Poco M5 review: It's got the looks, and then some

Intense competition in the affordable smartphone segment in India has benefitted consumers in more ways than one. Better features, competitive price tags, and some innovative attempts to try and lure the masses. Poco has seen the evolution of its own over the years and the birth of the M-series was targeted at those who want some might without burning a hole through the pockets. Poco's latest M5 seems to have a bit of everything and tipping the scales just enough to appease window shoppers.

Poco M5: Key features

1. Display: 6.58-inch 90Hz FHD+ IPS LCD panel
2. Processor: MediaTek Helio G99
3. RAM: 4GB/6GB
4. Storage: 64GB/128GB
5. OS: Android 12 with MIUI 13
6. Main camera: 50MP + 2MP (depth) + 2MP (macro)
7. Front camera: 8MP selfie shooter
8. Battery: 5,000mAh with 18W charging support

Pricing

4GB+64GB: Rs 12,499

6GB+128GB: Rs 14,499

NOTE: POCO has sent us the review unit of M5 for testing purposes. The device has 6GB+128GB configuration with MIUI 13.0.4.

Design and display

Poco M5 comes in three shades, Poco Yellow, Cool Blue and Power Black. All three have a premium look, courtesy of the faux leather, which is quite frankly a refreshing change given how glass and polycarbonate take preference in this price category. We got the Cool Blue shade, which is in itself a unique shade and looks too premium for the price. But it's not all premium. A flat plastic frame with matching colour is holding the physical buttons on the right, a USB Type-C port and speaker at the bottom a 3.5mm jack on top.

The rear panel has an interesting design philosophy. Disrupting the faux leather back is an edge-to-edge camera module, which has a glossy finish to give a nice contrast and appears to take inspiration from the Pixel 6 series. It's a winning design at this price point.

Using the phone, you'll realise how big it is. Weighing 204 grams, the M5 is light, making the big size of the phone redundant. The display measures 6.58 inches and is quite bright at Full HD+ resolution. It can be used at various viewing angles, but harsh sunlight can make you shade the display for better viewing. After all, it's only an LCD panel.

The display is still using a tear-drop notch and has noticeably slim bezels with a slightly thicker chin. The display is not entirely bad as it can be used for day-to-day operations, but don't go expecting too much from it in terms of rich and vibrant colours.

We had the refresh rate set at 90Hz and it didn't seem to smoothen out the animations all too well. But it did make an effort in gaming, more than it did on third-party social media apps.

Camera

Poco M5 has a triple camera setup, which grabs the attention due to its module. But in terms of performance, it's not the best out there. But the price factor comes into play here, which automatically sets the expectations.

The M5 features a 50MP primary sensor, which shoots some decent images. The photos retain good details in well-lit scenes and the HDR does quite little to improve the overall quality. In low lighting, the camera seems to struggle, losing out on details and oversaturating some images.

With artificial lighting, the phone performs reasonably well. You can click photos of your newly-purchased showpiece or your cup of coffee and share it straight to social media. The details are well retained and the colours are quite balanced. The skin tones are smoothened, but there's not too much artificial beautification happening. There are many filters you can try out.

The night mode seems to be working its magic quite well. Not just brightening the images in low light, the night mode retains a good amount of details and colours to their closest natural form.

The portrait mode works well too, but there's inaccurate outlining of the subject. The bokeh effect applied to images is precise, with an adjustable option. The macro mode is rarely usable and requires a lot of focus, patience and steady hands. The lack of an ultra-wide sensor is disappointing.

Attached are a few camera samples below:

Performance

Poco M5 is powered by a Helio G99 chipset, 6 gigs of RAM, which can be extended by 2GB with Turbo RAM Extension feature and a Poco launcher. The 90Hz refresh rate kicked in well during games. In the case of CoD: Mobile, the phone ran at Medium graphics and did not run into any issues. The phone is well suited for games, considering the price range.

The launcher, if new to someone, can be tricky at first. The icons are rather bit colourful for our taste, accessing notifications is from the top right corner, and the settings menu order is also rather different. All these changes can be adjusted with time. The phone comes loaded with a generous amount of bloatware.

The phone itself performs without any lags on a day-to-day basis. But we did run into some app crashes once in a while, which wasn't consistent to make note of. The animations are also quite abrupt, not in line with the display's refresh rate. The phone is not the swiftest, as it takes a while to launch apps and toggle between apps.

The phone has a fingerprint scanner integrated within the power/lock button. It worked efficiently and effortlessly. We had no issues unlocking the phone with just a tap of the button.

Battery

Poco M5 has a 5,000mAh battery, which is its strength. The phone can easily outlast a day, even for a heavy user. Once fully charged, you can be rest assured that the phone won't leave you high and dry mid-way. We were able to get comfortably get through a busy day and still have some juice left to spare at the end of the day.

As good as the battery is, the charging speed isn't all that well. The phone supports 18W fast charging, which takes tiring long to fully charge the phone. Once fully drained, the phone takes about an hour and a half to charge to its full. The only solution we found was charging it overnight.

Verdict

Poco M5 is a lovely-looking phone. In fact, it looks too premium for its price. The battery is stubborn to die, which is a good thing. The performance is stable and it's capable of running some top games at the right settings.

There are some downsides, too. The phone lacks 5G, the camera performance is average and the charging speed is too slow.

It's interesting that Poco throws in some freebies. Buyers get a 1-year subscription to Disney+Hotstar, which costs Rs 500, and 6 months of free screen protection. That is beside the Flipkart Big Billion Day Sale offer, giving customers a Rs 1,500 flat discount on using ICICI and Axis Bank cards. For the price, and especially with the discounts, the phone offers quite the value.