Unboxing the POCO M5s
The outer box is still yellow with black text but the box itself looks a bit slimmer than other POCO devices that we have seen recently. Upon opening the box you can see why. The traditional yellow insert is gone. You have the POCO M5s followed by a thin yellow card paper separating the clear TPU case, paperwork, 33W charging brick, and a USB-C cable. The SIM tool is cleverly attached to the card stock insert. Getting rid of the traditional insert means a slimmer box and some potential material cost savings. It will be interesting to see what other corners have been cut with this device. I mean to some extent the first impression is the last impression.
Hardware design of the POCO M5s is definitely derivative
Eagle-eyed readers will point out that despite a really nice-looking white color back cover the overall design looks extremely familiar. And if you can quickly rewind your memory back to early 2021 you start to make out that this POCO M5s is basically a Redmi Note 10 in terms of physical size, display, and camera module layout. This trend of recycling old parts is nothing new. I mean the most valuable company in the world aka the fruit stand from Cupertino does this every year. Hence, it is no surprise to see other manufacturers emulate this practice. Even though this is an older device, it is comfortable to hold in one hand and has great weight distribution. It also has a fast and responsive fingerprint scanner embedded in the power button, clicky volume controls, and shiny rails. Haptic motor onboard is impressesive for the price for sure. It also has some features that are conspicuously missing in most modern smartphones – namely a micro SD card slot and a headphone jack.
You get a fairly large 6.43″ AMOLED display upfront, an IR blaster on the top rail, IP53 splash resistance, and a dual-SIM tray. POCO M5s is available in three colors – Grey, Blue, and White. It is available in three variants starting at €209 for 4/64 GB, €229 for 4/128 GB, and €249 for 6/128 GB.
6.43-inch AMOLED display is great for a €209 smartphone
On paper, it would seem that a 6.43-inch display makes the Poco M5s to be a compact smartphone. But in reality that is not the case due to the fairly sizeable chin at the bottom. In fact, the display is the same size as the one on the LTE version of the POCO M4 Pro. But the chin on the newer POCO M5s is larger yielding a smaller screen-to-body ratio than the M4 Pro. Aside from the bigger chin, the AMOLED display panel has an FHD+ screen resolution. Refresh rate on the display panel is however only 60Hz. Specs-wise the display boasts DCI-P3 wide color gamut and a peak brightness of 1100 nits. The display is more than adequate for the budget category but it would have been nice if POCO put the slightly better display from the M4 Pro on the newer POCO M5s. There’s Gorilla Glass 3 on top of the display and there is a film screen protector in the box as well.
Performance on the POCO M5s is good enough for daily tasks
POCO M5s is powered by a MediaTek Helio G95 chip based on the 12nm manufacturing node. Yes, the processor is a couple of years old and yes there’s a newer Helio G99 chip from MediaTek which POCO should have used. For those who are curious, the Helio G99 is basically the same as Helio G95 but it uses a 6nm manufacturing process. In any case, the Geekbench scores are in line with what you get with the Snapdragon 7 series. Single-core score is 517 and the multi-core score is 1842. Let’s compare these scores to those from a Pixel 5, which happens to be my current daily driver. The Pixel 5 has a single-core score of 590 and a multi-core score of 1616. So you can see that from a performance perspective you should not have any issues with daily tasks including gaming at say medium settings. During my review period, I didn’t encounter any issues with everyday streaming, gaming, or browsing. My POCO M5s review unit has 128GB storage and 6GB RAM. You can extend the onboard RAM by 2GB via software if you need extra memory.
MIUI 13 with the POCO launcher offers an excellent software experience
Our review unit of the POCO M5s is running MIUI 13 with the August 2022 security update. This is roughly the 11th device from POCO/Xiaomi that we have reviewed at AndroidHeadlines in 2022. So at this point, it is a bit difficult to find a new or wow feature from a software perspective. And this is not POCO or Xiaomi’s fault as Android itself is now a very mature operating system and huge changes are now few and far in between. As always MIUI is fast and fluid and the POCO launcher keeps things fairly close to what you get on a Pixel device. In addition, there are the extra goodies you get in various settings menus with MIUI which you get regardless of a flagship or budget offering from POCO. Speaking of budget devices, this is the third least expensive device in the POCO lineup. So the software experience is marred by ads. So do not forget to turn off the pesky ads. Here’s a quick tutorial on how to minimize pop-up ads.
Step-by-step guide to turning off Ads
During initial setup, out of the box ensure that you turn off Personalized Recommendations. Once you have the phone set up and arrive at the home screen, then manually go into Themes, File Manager, Security, and Cleaner apps. Once you are in the app, go to Settings and turn off Recommendations/Ads in each of these specific apps. After performing these steps you will be able to pretty much eliminate ads from showing up during daily use. Five minutes of extra effort is worth having an ad-free user experience.
POCO M5s battery life is about 4-5 hours SoT
POCO M5s has a large 5,000 mAh battery, which is good enough for a full day of moderate to heavy use. If you want to game for more than an hour or so then you might need the charger. The 33W charging brick in the box will charge the phone to 100% from zero in about an hour. Half an hour should be good enough for about 60% charge which will get you through a light day of use. The AMOLED screen’s power efficiency is offset by the older 12nm Helio processor so expect to get a reasonably average screen on time. With a slightly poor signal in my geographic area, I managed to get around 4-5 hours SoT consistently during the review period. Your experience may be different (read better) than mine.
Camera performance is good for the price
POCO M5s has a triple camera module on the back. And if you are wondering if the rear cameras are a carryover like some other things from the M4 Pro then you are right. The only thing new is the physical shape of the camera module which as we discussed before is from the Redmi 10 series. On the triple camera module, there is a 64MP main camera, an 8MP ultrawide, and a 2MP Macro camera. There is a 13MP selfie camera on the front which is actually a carryover from the Redmi Note 10 series. The camera app hasn’t changed in a while. The various modes in the app can be accessed by swiping left and right. From Photo mode, you can access 0.6X, 1X, and 2X digital zoom. In the More section, you can access Panorama, Time-lapse, Slow motion, and 64MP mode. Night Mode can now be accessed directly from the main slider. You need to turn on Night Mode manually and it only works on the main 64MP camera. POCO M5s Camera Samples - Flickr Gallery Take a look at some camera samples in our Flickr Gallery and also check out the POCO M4 Pro review for more photos as both these smartphones have identical rear camera hardware. Bottom line is that day time pictures are great from the main and ultrawide cameras considering the price. Night-time pictures are decent from the main camera. The macro camera is a pure gimmick and I would stay away from it. Selfie camera is passable and I am surprised at the downgrade from 16MP to an older 13MP sensor but I guess for the price it is good enough.
POCO M5s has the best dual speakers in the budget smartphone category
One area where this device shines is the dual audio speakers. I believe the POCO M5s has the best speakers in the budget smartphone category. They are extremely loud although past 80% output on the slider there is considerable distortion. Poco M5s has separate grilles for top and bottom-firing speakers and even has a very good headphone jack! Wired and wireless audio is excellent. Every time I review a phone with a headphone jack I wonder why all the smartphone makers decided to copy Apple and get rid of something so useful and so easy to use.
Connectivity is excellent as always with any POCO device
The Poco M5s got LTE or LTE+ signal out of the box on the T-Mobile network in Southern California. As I have written before, data speeds are horrible where I live. Consequently, POCO M5s download speeds were bad but definitely comparable to my Pixel 5 on the T-Mobile network. During my review time, I did not encounter issues with calling, texting, updating apps, browsing the web, or watching videos. And since this is a POCO/Xiaomi device, thanks to MIUI you have tons of great connectivity options such as Mi Share, Nearby Share, Screen Cast, and IR blaster. My review unit did have NFC and for some bizarre reason, the constant NFC on notification has made a comeback in the latest MIUI 13 version. Contactless payments via Google Pay did work without issues, however.
Should you buy the POCO M5s?
The Poco M5s is somewhat of a mixed bag. On the one hand, it has solid specs like an AMOLED display, a 5,000mAh battery with 33W charging, stellar dual speakers, expandable storage and 64MP / 8MP main and ultrawide cameras. But on the other, it runs a two-year-old 12nm MediaTek Helio G95 chipset and refreshes at just 60Hz. Granted the overall hardware and form factor looks really nice, but it is still a carryover from the Redmi Note 10 series from early 2021. In addition, there are a few really oddball downgrades from the excellent POCO M4 Pro such as a lower resolution selfie camera and a slightly larger size. The only thing POCO has managed in this sky-high inflation era is to hold the base MSRP to €209. While it is a good smartphone for the price it makes too many compromises to achieve it. You may want to shop around a bit or pay a bit more and get a better POCO smartphone instead.
