Gionee, the company that has been introducing several devices of all popular price ranges in India, launched its new smartphone named Marathon M5 in 2015 November. Gionee has finally achieved in introducing a stylish phone that astonishingly managed to fit a 6020mAh battery inside. Let us have a detailed look on how the Marathon looks like and how it became different in functioning besides its prolonged battery life due to the two 3010 mAh batteries.
Look & Feel of the Phone
Gionee Marathon M5, with its slightly chunky design and the body made of plastic and metal mix, is cannot be said a prettiest device. However, it does not feel solid in hands, but looks stylish. The 5.5-inch phablet, Gionee Marathon M5 has a metallic unibody and is available in White, Grey and golden variants. It comes with a thickness of 8.5mm and a weight of 211 grams, which is comparatively a big number, but due to its larger battery. However, we do not feel difficulty to carry around Marathon M5. The Marathon M5 seems like a device with a bezeless screen, when the screen if off. It is due to the black layer that cover the bezels.
The power button and volume rocker are placed on the right edge of Gionee Marathon M5, while the dual SIM slots and micro SD slot can be seen on either sides. The top edge of the phablet possesses infrared LED and audio jack. The lower edge homes micro USB port and mic. The camera is positioned on the back with a single LED flash and a secondary microphone. The speaker is placed at the bottom of the rear side.
Marathon M5 has a 5.5-inch display with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, which is quite large. It features with a resolution of 720p. But its low pixel density of 267 PPI is the main disappointing feature regarding the display. However, Gionee has used Super AMOLED display technology in Marathon M5, instead of the LCD that is used in Marathon 3. Even though the color saturation and white balance are good in M5, the viewing angles make us disappointed. It is quite challenging to use the device under sunlight, even with full brightness. But, the icons seemed sharp.
The main drawback of the Marathon M5 display is its low resolution of 720p. If it has given at least a 1080 p resolution, Marathon M5 would have been one of the best displays in midrange. Even though M5 allows you to enjoy the casual video streaming on YouTube, the a full HD content cannot be played on an HD display.
Camera & Video features
We can see much improvement in the camera capabilities of today’s mid-range smartphones and Gionee Marathon M5 is one of the best examples for it. Marathon M5 has a 13-megapixel rear camera, which performs well in the day and nighttime. Moreover, the UltraPixel feature offered by Gionee is also commendable. In daylight, it deals with the color reproduction and saturation well as well as offer detailed shots that can be shared on social media. However, we experience a delay in focusing for the macro shots, whether it is in auto or manual modes. Marathon M5 rear camera is also surprisingly good at low-light. Even though Gionee doesn’t offer technologies like PDAF, its f/2.0 image sensor is quite good.
Gionee also offers very useful camera app interface with which you can glue with a host of features. It makes choosing different modes like Professional Normal, Beauty, HDR, Filter, Panorama and Night and more very quick and easy. It also features options like Ultra Pixel, geo-tagging, Countdown and so on.
The rear sensor of M5 is able to produce videos of 1080p resolution that is quite okay for sharing on social media. The Anti-shaking option available in camera app can help remove the shakes from the video. The phone also has a 5 MP front-facing camera, which also never disappoints you.
Hardware & Network Connectivity
The Gionee Marathon M5 is powered by a 1.3 GHzMediaTek MT6735, which is comparatively not a powerful processor. However M5 offers a good performance for your daily usage, if you don’t use heavy gaming or much multitasking. The device handles simple games like Riptide GP2 and Dead Trigger 2 smoothly and neatly. There is also 3GB of RAM using which the device handles all those apps pretty well. Marathon M5 features 32GB onboard storage out of which 23. 50GB is available for the user. The memmory can be expanded up to 128GB via microSD card slot. As the processor takes a toll during the any kind of heavy processing like opening several apps at a time, the device does not heat up.
As high-speed network is an unavoidable feature of today’s smartphones, the most important connectivity option is 4G LTE network. Marathon M5 also features Hotknot service that can transfer the data between two handsets using the display. It is an alternative for the NGC technology. In this technology, you can transfer the data by putting the devices in a manner that the screens touch each other after pressing the transfer button. Other interesting connectivity features like Bluetooth, GPS and Wi-Fi are also included in Marathon M5. There are two SIM slots where one GSM and one CDMA SIM can be inserted, which is a rare but very useful feature.
Amigo OS 3.1 over the Operation system
Gionee Marathon M5 runs Android Lollipop 5.1 version with the interface called Amigo OS 3.1. There are several pre-installed apps and games like Spiderman, Danger Dash and Bubble Bash Mania etc in M5. But, among the plenty of apps, there will be some resourceful apps such as DU Battery Saver, Facebook, WhatsApp, Gionee Xender, Game Zone and WPS Office. Gionee comes with a number of apps like Theme Park, chameleon and Amigo Paper etc, with which you can personalize the looks of the interface and give a makeover to the default look. You can find shortcuts to Airplane mode, location, Wi-Fi, data connection, calculator, camera, torch and more by swiping on the screen upwards.
Powerful 6020 mAh Battery
The Gionee has somehow achieved to optimize the battery life, with the help of large sized battery. The device comes with a 6020 mAh battery using a set of two 3010 battery cells. Using two batteries is safer than using a larger one. As a result, the users get up to 62 hours of standby, even though only 5% power is left in the phone. The phone also gets dual charging chips that can be used to charge other devices too. The chips also claims faster heat dissipation and charging. As Marathon M5 ensures astonishing standby time, it is a good option to carry along with you during your wild adventures.
Gionee Marathon M5, which is available at a price of Rs 17, 999, is really a useful handset for heavy users. Besides the splendid battery life, the device also features stunning shiny design. Its camera package also fulfills your photography needs. As the MediaTek chipset in Marathon M5 is not suitable for heavy performance, you can handle your daily tasks like casual gaming, video viewing and average apps usage with this device.