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- Huge 21.2MP rear facing camera that takes high quality shots
- Can be a little sluggish when it comes to shooting
- 13MP front-facing camera for selfies
Sony tends to make a big deal about the cameras in its phones, and the Sony Xperia M5 is no exception. The Sony Xperia M4 Aqua had a fairly impressive 13MP rear snapper and 5MP front-facing one, and the Xperia M5 pushes that up to 21.2MP on the back and 13MP on the front.
One downside of the M4 Aqua's camera was that it could be a bit sluggish – and sadly, despite the bump in specs, that's still the case with the Xperia M5. The camera app generally takes a couple of seconds to boot up, and snapping a photo can take another second or so.
That's unfortunate, as it's easy to miss a fleeting moment, or get fewer photos of something than you wanted.
That sluggishness aside, though, it's a solid offering. There's a dedicated shutter button on the lower-right edge of the phone, which is easy to reach whether the phone is in portrait or landscape orientation, and is well out of the way of the lens, so there's no danger of stray fingers obscuring it.
The camera has a 'Superior Auto' mode, which most users will probably stick to most of the time. This does a good job of selecting from the available scene modes and settings for the situation at hand.
If you want more control there's also a manual mode, which enables you to tweak the white balance and exposure, or select from a variety of scene modes as diverse as 'landscape' and 'pet'.
You can also add various effects to your images, so there's a lot to play with here. Of course, none of this would mean much if the photo quality wasn't up to scratch but for the most part it is, at least as mid-rangers go.
The camera is capable of capturing a lot of detail with natural colours, and even fares okay in low light. But it's not a perfect showing, and it struggles in particular to preserve detail at the edges of images.
Also, while the Sony Xperia M5 can out-snap most mid-rangers, it's no match for the LG G4, which these days can be picked up for only slightly more.
Camera samples
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