Look and Design
Looking at the M5 Plus from a distance, it looks very strong and also a phone with a completely metal body. This is not so in reality. The frame of Gionee Marathon M5 Plus is metal, but despite this it feels sturdy when held in hands. It is 8.4 mm slim compared to the 8.6 mm thickness of the Marathon M5. Sadly, despite being slim, both of them weigh only 211 grams. If we look at Xiaomi Mi Max (Review), the weight of this phone which comes with 6.44 inch display is 203 grams.
The Marathon M5 Plus sports a 6-inch full-HD (1080×1920 pixels) AMOLED display. Its pixel density is 480 ppi which means that photos and text will look quite sharp. The display is quite bright and the color production is also good. There is not much problem in reading anything on the display in sunlight.
Despite being priced at Rs 25,000, the Marathon M5 Plus does not come with Corning Gorilla Glass or Asahi Glass protection. Fingerprint scanner is provided in the physical home button. It is easy to use the phone by holding it in one hand. The front camera is on the top right, next to the earpiece.
Primary camera and LED flash are present on the rear part. The new Gionee logo is in the middle of the rear panel. The text Gionee is also written above the company speaker grill, probably the company is not completely sure about its identity with the new logo. The dual-SIM tray is on the left and the microSD tray is on the right. There are two micro-SIMs in M5 Plus. The USB Type-C port and 3.5mm jack are at the bottom of the phone.
Overall, the Marathon M5 Plus feels sturdier than many of its rivals. Users who like watching videos and playing games will love the 6-inch screen. Sometimes it is not easy to use it with one hand due to the large display and weight. We also wish the back and recent buttons were backlit to make them easier to use.
Specifications and Software
The quad-core MediaTek MT6735 chipset has been used in the Marathon M5, while the Marathon M5 Plus has the MT6753 processor with 1.3 GHz clock speed. It is available with 3 GB RAM. Inbuilt storage is 64 GB which users will be able to expand via microSD card up to 128 GB. There is no change in RAM compared to the Marathon M5, but the storage has been increased.
Talking about software, Marathon M5 Plus runs on Amigo 3.1 skin based on Android 5.1 Lollipop. It is quite old. It took us some time to get used to the software of the Marathon M5 Plus. Some surprising changes have been made, such as the absence of a toggle switch in the dropdown notification shade. To access shortcuts to functions like Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Cellular Data, Bluetooth, GPA, Screen Rotation, users have to swipe up on the handset’s screen.
Many Gionee apps will be pre-installed in it. The Marathon M5 Plus has two home screens with icons for various apps. Gionee has used UC browser in this handset, which is quite clean and easy to use. It also has a system manager app that comes with RAM cleaner, cache cleaner, app manager, app freezer, power manager and eco mode.
It also has two power saving modes. We found the Extreme mode useful, especially when our phone’s battery ran low during the review period.
performance
The biggest change in Android phones is regarding RAM. With its help multitasking becomes easier. We saw the same with the Marathon M5 Plus. Despite running about two dozen apps in the background, this phone never stopped. However, we faced some difficulty in using the UC Browser app. The GStore and Mood Wallpapers app crashed several times which was disappointing. But this shortcoming was removed by the update released for the handset during the review.
Normally 1 GB RAM remains free in Marathon M5 Plus. Even though it runs on older Android versions, Amigo UI customization lets you keep an eye on apps that are consuming data and other resources.
Talking about gaming, M5 Plus played heavy graphics games easily. Call quality was also good. The fingerprint reader present on the home screen also gave a good response. One thing to keep in mind is that if your fingers are wet then this fingerprint scanner will not work.
The benchmark figures of the Gionee Marathon M5 Plus were not spectacular. Overall, the performance of Marathon M5 Plus can be called decent. But considering the price, we expected better results. Sometimes some apps take some time to start which is irritating. It doesn’t justify the price at all.
Gionee Marathon M5 Plus has a 13-megapixel autofocus rear camera and a 5-megapixel front camera. Camera app works fast. As a user, you will have many features available in the camera app. It is regrettable that the phone does not have a Pro mode like the Marathon M5.
The rear camera took good pictures, especially in terms of color. However, in bright light conditions, the problem of over-saturation occurred. Outdoor shots looked good on the phone screen, but when zoomed in, the lack of detail was clearly visible.
We were able to take decent pictures in suitable lighting with the 5-megapixel front camera. The amount of noise was high in pictures taken in low light. We wish its camera had the ability to capture slow motion video. But support for this does not exist.
battery life
In the battery life test, Marathon M5 Plus managed to defeat the company’s older handset Marathon M4, but lagged behind the Marathon M5 which had a bigger battery. Its 5020 mAh battery lasted 21 hours and 52 minutes in our video loop test. In normal use, the phone’s battery lasted for about three days without recharging.
The phone has a USB Type-C port and it is possible to charge it faster than the M5. It took about 3 hours to charge the handset’s battery from zero to 100 percent, which seems reasonable considering the large battery.
our decision
The Rs 26,999 Gionee Marathon M5 Plus is better than the Marathon M5 (Review) in every way, even though it has a smaller battery. Although the price seems high, consumers are willing to shell out more for a fingerprint sensor and a USB Type C port.
If we talk about battery life, Marathon M5 Plus easily manages to defeat other phones in its price range. The most important feature of this phone is battery life. Taking the overall experience into account, the Marathon M5 Plus doesn’t seem capable of challenging popular phones in its price range like the OnePlus 3 (Review) and Xiaomi Mi 5 (Review).
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