Neffos C5 Max review: Still not good enough

The last time I had my hands on a Neffos smartphone for a full review, I said that the budget smartphone market was a dog-eat-dog world and that it was simply too competitive for what was essentially an average budget smartphone.

Then, awhile back, they released the C5 Max, which is the C5’s bigger brother. Should you bother with this phone? Or should you just wait for Neffos’ next wave of handsets?

Well, when it comes to build, the Neffos C5 Max feels pretty much exactly the same as its little brother. It’s got the same kind of plasticky build and nice ergonomics. It’s solid enough to not flex under pressure and it doesn’t feel that cheap considering the fact that it is a cheap phone. I’d give the build a pass, but just barely.

Performance out of the MediaTek MT6753 processor and the 2GB of RAM that it’s mated to is actually rather disappointing. In my experience, the handset isn’t even as smooth as its little brother that is powered by a less powerful processor.

Perhaps that’s because the C5 Max is pushing more pixels with a Full HD IPS display that measures 5.5 inches across. The screen itself is nice and sharp, and that’s not particularly surprising since I’ve always believed that this was the sweet spot for a nice viewing experience and great battery life.

And the results show: The C5 Max has pretty solid battery life. I managed to get about four and a half hours of screen on time with my usual full working day’s usage. However, I did notice that this handset doesn’t idle very well. Battery consumption while idle is rather high and when I left it in my bag, the smartphone would also get very hot. Charging times are reasonable as it took about one hour and forty-five minutes to fully charge its 3,045 mAh battery.

Unfortunately, as we move to the camera on this smartphone, Neffos’ weakness rears its ugly head yet again. It has a 13-megapixel f/2.0 aperture camera at the back with a 5MP selfie in front. Image quality from the primary camera is rather atrocious in low light with inaccurate colours and poor noise performance. It’s also rather slow in general. That said, you can get some decent shots in good lighting.

Beyond that, there’s really nothing groundbreaking about the C5 Max. I wouldn’t even call it an upgrade to its cheaper little brother which is rather disappointing. The way I see it, the only strength it has is the big Full HD display it has which makes watching content pretty decent.

However, it comes with a disappointing rear firing speaker which is easily blocked and not particularly loud nor clear. I would have love to seen front firing speakers on the C5 Max because then you could make the argument that this can be a cheap smartphone for watching videos on.

But as things stand, there’s really nothing more I can say about the C5 Max. My advice if you want a Neffos handset? Wait a little more for their second wave of handsets, dubbed the X1 series, because you’re getting more smartphone across the board.

Tragically for the RM699 C5 Max, it suffers from the same problem its little brother has: It’s simply not competitive enough. You really have to shine in this segment of the market if you want to appeal to consumers because they have a lot to choose from. And a lot of the other choices are cheaper and better than the C5 Max is.

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Here are more photos captured with the Neffos C5’s camera. Click on each one to view the full resolution.

Bonus selfie: