Paul Briden 11/02/2017 - 10:22am

We put the Xperia M5 through its paces

£300.00

The Sony Xperia M is targeted as a upper-mid-range handset retailing for an RRP of £300. This puts it in the same price bracket as the Samsung Galaxy S5 Neo, members of the Samsung Galaxy A and C series, the Google Nexus 5X, and the Moto Z Play, and at a push the venerable OnePlus 3T.

Sony Xperia M5 Review: Design & Display

The thing about Sony is, it doesn’t really do cheap design. The firm knows how to make a decent-looking phone and has a tendency to push the boat out at every price bracket. But it is a company, much like HTC, that firmly sticks to a particular aesthetic through-and-through. Sony’s slick, minimalist, industrial design is very much a love it or hate it affair, and if you didn’t like any of Sony’s previous models then the Xperia M5 is unlikely to float your boat either. Team KYM is divided on this, Rich isn’t fond of Sony’s signature style at all, but I think it has a certain charm to it.

Coming from the perspective of appreciating the Sony brand style, I rather like the look of the Xperia M5. It has the same overall design as its more expensive flagship companions, but unlike those it uses much less metal. Most of the build is plastic, except for the corners, which are reinforced with stainless steel. But regardless all the frame edging has been treated with a glossy chrome finish so it looks nice and uniform. The phone is solid in the hand, and Sony has included the frosted glass back panel we see on higher end models. It’s very similar on the whole to the earlier-gen Xperia Z3+ flagship, aside from the plastic edging.

Sony has quite a robust background when it comes to display technology and the Sony Xperia M5 doesn’t disappoint; it features a 5in Full HD (1080p) IPS LCD, with a pixel density of 441ppi. This is clean and sharp, incredibly bright - plenty capable outdoors, and a superb 92% colour gamut which is nice and rich. Contrast is also decent, although the only thing slightly lacking is the black depth.

Sony Xperia M5 Review: Processor, Hardware & Performance

This is where the Xperia M5 starts to suffer a bit. It uses an octa-core 2.0GHz MediaTek MT6795 processor with 3GB of RAM, which sounds decent enough on paper. However, although it’s fine for general operation of Android 5.1, it is lacking a bit when it comes to higher performance tasks, including higher-end apps and gaming, intensive multitasking, even more demanding media-heavy websites. In testing it’s about half as fast as the previous-gen Xperia M4 Aqua (which cost half the price) and three times slower than the similarly priced Samsung Galaxy S5 Neo using an Exynos 7580 chip. App load speeds are also sub-par.

For connectivity the Xperia M5 is fine, with 4G LTE, 3G, Wi-Fi, NFC, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, and microUSB. Storage is mediocre for this price bracket at 16GB but it does have microSD support for cards with up to 256GB in capacity.

Sony Xperia M5 Review: Camera

Camera tech is another Sony speciality and with the Xperia M5 Sony has followed the trend of putting a good deal more effort into the front-facing camera in order to appeal to the selfie-takers of the world. It uses a 13MP sensor on the front which takes much better snaps than your average secondary camera with good levels of detail and a handy smile-to-capture feature. The results can be a little grainy, however, with a bit too much post-processing.

The primary camera is a 21MP setup which offers decent colour and contrast but is severely lacking in detail, giving everything a very soft appearance.

Sony Xperia M5 Review: Battery

Battery performance is distinctly sub-par at this price point; the 2,600mAh non-removable cell offers only slightly less than 9 hours of use on a single charge, performing well below the Samsung Galaxy S5 Neo and the Nexus 5X. A redeeming feature is the Ultra Stamina mode which gives you quite a lot of juice, but like Samsung’s Ultra Power Saving mode it reduces the handset down to a feature phone in terms of capabilities when switched on.

Sony Xperia M5 Review: Verdict

The Xperia M5 really is a let down. The exterior and display are very tempting at first glance, but once you get into the details a lot of key specs are lacking. Sony seems to have splurged all the budget on the design, display, and front-facing camera, leaving the Xperia M5 severely lacking in processing power when compared to similarly priced and even cheaper rivals. On top of this, the rear-camera isn’t going to impress many and the battery life is quite bad for this price class. The long and the short of it is despire an appealing outer shell, do not be fooled, you can do a lot better for £300 on the current market.