? 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
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