A review of the Sony Xperia M5 Dual; the “Aqua” is no more but what remains?

It takes a lot to remove a word from your smartphone model’s identity; evolving the Sony Xperia M series meant dropping the “Aqua” name on the Xperia M5 Dual. It’s going to take a lot more than product placement in a Bond film to revive the Japanese giant, or at least their mobile division, if they want to continue the Xperia brand.

Adopting a two-time refresh every trading year, Sony dares to do something other smartphone makers would never even suggest in boardrooms, though have they kept up a timely trend? Or have these attempts been sloppy?

What changed, other than the name?

The changes are not for show, not on the outside anyway, so don’t expect to have friends ask you about your upgrade from the Xperia M4 Aqua, you won’t be getting that. It will however, get you a speedier and more fluid experience, since internally it gets upped in all aspects. We’re talking about the same 5-inch footprint but a higher resolution screen, faster processor, more RAM, a better camera, and everything else, which we’ll delve deeper into on the following pages.

[nextpage title=”Build and Waterproof-ability”]

The Sony Xperia M series hasn’t changed much in the past year on the surface, so let’s recap what it offers on the outside. You won’t notice it but some form of scratch-resistant glass (non-Gorilla Glass) on its 5-inch display and back. Rated up to IP68, it exposes only one port, its micro USB, while the speakers and microphone grills meet the same fate, yet it stays water and dust proof; read a clarification from Sony here, regarding its stance on its waterproof capabilities.

In Malaysia, you’ll get to choose from Black, White and Gold, we got the chance to review the first colour. Don’t get us wrong, the stealthy black option would fit easily into the average person’s sense of style and existing everyday carry accessories but you might reconsider your colour options as you read on. You’ll be finding a lot of plastic around this device, second only to glass in composition; dimensions stand at 145 x 72 x 7.6mm, reducing its height and length on its predecessor but adding some weight (now 142.5grams) and thickness. Despite having plastic edges, Sony really does a good job in maintaining quality across all the materials they use on their products.

We’ve noticed that debris and dust have started to build up in the smartphone’s speaker and microphone grills, ports and the crease between the screen and its bezels towards the end of reviewing the Xperia M5 Dual. Nothing to be overly cautious about but dirt will definitely start to show early on the black model. On this device, glass will dominate the surface area and if you’re not used to all this material, by now you would’ve noticed that the Xperia M5 Dual picks up fingerprints too easily; to the point where you’d have to wipe it down every hour or so, if you’re constantly touching it.

Its buttons, ports, and slots are easy to locate, while each edge has something to offer. Starting from the left side, you’ll see a flap covering the dual-SIM and microSD card slots – this isn’t a hybrid set up, so you’re free to make use of both SIM slots, if permitted. On the right, all the buttons sit nicely apart from each other – from top down, there’s the circular metal power button, while a step below are the volume rockers and near the bottom edge is the dedicated camera button. Capping off, on the top you’ll find a 3.5mm headphone jack with a microphone next to it. And the bottom is where you’ll find the usual suspects: the speaker grill and micro-USB port.

Testing its waterproof-ability was fun, dumping it into a pool every now and then, to no negative effect that we should tell on the Xperia M5 Dual – though BEFORE doing so, we had some issues with our SIM card; that will be talked about in the later pages.

[nextpage title=”Performance and Battery”]

Upgrades galore are apparent on Sony’s latest mid-range option; a higher resolution screen, now 1080p/Full HD, a better processor – MediaTek Helio X10 clocked to 2GHz, larger RAM and internal memory – 3GB and 16GB and better camera optics – 21.5-megapixel rear and 13-megapixel front.

Starting with its screen, which remains at a 5-inch size but gets a nice upgrade to Full HD resolution (1920 x 1080), pixels won’t bother you as it works out to 441 pixels per-inch. So unless you dig your nose into the screen, it’ll be hard to spot any specks. We were more likely to spot the smudges and grime on this grease picking screen, that annoyed us quite a bit.

Viewing angles didn’t dazzle us but it definitely held up while viewed under the sun. Being an IPS LCD panel, screen bleeding would naturally be an issue and it is here. Starting up the device, looking at on the top you’ll notice a lot of light coming through but on a day to day basis, it won’t bother you. AC WiFi is missing on the Xperia M series and we would’ve liked it on board but that’s a small thing to leave out and it didn’t have any massive issues on its other lower WiFi bands. However, it does have NFC to ease pairing woes.

Coming from the HTC One E9+, I was expecting the same performance on this Helio X10 and 3GB RAM combo. Multitasking was fluid, and app switching didn’t slow down the phone one bit – this was while opening 20 or more apps, and constantly interchanging between them.

Yes, we’ve come a long way from having apps like WhatsApp take way too long to load. On benchmarks however, it does show that Sony’s skin/background processing does slow the aforementioned combo a bit.

Here are the benchmark scores below:

AnTuTu

Geekbench 3

The same internals don’t always translate to the same performance benchmarks, as you can see from our HTC One E9+ review. HTC’s device performed a lot better, which would translate to better optimisation as a part of their Sense UI.

We were happy that it received more internal storage but in this day and age, we’d expect 32GBs as a minimum, luckily there’s a microSD slot to add an additional 200GB, if you purchased a card that size.

Usage of mobile data on this Dual-SIM device especially in spotty cell reception will make it hot on the rear. We never measured it but by our standards it felt like you just cooked and plated food and laid your hand under the plate. Quite worrying for anyone that’ll rely on 3G/4G LTE connectivity most of the time – habits and daily usages of devices definitely vary from person to person, so if you’re willing to live with it, then by all means.

Battery life might dampen some spirits, as this isn’t an energiser bunny. Realistically, it’ll get you just a hair under 4 hours of screen on time, while the longest it went on for us was 4 hours and 49 minutes. As a whole, it’ll get you through a 14-hour day, jumbled between calls, social media, photo taking, video watching and idling on your desk. Decent by standards of a 2,600 mAh battery but remember that the One E9+ (2,800 mAh battery) with a QHD screen was able to last a little longer, posting 4 hours and a half of screen on time.

Sony excels in other departments though, in its power management modes especially. STAMINA, Ultra STAMINA, and Low-battery mode will get you through a week, if you strip the device of almost all its functionality. In dire situations, that’ll definitely come in handy for anyone.

Charging times were normal, and you’ll get it up to speed in about 2 hours but Sony only hands you a 850 mAmp charger – really Sony? Not even 1Amp?

[nextpage title=”Megapixel Party and that Huge Selfie Lens”]

Now this section should be why you bought this camera, well that and its waterproof capabilities. Anyway, let’s talk specs before going on how it performed. On the front, you’ll have a lot of pixels to work with, ensuring your selfies never look pixelated – we’re talking about a huge 13-megapixel front shutter. It’ll be equipped with autofocus and high dynamic range (HDR) too.

Within the settings you can play around with the capturing resolution from 13-megapixels, 9, 8, 3 and so forth. In the manual mode, users will be able to set their needs based on the amount of internal storage they have left, since 13-megapixel shots take up about 3MB. Subsequently, you’ll also find a smile shutter with three variations of settings, ranging from small, average and big smile – making your selfies even easier. The function worked well and never skipped a beat.

In the same settings, further exploration will lead you to find the HDR mode, image stabiliser, Soft Skin Effect (beautification by Sony), preview and burst with long press toggles. The first two features listed can’t work concurrently, so you’ll have to choose one or another.

The autofocus really comes in handy when you’re struggling with those wide angle arm outstretched group selfie shots. Outdoors the camera holds up fine, with the ability to distinguish the subject and the foreground relatively well.

Overall, photos held up quite well, with selfies not being as cumbersome as before, we’ll leave images for you guys to decide!

For the rear, it’s a hit and miss, as lighting situations will be the dictator of how your photos will look like. In natural lighting, outside shots were always pleasant to look at but when indoors yellow lighting and various colour temperatures will really mess with the white balance in photos; as you can see below.

The 21.5-megapixel IMX230 rear camera has Sony boasting about its 0.25-second Hybrid Phase Detection autofocus and HDR; while the former does for the most part, when in object tracking focus mode (found in the manual settings) it sacrifices its speed for form, making the object tracking fairly useless.

We’d like to stress that this is no action camera, and smartphone cameras in general don’t have high shutter speeds. Moving on, inside the rear camera’s manual mode, users can tweak the ISO or leave it to auto. Otherwise, you’ll find the same settings listed above.

[nextpage title=”Usability and User Experience”]

Hello PlayStation UI, oh wait…. We meant, Sony’s UI. The brand’s well recognised skin is now back but this time you’re getting Android Lollipop right out of the freshly packaged box. If you’ve used a Sony device before, you’d instantaneously be able to tell where it takes it cues from. Still unaware? Well the first sentence should’ve given it away.

Signature icons on their home-grown apps will look uncanny but you’ll be able to make changes as you continue to set up your phone. With the screenshot below, you’d find it fairly easy to tell what smartphone brand I was using.

But as they’ve learnt, they’ve made their Lollipop skin to have more material design elements, to coincide with Android’s design language.

Using it on a day to day basis, we felt HTC’s Sense was more refined and provided a cleaner experience. We never bothered messing with the apps that Sony threw in their UI but all together there are 8 in total.

We’d assume that Backup & Restore would come in handy; with two choices, either automatic or manual and store it on your SD card or your computer hard-drive via USB. And the backup will include contacts, conversations, calendar entries, call logs and bookmarks.

Another useful app would be Xperia Lounge, a place that gathers Sony’s personalised experience that’s tailored for you. The membership comes with your smartphone and for the Xperia M series you’ll by default have a silver account – sorry but gold membership is only reserved for the Xperia Z series. Inside the app there will be exclusive content and offers that’s distinctive to your region.

Movie Creator was the only app that we felt was intrusive, only at the beginning though, as you can restrict the notifications of the app in the settings menu. We also felt it served little to no purpose and was there mainly as a gimmick.

Phone calls and text messages delivered results as any other smartphone would, with no drop calls or unsent text drifting around the cellular waves. We missed the double tap to wake feature dearly on the Xperia M5 Dual, and the small power button didn’t help either.

As touched upon earlier, there was only one time that there was SIM detection/cellular signal problems, while we were on the way to the pool, where we were testing. Switching out the SIM to the second tray, did nothing and we left the device after trying numerous times. Probably there was an issue with the network but eventually it went back to having regular signal strength. Something odd that never repeated itself after that particular day.

[nextpage title=”Conclusion”]

As a whole, the Xperia M5 Dual could compel some but not everyone and it ticks boxes that won’t necessarily interact with each other. The cameras are obviously the device’s selling points but the rear shutter doesn’t hit the mark when compared to other flagships; bear in mind before the Xperia Z5 series came out, this Sony device had the best camera to date. You can see how it performed in our camera shootout here.

But it’s fairly hardy, and as an Xperia it’ll deliver where it should. Rated at IP68, it should handle accidental spills, and intentional swimming photos. Maybe this could be the smartphone for adventure junkies that need to snap their times while travelling the world, as the Dual-SIM slots will easily allow you to pop in a local SIM. Mainly, from our knowledge users who’ve decided to adopt a Sony smartphone have experienced the heartfelt loss of having their old smartphone accidentally dumped into H20 or any other liquid for that matter.

Those always out and about would find the stamina modes something that they’d rely on. Especially on long trips away from an electric socket – powerbanks can only get you so far. If you’re the type that loves to be far away from technology but still prefer to have something that can manage itself as a smartphone, the Xperia M5 Dual just might be for you.

Comparing it to the higher-end Xperia Z5 Compact, that costs RM 700 more, the RM 1,599 Xperia M5 Dual has a lot over it, albeit being the mid-range option. It has a dual-SIM LTE slot, a bigger screen with higher resolution, more RAM and a bigger battery.

The Xperia Z5 Compact does have some advantages, the smaller size could be useful for people with smaller hands or don’t want such a huge pocket companion. For performance, the more expensive option has a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, bigger internal memory at 32GB and the best Sony camera sensor on a smartphone that you could buy (23-megapixel).

We’d say that the way Sony has priced things out, we’d rather choose the Sony Xperia M5 Dual. Let us know your thoughts since the mid-range market has been getting crowded of late. Would you consider this Xperia?