Poco M5

The POCO M5 is a budget Android-based smartphone developed by POCO as a part of the M series, and was introduced on September 5, 2022, alongside the POCO M5s.

Also, a day later in India Xiaomi launched a similar model under Redmi brand called Redmi 11 Prime with main difference in design.

Design
The front is made of Gorilla Glass 3, while the back is made of plastic with a leather-like texture on the POCO M5, and a triangular texture on the Redmi 11 Prime.

The design of the POCO M5, like the design of the POCO M4 5G, is similar to that of the Pixel 6, with a slightly curved on the sides camera island, expanded across the entire back width. On the other hand, the Redmi 11 Prime has a rectangular vertical camera island.

On the bottom of smartphones, the user can find USB-C port, speaker, and microphone. On the top, there is infrared blaster and 3.5mm audio jack. On the left, there is dual SIM tray with microSD slot. On the right, are the volume rocker and the power button with a mounted fingerprint scanner.

The POCO M5 and Redmi 11 Prime were sold in the following color options:

Platform
The smartphones feature the MediaTek Helio G99 SoC, that is more productive in CPU performacne and slightly less productive in GPU perrformance compared to the Helio G95, which is used in the POCO M5s.

Battery
The phones feature a non-removable battery with 5000 mAh capacity and 18 W fast charging.

Camera
Both models have a triple rear camera with a 50 MP, wide-angle lens with PDAF, a 2 MP,  macro lens and a 2 MP,  depth sensor. Additionally, the global POCO M5 has a front camera with a resolution of 5 MP and aperture, while the POCO M5 for the Indian market has 8 MP and, and the Redmi 11 Prime has 8 MP and  respectively.

The rear and front cameras can record video in 1080p@30fps.

Display
The phones feature a 6.58-inch display with IPS LCD technology at Full HD+ (2408 × 1080; ~401 ppi) image resolution, a 90 Hz refresh rate, and a waterdrop notch.

Memory
The POCO M5 was sold in 4/64 GB, 4/128 GB and 6/128 GB configurations, while the Redmi 11 Prime was sold in 4/64 GB and 6/128 GB. All models have a LPDDR4X type RAM and UFS 2.2 type storage, which can be extended by microSD up to 1 TB.

Software
Initially, the POCO M5 was released with MIUI 13 for POCO and the Redmi 11 Prime was released with MIUI 13 custom skin. Both interfaces are based on Android 12. Later both models were updated to HyperOS 1 based on Android 14.