Huawei P8 Max

HUAWEI P8 MAX: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I’ve seen a lot of phones during my time in this industry. I’ve seen candybars and clamshells, the world’s thinnest phones and those with curved, flexible and even transparent displays. Until now, however, I had never seen one as big as the Huawei P8 Max

Forget blurring the lines between smartphones and tablets, the P8 Max kicks those lines in the shins and simply does its own thing. The handset – if I can call it that – features a massive 6.8-inch display. As well as being a full 1.6-inches biggest than its smaller, flagship sibling, the Huawei P8, the Max is just 0.2 of an inch off lining up as a direct Nexus 7 rival

When is big too big? Based on my hands-on time with the Huawei P8 Max, well before you get to 6.8-inches

HUAWEI P8 MAX: DESIGN

There’s no escaping it, this thing isn’t just big, it’s huge. Forget the pocket-stretching likes of the iPhone 6 Plus or the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, the Huawei P8 Max has taken things to new – frankly ridiculous – levels

With a number of high-profile tablets on the market sporting smaller displays – I’m looking at the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 6 here – the P8 Max’s form is nothing short of confusing. Sized like a tablet, skilled like smartphone, the Max is a halfway house device that falls between the cracks of credibility in either camp

I found the handset ok to hold but difficult to use – at least one handed. Trying to type a message or URL was awkwardly uncomfortable with one hand. As an adult man of average hand proportions, I struggled to stretch my thumbs across the phone’s not inconsiderable width. At this point, portability and practicality go out the window

Despite being too big for most standard functions, the Huawei P8 Max is a brilliantly built product. The phone’s aluminium body looks and feels the part, pairing a high-end, easy-on-the-eye finish with a well balanced, robust feel

At 6.8mm slim, the handset is not oversized in all directions. Sadly however, at least on first use, the P8 Max’s negatives far outweigh the positives – at least on a design front

HUAWEI P8 MAX: SCREEN

Despite stretching a 1080p Full HD panel over a near 7-inch form, the P8 Max’s screen is a strong addition. When I approached the handset for the first time I expected grainy images and a blocky text. What I saw, however, was a bright, vibrant, detailed display that is suitable sharp for most daily tasks

Unlike its smaller sibling, a 2K panel here would make a notable difference, if only a small one. That said, I found text sharp and video playback fluid. This is key as video is one area where the phone’s oversized features come into their own

Huawei has attempted to keep the P8 Max’s overall footprint down while adopting an oversized display. It has done this by minimising the phone’s bezels. The company has been relatively successful in these attempts, with the phone’s 83 per cent screen the body ratio a market leader on the phablet front

Finishing things off, a Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protective coating should help ensure the phone remains impervious to scuffs and scratches

HUAWEI P8 MAX: FEATURES

Big in stature and ability, the Max’s features list is an impressive one. The phone is powered by Huawei’s in-house Kirin 930 chip. This 64-bit, octa-core chip offered more than enough power for early tests, with all app launches and multitasking commands handled with consummate ease

This processor, which should offer more than enough grunt for even the most demanding of users, is backed up by 3GB of RAM and 32GB or 64GB internal storage options. Both capacities are enhanced by microSD expansion and are available in single and dual-SIM iterations

As has become the norm, the Huawei P8 Max runs a skinned version of Google’s latest Android 5.0 Lollipop OS. Huawei’s Emotion UI has come a long way in recent years and has continued to evolve on the P8 and P8 Max. Dropping some of its more childlike styling issues, I found the software skin to be more refined and sophisticated than in recent years

However, while manufacturers such as Samsung are stripping back their UIs, Huawei’s Emotion offering is still slightly cluttered. Customisation options though are strong, with a mass of varying themes available to help you better attune the handset to your tastes

Such a sizeable device needs a sizeable battery to keep things running. Here, Huawei has bestowed its latest phablet with a massive 4680mAh power supply. According to the manufacturer, this should offer two full days of use on a single charge

At this stage, however, this is nothing but a hollow promise. All manufacturers make lofty battery life claims, few fulfil them. Given my limited time with the device, I’ve been unable to test the Max’s staying power. This will be fully addressed in our full Huawei P8 Max review, coming soon

HUAWEI P8 MAX: CAMERA

Like its little brother, the Max plays host to an impressive camera collection with a 13-megapixel primary shooter lining up alongside a secondary 5-megapixel camera up front

The primary snapper features a 4-colour RGBW sensor and independent Image Signal Processor alongside optical image stabilisation. It’s also enhanced by a selection of new shooting modes, with Time Lapse, Light Painting and Perfect Seflie options available

On first use, in challenging lighting conditions, the Max produced solid, but not groundbreaking results. Its low light abilities we put to the test, with results balancing well between areas of light and shade. Similarly, the front-facing camera produce decent images that lacked a bit of depth

Further, more intensive camera tests are required before we can pass final judgement on the phone’s imaging abilities

EARLY VERDICT

The Huawei P8 Max is an impressive device with major identity issues. Too big to be a practical primary phone, its USP runs the risk of being its downfall

iPhone SE review

? WHAT IS THE IPHONE SE

The iPhone SE is a strange proposal, but it makes complete sense. With phones getting bigger and bigger, it’s becoming rare to see a device which is comfortably usable in one hand. The Samsung Galaxy S7, HTC 10 and iPhone 6S Plus are all great but for many they’re simply too large

With the iPhone SE, Apple has given these people a choice. Its 4-inch screen and compact body are rare these days, but it’s still one powerful device. There’s the same internals as the iPhone 6S, a snazzy pink (sorry, Rose Gold) hue and support for Apple Pay. Normally small phones are hamstrung, but this isn’t

It has an impressive camera, a battery that can last, an iconic (if recycled) design and the latest version of iOS. It’s also the most affordable iPhone yet, starting from £359/$399

IPHONE SE – DESIGN, SCREEN AND AUDIO

A surprising amount of people I speak to say they want a small phone that packs all the features of a full-fat flagship. Sony is the only manufacturer to have previously attempted anything like this, but even its Xperia Z5 Compact has a not-so-tiny 4.6-inch screen and it's quite thick. The iPhone SE is much smaller and much easier to handle

Anyone who's used an iPhone 5 or iPhone 5S will feel at ease with the iPhone SE – it looks and feels almost identical, except now you can get it in a fetching rose-gold colour and its cut edges are matte rather than shiny chrome

Those phones have an iconic design and I have no problem with Apple reusing it, especially if it means they can keep costs down and pass the savings on. The best thing about the design of the iPhone SE is that it still feels quality. The brushed aluminium back is both hard and cool to touch, the buttons are solid, and it’s easily small enough to use one-handed, regardless of the size of your hands

Coming from using the giant iPhone 6S Plus and Huawei Mate 8 I also found it a relief to be able to bend my leg again when I put a phone in my front pocket

In other ways it’s taken me time to adjust to the smaller screen. It’s not just that I have to move it closer to my face to read text, like my granddad reading the morning paper, I also struggle with the small keyboard. Ironically I often have to use both my hands and thumbs on the phone to minimise the potential for embarrassing autocorrect fails. I've gotten more used to it, but I still don't find it comfortable after a few weeks of using the phone non-stop. The small screen also means watching video is a little cramped and, while the iPhone SE is more than powerful enough to play all the best games, trying to maneuver precisely requires daintier digits than mine

While the iPhone SE still looks good there are a couple of aspects of the design that aren’t perfect, and others that feel dated. For starters, if you don’t use a case with the iPhone SE you might find the edges a little harsh, particularly if you’re more used to the rounded metal sides on contemporary phone designs. The screen bezel is also rather wide – especially at the top and bottom – and that means you don’t get a lot of screen for the size of the phone

That’s not the only problem with the screen

It packs the exact same display as the 5S. While the 1136 x 640 resolution provides a perfectly sharp 326 pixels per inch the screen lacks punch and has a reddish tinge that is exacerbated when it’s tilted at some angles. Compare it to Samsung’s colour-packed Super AMOLED screens or even the newer LCD technology on a phone like the HTC 10 and it really starts looking its age

Still, it's quite acceptable – bright enough to be used outdoors and sharp enough to read websites on the go without noticing any fuzzy edges to letters

The speaker located at the bottom of the phone is decent rather than outstanding. Top-level volume isn’t as high as some other phones, but the quality of the audio output is surprisingly good from such a small package – sound is balanced, if a little thin, and there’s no distortion at the highest volume

Call quality is also strong. The ear speaker is clear and loud and the noise-cancelling mic does a good job of clearing up any distracting external noises when you're on a call. There are louder call speakers out there but I didn't have any problems hearing or making myself heard even on windy days with lots of traffic noise around me

Neither the design, screen or sound quality excites the blood much – so far the iPhone SE isn't very different at all when compared to its predecessors. That all changes, though, when I scratch the surface and take the camera for a spin around London

IPHONE SE – CAMERA

The rear iSight camera is where the iPhone SE gets interesting. It packs the same sensor and lens as the iPhone 6S, which means it has one of the most impressive phone cameras on the market right now

It’s not just the quality of the pictures the iPhone SE delivers that makes it a corker; it’s also dead easy to use. This is thanks to the simple and robust camera app, which also enables the shooting of Live Photos – pictures that can also be viewed as short videos

The iPhone SE’s camera produces results that belie its specs

The iPhone SE can deliver cracking photos in good light

A 12-megapixel sensor seems adequate these days, rather than impressive, as does the f/2.2 aperture. By comparison the Samsung Galaxy S7 has a wider f/1.7 aperture and the LG G5 an f/1.8 aperture. This is one of those cases where you want the number to be smaller. A smaller aperture means more light can get into the sensor, making for better low-light performance and less chance of blur

However the iPhone SE doesn’t seem to suffer by comparison. The lens is plenty fast and the “Focus Pixel” (otherwise known as phase detection) technology it uses means speedy focusing too

Cropped image of a pigeon taking off, showing that the iPhone SE can focus quickly and capture movement well

Shots look more natural and lifelike when compared to some of its high-end competitors, and noise is kept to a minimum

Macro shot of an orchid shows the iPhone SE can capture details and natural colours

Is it better than the Samsung Galaxy S7 or LG G5 when it comes to image quality in good light? The lines are fine and some will prefer the punchier colours the Samsung or LG deliver over the more lifelike tones of the iPhone. Others won’t. There's no definitive winner.

It’s in low light that the iPhone SE suffers. Wider apertures and optical image stabilisation (OIS) help competing phones deliver more detailed, contrasty shots in dark environments

The cameras on the iPhone SE and 6S Plus are identical apart from OIS, but this makes a difference at night

Of course, there is a flash on the back of the SE and this is of the True Tone variety we first saw on the iPhone 5S. Two LED lights adapt to produce a varied flash depending on the ambient light. The aim is to reproduce a realistic colour tone, where a normal flash tends to produce a “ghost face” effect. It’s not just a gimmick, either – True Tone does work

Since the SE has the same camera and processor as the 6S, it also shares 4K video recording at 30 frames per second. Not only that but it comes with the excellent slo-mo video recording that lets you shoot at a whopping 240fps for 720p and 120fps at 1080p resolutions

The rear camera on the iPhone SE is outstanding, particularly considering how much less this phone costs than the iPhone 6S

The front camera is less impressive. Instead of the 5-megapixel sensor on the iPhone 6S it's a disappointing 1.2-megapixel one. Megapixels aren’t everything, but with a difference this large you can expect poorer shots

There's a big difference between the iPhone SE (left) and 6S (right) when it comes to the front camera in low-light conditions

It seems strange that Apple's decided to opt for a weak front camera. I see the iPhone SE being popular with kids whose parents don't want to fork out for the iPhone 6S, but it's exactly these young people who tend to make the most out of a selfie cam

The one plus side is that Retina Flash makes an appearance. Retina Flash allows the iPhone SE's screen to light up three times more brightly than normal, so you get some light when taking a selfie in the dark. It works well enough but the smaller screen size means it's not quite as effective as on the iPhone 6S

There's more to a phone than its cameras and the iPhone SE manages to squeeze incredible performance into a small shell

IPHONE SE – IOS 9 AND APPS

The iPhone SE runs Apple’s latest iOS 9 operating system. Anyone familiar with an iPhone or iPad will get to grips with it in seconds, and it won't take much longer for first-timers

Some might say it’s too restrictive, that you can’t customise an iPhone anywhere near as much as an Android or even Windows phone. There are no widgets for your homepages, nor a manual mode for the camera – it’s all kept simple and light

I don’t find it much of a problem. The older and busier I get, the more I appreciate the fact that I don’t have to tinker too much to get a slick experience or great results. iOS 9.3 works, and it works well right out of the box

It also comes with a few cool new features. One of the highlights is Night Shift. Turn this on and the iPhone SE’s display changes colour tone, removing a lot of the blue light and becoming much warmer. There’s a good reason for this. The blue light that electronic screens emit trick the body into thinking it’s still daylight and makes getting a good night’s sleep harder. Night Shift helps to stop that

The Apple App Store is also still the one to beat. It’s packed full of high-quality apps and games that make the most out of the iPhone SE

The iPhone SE also comes with an NFC chip you can use with Apple Pay. That means you can hand over your money simply by holding your phone to a tap-and-pay terminal and using the Touch ID fingerprint sensor that's built into the home button. But it only works if your bank and country participates in the program, so best to check before you get too excited about that feature

IPHONE SE – PERFORMANCE, STORAGE AND FEATURES

A dual-core A9 processor and 2GB of RAM might not sound like much when compared to top-flight Android phones, but the iPhone SE is one of the most powerful handsets you can get right now

It blitzes our like-for-like benchmark tests with results that are almost identical to those from the iPhone 6S, but because the screen resolution is so much lower it actually tests better on some hardcore gaming tests

There’s an incredible amount of processing muscle in the iPhone SE’s diminutive frame and it doesn’t get too hot or bothered by all that horsepower either. Touch ID also unlocks your phone more quickly than it does on the iPhone 5S thanks to the new processor

The A9 processor offers more than an incredibly fast and smooth experience; it also helps the iPhone SE keep going for longer. Efficiency improvements mean the A9 uses less of the iPhone SE’s battery and the M9 co-processor helps reduce power drain when the SE is immobile or out of signal

It’s clever stuff and means the SE lasts a good long while for such a small phone

Performance may be identical to that of the 6S, but there is one feature lacking on the iPhone SE – 3D Touch, which lets you access additional features by pressing harder on the 6S's screen. Ironically it's a bit like a right mouse click, which is something Apple computers don't have. It's a useful feature, but not one that I particularly miss when it's not there

More problematic is Apple's continued insistence that 16GB of storage is enough for an entry-level phone these days. It isn’t, particularly when you can’t add extra storage via a microSD card. Thankfully the iPhone SE also comes in a 64GB configuration, which is the one I’d recommend, even though it is a lot more expensive

IPHONE SE – BATTERY LIFE

The iPhone 5S didn't have the stamina I hoped for when I reviewed it back in 2013. It was average at best. Since the iPhone SE’s battery is only a smidgen larger, I didn’t have high hopes, despite the fact that Apple told me battery life is 50% better than the old flagship's

Scoff I did, but my scoff was thrown back in my face with gusto. This phone has impressive staying power

In day-to-day use I regularly find myself with more than 60% left over by the time I get home from a hard day at the TrustedReviews offices, and more than 40% by the time I’m ready to head to the land of nod

Different uses drain the battery more than others. I found that it lasted a long time when streaming content to it via Wi-Fi with the screen brightness at 70% – 11 hours of Netflix on one charge is a great effort. Of course, intense 3D gaming impacts the battery more than simple Wi-Fi web browsing and I found using the iPhone SE to navigate around London drained the battery more quickly than I expected

It took a fair amount of effort to run the battery down to zero in a single day, but I managed it with two hours of Wi-Fi video streaming, shooting 100 photos, doing less than an hour of 2D gaming, two-ish hours of GPS navigation and four hours of browsing the web, reading emails and looking at my favourite news apps – the latter on 4G

That’s seriously impressive stuff and beats the iPhone 6S, although it doesn’t quite reach the heady levels of the iPhone 6S Plus

If you want to make the battery on the iPhone SE last a little longer then make sure you select “Yes” when it asks you to turn on “Battery Saver Mode”. This appears when you’re down to your last 20%, but you can turn it on any time manually by going to Settings and then to the Battery section. Battery saver mode reduces the power consumption of the processor and limits background tasks so the iPhone SE can last longer

Unlike some of the latest Android flagships, the iPhone SE doesn’t have fast charging or wireless charging capabilities, so you’ll need to tether it to a Lightning cable when it’s running low on juice. A one-hour charge gives you 63% of your battery back from empty and you can fully recharge in a little under two hours

??? SHOULD I BUY THE IPHONE SE

If you love a small phone but feel you’re missing out on a top-notch camera, solid battery life and speedy processor, the iPhone SE is impossible to ignore. It delivers in spades and doesn't have a comparable competitor

VERDICT

It may not be the most exciting phone Apple has ever released, but the iPhone SE will be a godsend for those who want a high-quality phone that isn't massive

Sony Xperia M5 review

? WHAT IS THE SONY XPERIA M5

Sony’s mobile division is in a strange place right now. It’s killed off the Z series and launched the Xperia X and Xperia XA without altering the design formula it’s used for years

Now, the Japanese brand’s flagship phones have come in for a bit of flak from us, but I’ve always liked its more budget and mid-range phones oriented

Last year’s Xperia M4 Aqua was great and the Xperia M5 once again offers great bang for the buck, especially if you're after a water-resistant phone

SONY XPERIA M5 – DESIGN AND BUILD QUALITY

Either Sony really, and I mean really, loves its ‘omnibalance’ phone design, or it simply doesn’t have the designers available to make anything different. On first glance, the Xperia M5 looks just like any other Sony smartphone released in the last three years

The front and back are flat, while the sides are rounded with prominent corners. Unlike the pricier Xperias, the M5 is mostly constructed from plastic, which means it feels less fancy than its SIM-free price suggests

There's no fingerprint scanning button on the side like on the Z5, replaced by the more familiar circular lock switch. Below that is the volume rocker, and further down is the camera shutter button. I still appreciate a physical button for the camera – it makes jumping to it from anywhere easy and quick – but they’re a bit mushy and hard to press

The opposite side features a cover that when popped off reveals the SIM card slot and tray for a microSD card. It’s quite tricky prizing out the inner trays, but it’s hopefully something you won’t be doing all that often

It’s compact, perfect for one-handed use and as long as you don’t plump for the awfully gaudy and downright ugly gold option I’m using for review you’ll bag yourself a nice looking phone. Yet, Sony needs to stop resting on its laurels and do something a bit different with its design eventually

One of the biggest selling points for the Xperia M5 is that it’s waterproof. This feature is nothing new for the Xperia series, in fact it’s been one of the mainstays since the Xperia Z hit, but it’s still nice to see it sticking around. The Xperia M5 holds an IP65/68 rating, which means that it can withstand light water jets as well as full immersion, and is thus more water resistant than the Samsung Galaxy S7 and its IP68 rating

It's rated to handle 1m of water for 30-minutes, though don’t try dropping it in a keg of beer. It won’t end well

SONY XPERIA M5 – SCREEN QUALITY

At 5-inches, the Xperia M5 is fairly typical and some might deem it a 'smaller' phone these days. It still packs a 1080p resolution though, which combined with a smaller size makes for a very sharp display

I loved the screens on the Xperia Z5 and while the 4K gimmick on the Xperia Z5 Premium was an absolute joke, it still had a lovely 1080p panel. Thankfully, the M5 retains this quality as it once again has a fantastic screen. Especially at the price

Aside from the fact it’s an absolute fingerprint magnet, the LCD display is vivid with accurate colours. Viewing angles could be better though as there’s an obvious loss of contrast when you tilt the device to the side

For me, 5-inches is too small to use this as a media device – even though films look great, with deep blacks – but it’s ideal for bouts of mobile gaming

It’s not all perfect, though. By modern standards the bezel above and below the screen is very large, especially given there's no physical home button. I’d rather see something like the Xperia XA, which almost eliminates the bezels and improves the look no end, but it's not a huge problem

Brightness is the greater concern. Even on full whack, it lacks any real punch and it pales in comparison to even cheaper phones like the BQ Aquaris X5

SONY XPERIA M5 – PERFORMANCE AND SOFTWARE

While Sony’s Android UI was once heavy, re-skinning the majority of Google OS, it’s now much lighter

Yes, there are a few visual tweaks – the app drawer features a transparent background and a couple of the default apps are Sony’s, rather than Google’s – but it’s by no means an eyesore

But even six months after its arrival, Sony has yet to update its fleet of devices to Android Marshmallow. That means the Sony Xperia M5 is still running Android 5.1 Lollipop. To my mind, it's unacceptable for a brand new phone to launch with an old version of the operating system, especially when updated take so long to arrive

Sony has also added a lot, and I mean a lot, of its own apps to the Xperia M5. You’ve got its three preloaded media apps, three separate ones for PlayStation, the Xperia Lounge (this is basically a useless place for lots of adverts) OfficeSuite, AVG protection, Kobo Books and more that I won’t bore you with here. A few of them you can uninstall, but it’s still a pain that they’re there at all in the first place

Instead of choosing a mid-range processor from Snapdragon, Sony has plumped for a Mediatek Helio X10 CPU. This 64-bit octa-core chip might not be a household name like its more illustrious competition, but don’t let that put you off – it’s a fine performer here. There’s 3GB RAM too, something you don’t always see at this price

I’d even go as far as saying the Xperia M5 is a better performer than the Snapdragon 810 toting Z5, simply because it doesn’t fall foul to some of the bugs I ran into when using that phone. General performance is fantastic – there’s almost no lag browsing Chrome, sending emails and opening up the camera (something that really let the Z5 down) and a tough workload of apps with ease

Gaming is a similar story. The majority of games I play on a regular basis (Monument Valley, Threes, Lara Croft Go, Ski Safari 2) are all free of dropped frames and play perfectly fine. Hitman Sniper, a game I would still say is one of the most demanding available on Google Play, performs less impressively, but it’s still playable

Running the multi-core test on Geekbench 3, the Xperia M5 picks up a score of 3,862. That puts it ahead of the LG G4 (3,260) and the Nexus 5X (3,543), both of which are much pricier than the Sony. On AnTuTu it scores 52,347, again beating out much higher-end devices like Blackberry’s Priv and HTC’s One A9

There’s 16GB of internal storage which can be upped through a microSD card, though as this isn’t running Android 6.0 you won’t be able to use adoptable storage

SONY XPERIA M5 – BATTERY LIFE

Sony loves claiming its phones will last two days, but I have yet to find one that can actually last from, say, Monday to Wednesday morning. Even with the stamina mode turned on – which makes the phone feel noticeably sluggish – the most I’ve managed is about a day and a half

Without the battery saving mode on, I can easily go a day without hitting the red. A normal day of usage typically leaves me with between 15-20% left by about midnight, which drops to 8-10% if I leave it uncharged overnight

There’s also quite a big drop in battery when I stream Netflix. A 40-minute HD episodes eats through about 12%, while a film can take as much as 25%. It’s a similar story with gaming – a 30-minute bout of Monument Valley takes the battery down 10%

A full charge take just over an hour, which is about what I would expect from a phone with a 2,600 mAh battery, but there's no wireless support

SONY XPERIA M5 – CAMERA

If you like megapixels, you'll love the Xperia M5 becuase it's got a whole load of them. On the back there's a 21.5MP sensor that boasts the same Exmor tech used in the brand's excellent compact cameras, but the big news is the front-camera. Up front there's a 13MP sensor, which matches a lot of phone's main camera

As Sony is clearly looking to bring in the selfie crowd with the Xperia M5, I'll start with the front-facing camera. Unlike most phones where the sensor fades into the background, the one here is instantly recognisable. It's huge, even larger than the camera on the back of the iPhone 6S Plus

It's a decent performer though, focusing almost instantly on my face. You can even set it to automatically snap a shot when you smile, but it didn't seem to like my face as it never thought I was actually smiling

 Selfies look good, even though it makes skin a bit too smooth for my liking

The pictures, for a front-facing camera anyway, are mostly good. There's plenty of detail in the backgrounds and a wide gamut of colours, but they have a tendency to look a bit soft. Even with the 'Soft Skin effect' option switched off, faces look too smooth and a little weird

 Close up shots look better than landscape ones, but there's a lot of post-processing going on

I've got some similar problems with the rear-facing camera. Pictures tend to look too soft and over-processed and even though there's plenty of megapixels at play here, detail is lacking on wide landscape shots. Things improve when you're taking macro shots and it manages surprisingly well at capturing movement, but it's still a little bit disappointing

Low-light shots are nothing special, but they're usable. When the camera knows you're not in the best of light it'll switch to a low-light mode that makes sure shots are bright, but it seriously overexposes light sources

Photos are also seriously soft, with very little detail kept around

 Night time shots are bright, but overexposed and lacking detail

The UI for the camera app is just like that on its higher-end phones – it's just too jam-packed with gimmicky additions for my liking. There's some useless AR masking features, a shot and sound mode to add some noise to your photos and a couple of others that just clog up space in the menu

There is a nice manual mode though, which lets you pick a scene (beach, night or sports for example) and gives you granular control over white balance, but the results weren't that much better than just sticking to the 'Superior auto' mode

You can shoot 4K video, a nice feature for a mid-range phone, but Sony's decision to use its own Steady Shot software stabilisation instead of building OIS into the lens leads to very shaky footage

Sony likes to shout about specs when it comes to its phone cameras and its sensors are easily the best in the business, but I feel its overbearing software hampers the results too much

Don't get me wrong, the Xperia M5 can take good photos and even better selfies, but with all the tech inside these lenses I was expecting more

 ??? SHOULD YOU BUY THE SONY XPERIA M5

While Sony’s flagship phones fall into the abyss of being nothing out of the ordinary, the Japanese brand’s mid-range offerings are much more enticing

For £299 SIM-free, the Xperia M5 is a great buy. It’s fast, easily lasts the day (though not the two days Sony claims) and takes a decent picture once you’ve worked out the jam-packed camera app. It’s waterproof too, and can be easily used with one hand. Something that’s getting quite rare

I wish Sony would alter its design strategy a bit, though. We've seen so many Xperia phones that look almost the same, it's hard to get excited about them any more. But it’s not an ugly phone, well maybe the gold one is, but the other colours are much more on the subtle side

Ultimately, it's an interesting alternative to the Nexus 5X (also £299). Purists might prefer the pure Android and fingerprint scanner on the Nexus, but the M5 offers something different provided you don't mind the lack of Android updates

VERDICT

Sony’s design bores again, but the Xperia M5 is a great, speedy little phone with a strong display and plenty of handy additions

Elephone M2 review

? WHAT IS THE ELEPHONE M2

The Elephone M2 is a premium-feel budget handset from China. It sports a metal unibody design, 5.5-inch Full HD display, fingerprint scanner, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, 13-megapixel camera, microSD card support and a 2,600mAh battery

All of this is powered by a MediaTek MT6753 1.3GHz octa-core chipset, and the phone comes with Android 5.1 installed

Despite the impressive specs, the M2 can be picked up for around £120 from importers, putting it in competition with a number of great budget Android handsets, including the stellar Motorola Moto G

ELEPHONE M2 – DESIGN AND BUILD

Elephone, like a few other Chinese budget phone makers, doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to build quality and materials, but that's something the company is clearly very keen to change with the M2. It boasts an all-metal construction which delivers a premium look and calls to mind the likes of the iPhone 5S and Sony Xperia Z5

The unibody design is broken on the back by two strips of plastic which allow the internal antenna to function correctly – the topmost strip also houses the Sony-made MX214 13-megapixel camera and LED flash

The top edge of the phone is where the 3.5mm headphone socket resides, while on the bottom you'll find the mono speaker and Micro USB port. The volume and power buttons are unusually situated on the left-hand edge of the device as opposed to the right, where you'd normally expect to find them

In the M2's case, the right edge of the phone is home to the Micro SIM card tray. This offers dual-SIM capability – another hallmark of phones aimed at the Chinese market – but you can choose to insert a microSD card in one of the trays, should you prefer. Expandable storage is always a welcome feature on smartphones, but with a whopping 32GB of space coming as standard, you might not actually need it

As you might expect, the front of the M2 is largely taken up by the 5.5-inch 1080p screen. Above this is the earpiece, while directly below you'll notice the Home button, which contains a fingerprint scanner. On either side of this there's a capacitive button, although Elephone has ignored the usual Android iconography

What makes things even more confusing is that the left-hand button – normally associated with the app menu – actually performs the same action as a long-press on the screen. To access the Recent Apps menu you have to hold down the Home button. The right-hand button acts as the "Back" command, as per normal

While Elephone has clearly imitated other handsets with the M2's design, it's produced a device which looks and feels fantastic in the hand, and certainly puts pretty much every other budget device in the shade in terms of pure aesthetics and build quality. Because it's a totally sealed unit there's no creakiness to speak of, and the only real complaint I have is the rather cheap feel of the fingerprint scanner – it also sits a little too low in the casing

ELEPHONE M2 – DISPLAY

The M2's display maintains the impression of quality established by the metal body. It's an LG-made panel with a Full HD resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels, and measures 5.5 inches from corner to corner. Viewing angles are absolutely rock-solid, while colours look bright and punchy. Despite not being an AMOLED screen, contrast is also excellent

We're seeing more and more low-cost phones shipping with above-average-quality screens, and the M2 continues this welcome trend. Pin-sharp, bright and large enough to please the growing legions of phablet fans, the M2's screen is hard to find fault with. The use of Gorilla Glass 3 should also fend off any serious marks and scratches

Elephone has included its own "Smart Wake" application which allows you to double tap the display to turn it on or draw a gesture to quickly open a particular app. For example, tracing the letter "M" on the screen while it's switched off will boot up the default music player, while drawing a line downwards will start up the camera

It actually works really well, but there's a predictable catch for the more security-conscious among us – if you have a PIN or fingerprint lock enabled, you'll have to follow the gesture with that before the phone will execute the shortcut command. As a result, I found it easier to simply unlock the phone with my fingerprint and manually open the app I wanted

ELEPHONE M2 – SOFTWARE

As is common with some of the cheaper Android devices we're seeing coming out of the Far East right now, the M2 ships with a largely stock version of Google's mobile operating system. It's running Android 5.1, which isn't the latest version, but seeing as very few other handsets have been upgraded to Android 6.0 Marshmallow, it's not a deal-breaker by any means. What's more worrying is that Elephone doesn't have a great track record of supporting its older products when it comes to firmware updates, so it's unlikely that the M2 will ever see Android Marshmallow

The M2 provides what is essentially a blank slate as far as apps are concerned. There are some pre-loaded offerings – such as a file manager, FM radio, backup application and Elephone's own feedback app – but on the whole you're expected to populate that app drawer with your own selections, which marks a refreshing change from the flood of unwanted bloatware that is typically forced on Samsung, Sony and LG's customers

The downside is that newcomers might not realise that they're expected to source apps from the Google Play Store, and out of the box the M2 feels a little half-finished and incomplete in terms of software

While the "ELE UI" OS is a close match to stock Android, it's not exactly the same – there's no Google Now functionality, for example. Thankfully you can add this by downloading the Google Now Launcher from the Google Play Store, ensuring that the super-useful voice-activated personal assistant is never more than a swipe (or "OK Google" voice command) away. Bizarrely, though, it's impossible to change the lock screen wallpaper, so you're stuck with the default option, which is a vinyl record. Could be worse, I guess

Connectivity is always a concern when buying a Chinese phone, as not all handsets produced for the Asian market support the 4G bands we use in the UK. Thankfully, the M2 bucks that trend and offers full compatibility with networks in this part of the world – even O2, which is something that can't be said for rival Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi's current range of phones

ELEPHONE M2 – PERFORMANCE, SPEAKERS AND CALL QUALITY

The M2's MediaTek MT6753 64-bit chip is clocked at 1.3GHz and comes with an ARM Mali T720 GPU. Such specs are pretty unremarkable when compared to 2015 and 2016's Android flagships, but at the lower end of the spectrum they're more agreeable – especially when you take into account the fact that the phone comes 3GB of RAM, which certainly helps maintain smooth performance when switching between applications

Benchmark tests don't paint a picture of this being a processing beast. Geekbench 3 awards the M2 a multi-core score of 2,865 and a single-core score of 625, which places it well behind the leading lights of the Android arena. However, those results still beat pretty much any budget handset you can currently buy on the UK high street

The inclusion of a fingerprint scanner for security is impressive, but the performance isn't quite as good as those sensors seen on other phones. Despite a fairly thorough registration process, the scanner often failed to recognise my print. The actual contact area is quite small, which could contribute to this issue, but a more likely explanation is that the tech and software involved isn't quite as good as that seen on Samsung and Apple's handsets

Because Android 5.1 doesn't come with native fingerprint support – only present in Android 6.0 as standard – Elephone has had to create its own solution. However, when it does work, the scanner is quick to respond and it's nice that you can unlock the phone from sleep simply using a tap of your digit

Although a fingerprint scanner is on-board, there's no NFC, so you won't be able to use the M2 to make contactless payments when Android Pay eventually launches in the UK. Instead of NFC the phone is equipped with MediaTek's HotKnot, which transmits data through the handset's capacitive touchscreen. It's an interesting concept, but NFC has been widely accepted as the standard for contactless data transfer, so HotKnot could be something of a dead-end, at least in the West

The phone's main speaker is incredibly loud, and its positioning on the bottom edge of the handset means that it won't be muffled when the phone is upside down in your pocket. I had no issues hearing it in busy, noisy environments – in fact, the message tone was so boisterous that it made quite a few bystanders jump when it went off

The audio is nice and bass-heavy, but at maximum volume there's some noticeable distortion on certain sounds. The earpiece is similarly punchy, but call quality isn't quite as good as it is on the Galaxy S6 or iPhone 6S

ELEPHONE M2 – CAMERA

Like a great many other low-cost Chinese phones, the M2 is packing a Sony IMX214 camera with a 13-megapixel sensor and LED flash. The camera is quick to focus as long as you have the HDR option disabled – turn this on and there's quite a pause as the phone processes the shot. It's tempting to leave it off altogether, but in many conditions HDR offers superior results; without it, images tend to be a little on the dark side

Image quality is actually very competent for such a cheap handset, and the built-in camera software is blessed with plenty of options – certainly more than you'll find in the stock Google camera app

Face detection, anti-shake, gesture detection, smile detection and filters are all on offer, and the 5-megapixel front-facing snapper is more than adequate for selfies and video calling. Full HD 1080p video recording is also included with the rear-facing snapper

ELEPHONE M2 – BATTERY

The M2's 2,600mAh can hardly be described as generous, especially when you consider that it has to power a roomy and bright Full HD 5.5-inch screen. Starting a day at full charge, I found that the M2 would start running on empty around 8pm after a fairly typical day of useage. There's no quick-charging capacity, so topping up the battery from nothing to 100% takes around 3 hours

During a video test I streamed a HD movie with volume turned to maximum and the battery lost around 35% of its capacity in the space of an hour, so don't expect to use this as a media player when you're out and about

? SHOULD I BUY THE ELEPHONE M2

The Elephone M2 might not be perfect, but for the cost it offers a heck of a lot compared to the other budget handsets available officially in the UK. With its solid metal unibody, decent specs, above-average camera and fingerprint security, the device is an absolute steal for the £120 asking price

While the disappointing battery life, occasionally fickle fingerprint sensor and slim prospects of seeing an Android 6.0 upgrade count against it, the M2 is the ideal purchase for anyone who isn't fussy about being on the cutting edge but still desires a phone which is responsive, free from bloatware, can take decent photos and looks and feels good in the hand

VERDICT

Good-looking and well-specced for the price, this cheap and cheerful phone gets a definite recommendation for cost-conscious buyers