improvement
• Fast charging could have been better

BTW What are your thoughts on the Poco M5 full review? Do comment with your opinion below.

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