The Vernee M5 should be considered as one of the ultra-budget smartphones designed for the entry-level market. This means it should come with a modest specs list. Actually, it does. But the M5 has been compared with the iPhone 7 and Xiaomi Redmi 4X on different blogs. So it causes a question – what market it has been made for? To understand this we just need to dig deeper, learn every detail of it, and compare this phone with other handsets.

Generally, the Vernee M5 has been made with one goal in mind – to beat all of the wallet-friendly smartphones that come with acceptable features. In this sense, Xiaomi has to worry about the Redmi 4X. Vernee’s M-series handsets have been always great when it came to price-over-hardware. So this new phone is no exception. There are many improvements in design as well as hardware, among which stands out the E-ink mode. Such a feature can be found on the Vernee Thor E, Oukitel U6, and Vernee Mars Pro. However, the closest rival to this phone is the Meizu M5. They come with an identical design and the same 5.2-inch screen with rounded corners. As you see, things are complicated around the Vernee M5.

Vernee M5 Appearance

That’s a rule – almost all budget phones come with a plastic material. The Vernee M5 is no exception. But the manufacturer has given a frosted metal texture. Therefore, the overall appearance and feel of the body look like a premium metal. However, thanks to the material used in the housing the company could avoid of choosing between U-shaped and V-shaped antenna design. As you know, plastic allows the antenna signal to pass through. So no need to put additional ribbons. In this sense, the build quality and the solidness of the phone are at a high level.

Apart from this, the material used in the Vernee M5 helped the company to come in with a thin smartphone. It’s not the slimmest device around the globe, but the 6.9mm thickness makes it one of them. The edges are curved a lot. That’s why it is a pleasure to hold it in a hand and make various operations on it. There are also a classic plastic caps attached at the top and bottom.

The front of the phone carries a 5.2-inch IPS screen with an HD resolution and pixel density of 282ppi. The colors and brightness are decent with good amount of saturation. The screen to body ratio remains same as iPhone 7. I guess this is the only feature it can be compared to the Apple product. Anyway, the Vernee M5 comes with a 2.5D arc glass on front and back.

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The rear looks like identical to other phones from the same niche. There is a single-camera using a 13MP sensor with an aperture of f/2.0, digital zoom, and Fast Focusing feature. It is paired with a flashlight. But you should have some appropriate lighting conditions when taking photos nighttime. As for daytime shooting, it provides quite good experience. A fingerprint scanner is placed below the back camera.

In order to understand whether the shooting performance of the Vernee M5 is satisfactory or not we compared it with the LeEco Le 3, which comes with an 8MP front camera and 16MP rear camera.

Vernee M5 vs LeEco Le 3

The screen size is smaller in comparison to many devices launched recently. But it has its pros and cons. Say, a 5.2-inch screen is great for single-hand operations and it’s considered as a gold-size device. On the other hand, a small-size screen doesn’t allow to put many keys and sensors on the front. That’s why it lacks any physical buttons there. The only keys are placed on the right hand-side. They are the volume rocker and the power button. As for the front, there is only an 8MP camera for selfies with a built-in Beauty Effect.

The 3.5mm audio jack is on the top. The SIM tray is on the left side. And the micro USB port along with the speaker and a microphone hold is on the bottom.

The Vernee M5 looks like the Vernee Thor E and the Huawei P10 Lite with a very marked horizontal stripe on the upper back. So it’s difficult to say the M5 comes with a unique design. It would be better to say this phone comes with a good build quality and stylish look. Moreover, it is very comfortable to hold in a hand, as its dimensions are quite satisfactory, 14.73×7.26×0.69cm. At last, it weighs only 145 grams.

Vernee M5 Hardware and Performance

This is an entry-level smartphone, so the presence of a MediaTek chip is quite expected. On the other hand, Xiaomi has tons of low-end devices sporting Snapdragon SoCs. However, the Vernee M5 is packed with an MTK6750 octa-core chip clocked at 1.5GHz. The chip is paired with an ARM Mali T860 MP2 GPU, 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM operating on a single channel, and 64GB of internal storage that can be expanded up to 256GB via the TF card slot. It also runs on its own software named VOS 1.0 UI based on Android 7.0 that means the Vernee M5 owners will get all the goodies coming our way from the latest version of Google mobile operating system.

The MediaTek MTK6750 chip is, actually, very popular. It can be found on the phones such as Umidigi Z1 Pro, Meizu M5/M6, and others. It comes with a Cortex-A53 architecture sporting 4 large scores clocking at 2GHz and 4 small cores at 1GHz. This processor is mainly used for large-battery phones.

In this sense, the combination of this SoC and the 3300mAh battery is quite acceptable. It also supports MediaTek’s fast charging technology dubbed as the PumpExpress 2.0. The latter will allow you to charge it up to 60% in 30 minutes only. Once it’s fully charged, the Vernee M5 can provide up to 240 hours of standby mode or 13 hours of continues video playback. Such a great performance can be provided due to the E-ink mode that consists of limiting notifications, optimizing the wallpapers and processor performance. Thus we have to write down the M5 comes with a battery identical to the much higher OnePlus 5. So we have to state the selling point of the Vernee M5 should be considered to be its autonomy. If you activate the E-ink mode, it will discharge about 20% of the power per day.

When it comes to the benchmark scores, the Vernee M5 with its MTK6750 chip scores around 40K at AnTuTu.

At last, the phone supports 4G LTE. But this is not the only connectivity option. It comes with a Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi, and OTG support.

The Final Words

The Vernee M5 is priced around $120. This means it can be easily put into the category of ultra-budget handsets. But unlike many of them, this model has a few selling points. First, we should mention it comes with a 4GB of RAM, which is rare for such handsets. Second, it supports 4G LTE. So no need to look for an expensive model, if this is a must-be feature for you. Finally, the Vernee M5 looks like a metal body handset. Therefore, it comes with great ergonomics. Agree, the required price is quite acceptable.