Gionee Marathon M5 Impressions! The Hard To Resist Battery Beast!
A part of Gionee's Philippines comeback is the Marathon M5, a smartphone that aims to solve short battery life issues, a common problem among smartphone users across the globe. Then often, smartphones with big battery life are either too thick, too big or oddly designed and expensive. Fortunately, on paper, the Gionee Marathon M5 appears to be on track in trying give users an answer to those problems. That's the main reason why we really wanted to check this device out to see if it can solve those issues.
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| Here's Gionee Marathon M5 |
Gionee Marathon M5 Specs
Display: 5.5 Inch HD AMOLED 1280 x 720 resolution w/ Gorilla Glass 3 protection at 267 ppi
CPU: 1.3 GHz 64 Bit MT6735 quad core
GPU: Mali T720
RAM: 3 GB
ROM: 16 GB expandable via micro SD card slot up to 128 GB
Back Camera: 13 MP f/2.0 w/ PDAF, LED flash
Selfie Camera: 5 MP
Battery: 6,020 mAh
OS: Android 5.1 Lollipop w/ Amigo OS 3.1
Connectivity: WiFi, 3G, LTE, Bluetooth 4.0, IR Blaster, GPS, A GPS dual SIM, dual Standby
Others: Colors: golden, white and black
Dimensions: 152 x 76 x 8.55 mm
Weight: 211 g
Price: 11,999 Pesos
Build Quality / Design
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| Gionee Marathon M5 back showing the camera, flash, speakers and microphone |
The Marathon M5 is a solidly constructed metallic type of handset. The back cover is made out of not prone to scratches type of material, there's a metallic chrome painted plastic parts on the side and a sturdy looking metal frame. Then just like the Gionee Elife S Plus, the glass panel of this handset is protected by Gorilla Glass 3 to avoid breakage and light scratches.
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| Volume rocker, power button and SIM slot |
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| Electable SIM / micro SD card slot part on the left side of the device |
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| Micro USB port / another mic below |
Checking the design, the look of the handset is pretty generic and won't really put that much wow factor. However there's one thing special here, for a 5.5 inch phone that has more than 6,000 mAh, it's surprising to see that phone isn't thick at just 8.55 mm. That's a feat that not many smartphone makers can achieve. So even with the a little more added weight of 211 grams, the Marathon M5 is quite handy to hold for me.
Going to the ergonomics of the device, Gionee did a good job on the proper placement of the buttons, parts and ports as all of them serves their purpose just right. The 3.5 mm jack is located on the middle top part of the device beside the IR blaster,
As a whole, I was impressed on how well and intelligently Gionee finished the construction of this phone. Again the main highlight is that 8.55 mm slimness for a phone with that amount of battery.
Sample Photos
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| Sample florescent room lighting shoot |
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| Challenging light shot |
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| Selfie camera sample |
Note the Gionee Marathon M5 uses the same 13 and 5 MP camera setup found with Gionee Elife S Plus.
Specs and features analysis
On paper, the Gionee Marathon M5 is a highly capable midrange phone. It goes with 5.5 inch HD AMOLED screen with Gorilla Glass 3 protection that appears to be very similar with our recently reviewed Gionee Elife S Plus. At 267 ppi, it may not be the sharpest for the screen size out there, but the AMOLED tech ensured that you still get eye popping colors and good viewing angles to give you that mostly nice viewing experience.
The processor used here is the 64 bit MT6735 quad core processor clocked at 1.3 GHz paired with Mali T720 GPU and 3 GB of RAM. While the MT6735 isn't the most powerful new chip by MediaTek out there, the GPU and quite large RAM will compensate most of the time in terms of performance. It should still be capable of running most casual games smoothly and some heavy games acceptably.
The main highlight of this device is the battery as this phone goes with the largest battery capacity you can get in the country today at 6,020 mAh! That's 1,020 mAh more compared with its competitors like the Vibe P1, ZenFone Max and BV5000. On our estimate, this has the battery capacity of this phone is at least 2x more than the average battery life of similarly sized and spec'ed handsets. Gionee claims that this phone has 62 hours of talktime and 682 hours of standby time. This phone also has a powerbank function that you can use during emergencies.
This phone is also complete with connectivity functions like, IR blaster, LTE, WiFi and Bluetooth. It also runs on a quite smooth Android 5.1 Lollipop OS with Amigo OS 3.1 on top.
Hope to do a full review next in the coming weeks.
What do you think guys?
The processor used here is the 64 bit MT6735 quad core processor clocked at 1.3 GHz paired with Mali T720 GPU and 3 GB of RAM. While the MT6735 isn't the most powerful new chip by MediaTek out there, the GPU and quite large RAM will compensate most of the time in terms of performance. It should still be capable of running most casual games smoothly and some heavy games acceptably.
The main highlight of this device is the battery as this phone goes with the largest battery capacity you can get in the country today at 6,020 mAh! That's 1,020 mAh more compared with its competitors like the Vibe P1, ZenFone Max and BV5000. On our estimate, this has the battery capacity of this phone is at least 2x more than the average battery life of similarly sized and spec'ed handsets. Gionee claims that this phone has 62 hours of talktime and 682 hours of standby time. This phone also has a powerbank function that you can use during emergencies.
This phone is also complete with connectivity functions like, IR blaster, LTE, WiFi and Bluetooth. It also runs on a quite smooth Android 5.1 Lollipop OS with Amigo OS 3.1 on top.
As of the moment
This smartphone / powerbank in one by Gionee has a potential to be one of their best sellers. It's currently the most battery packed handset available in the land today that you can get from any brand at 6,020 mAh. Aside from that the rest of the specs specially one the RAM, connectivity and camera part won't disappoint.Hope to do a full review next in the coming weeks.
What do you think guys?
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