AGM Mobile is a powerful smartphone manufacturer that has been the market leader in this field for several years since it launched the world’s first AGM Rock V5 smartphone in 2011. Since then, the company has launched rugged smartphones and managed its portfolio with several models. The latest H series device is the AGM H5 Pro which is the new update of the AGM H5 that was reviewed before.

Which features a large speaker is the first of its kind up to 109db and its impressive that it is equipped with an infrared camera and works with the latest Android 12 OS, in addition to providing it with the necessary features for use in difficult outdoor conditions. So I can say that this company definitely knows their target audience, like construction workers and adventurers, they need durable, loud phones and a big battery and all because of the harsh working environment which is so noisy and accidents frequent.

AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone Review

AGM H5 Pro Features

  • Stock Android 12
  • World’s Loudest Speaker, Up To 109dB
  • LED RGB Ring Light Around The Speaker
  • Mediatek Helio G85 Octa-Core
  • 8GB RAM + 128GB Storage
  • 6.51″ HD+ Waterdrop Display
  • 48MP Triple Rear Camera + Infrared Night Vision
  • 7000mAh Battery, 18W Fast Charge
  • IP68, IP69K & MIL-STD-810H
  • 4G Network, NFC, Bluetooth 5.0
AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone Review

Video Unboxing

Design And Build Quality

The AGM H5 Pro is one of the most durable smartphones on the market that is built to survive no matter what you use or work, it’s extremely durable and not easy to break as tests prove. This device features a 6.5″ screen with thick bezels across all edges and the chin looks a bit thicker as compared to the other sides. Also on the front and has a camera in Dot Drop notch just like other powerful phones.

AGM H5 Pro Review - Rugged Smartphone With Night Vision & 109dB Speaker

But the back is radically different from any phone I’ve seen before as you can see a color-changing LED circle surrounded by a large speaker unit that produces up to 109dB of sound, which is absolutely amazing. Despite this, you have to make sure that the device will not fall on it because it is protruding and may be damaged. However, it looks strong and is made of metal, so it will not be that easy. On the left and right sides of the speaker are three cameras and a flashlight that at first glance looks like a camera, and has a sensor for infrared night vision. The fingerprint sensor is located in the upper middle part, which means that the phone can be unlocked easily regardless of which hand is holding it.

AGM H5 Pro Review

The full-back is covered with a layer of high-quality black synthetic rubber with a carbon-like pattern, and reinforced with four thick cushions in the corners to handle the toughest collisions and for comfort when carried and also to prevent the screen from scratching, the AGM H5 Pro can withstand drops from 1.5 meters. In addition, it’s also water-resistant to a depth of 1.5 meters and dust-resistant, making it one of the most durable smartphones on the market thanks to an impressive array of protection certifications, including IP68, IP69K, and the military standard MIL-STD-810H, which means It won’t break, just when you want to.

AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone Review

The volume button and power button are located on the right side of the phone, while on the other side there is a SIM card slot and a customizable orange button, you can make a trigger to activate certain functions in the system settings such as Push-to-Talk, camera shortcut, LED torch and more. All buttons are made of durable metal, which gives them more solidity.

In terms of ports, the H5 Pro is equipped with a USB Type-C port as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack, and as you’d expect from a rugged phone, it doesn’t look cheap at all. Both the USB-C charging port and the 3.5mm jack is covered with a waterproof port protector, keeping them safe from water and dust. And to facilitate charging the device without removing the cover from the ports, AGM has placed two charging pins from the back to be charged via the company’s charging dock.

Powerful Speaker

One of the main selling points of the H5 Pro is the speakers, which AGM claims is the loudest speaker unit installed on a smartphone on the market, capable of outputting a whopping 109dB of sound, the smartphones generally come with a loudspeaker max of 85dB. This means that it is as loud as an ambulance siren and matches up to the sound of a fire alarm going off, and may damage your hearing for prolonged use. And if you look at it from the back, you will know that it is not a few holes made by AGM, but rather an integrated audio system.

AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone Review

And be sure that when the volume is raised to the maximum level, it will be annoyingly loud and make your eardrums completely uncomfortable. This will be excellent for long distances or in high-noise environments. In terms of sound quality, it’s a bit mediocre, especially with the increased volume, but it’s not bad at all considering the size it can go up to.

The speaker in the AGM H5 Pro comes with RGB ring light around it and it can create different lighting effects when playing music. It’s a small addition, but it works well and is most evident at night. The RGB light features six different lighting modes that can be changed from settings to give the phone a new look in seconds and these consist of: Breathe, Cycle, Spectrum, Dance, Warp, None.

AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone Review

AGM H5 Pro – Display Quality

Although the AGM H5 Pro has a large 6.5-inch display with an Incel 5points multitouch and 450 nits of brightness to ensure content is displayed brighter even in direct sunlight, it’s at a resolution of 720 x 1600 HD+ which is one of its biggest weaknesses, which is not up to the industry standard of mainstream FullHD+ phones. However, if we compare it to mid-range phones of the same type and price, this screen is considered acceptable and for myself, I found it very good. You have to know that most people looking to buy the H5 Pro focus on its ability to withstand harsh environments first, not entertainment like other phones that pack even OLED screens these days.

AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone Review

To sum it up on you, this means that the screen is not ideal for watching movies and visual content in high quality, however, it serves the purpose of a rugged phone and if you are not constantly comparing the screen to HD screens, you will not even notice that the resolution is not high.

AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone Review

AGM H5 Pro – Cameras

The cameras in the AGM H5 Pro are quite interesting and there are four cameras in total which are 48 MP, 2 MP macro, 20 MP night vision, and 20 MP front which allow for taking pictures under different conditions. This is with some great features most notably, the Night Vision mode, which takes night photography to the next level compared to its competitors, allowing you to take great pictures even in extremely low light. I can say that the H5 Pro can meet the needs of everyday photography, however, the images are not as professional looking compared to mainstream phones.

AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone Review

Main Camera

The 48MP main camera, which uses a Samsung S5KGM2SP sensor and f/1.79 aperture, provides an average image quality of 8000 x 6000 pixels with digital zoom; 1x to 4x. With 1080p video recording at 30fps, yes it might not offer much, but as a rugged smartphone, it allows you to take decent photos and videos with good dynamic range and the colors are looking pretty natural.

Macro Camera

With that said, the Gcoreinc ​​GC02M2 macro sensor camera can reveal interesting details and is designed for close-ups.

Selfie Camera

The 20MP front camera comes with an f2.2 lens slot and takes excellent pictures. It is equipped with a Sony IMX376 sensor.

Infrared Night Vision Camera

The night vision mode of this phone is one of its main strengths. It features a 20MP resolution Sony IMX350 sensor and infrared LED, which can help you see everything at night. You just need to click on the icon to enter night vision mode and you will see all the differences. When taking pictures in the dark, and in extremely dimly lit environments, the image quality is very good. And in the deepest darkness, it seems to pick up some kind of lens flare-type effect. Also, distances play an important role to get accurate details. I am amazed that the camera worked so well, one of the most useful features. If you’ve got this camera for hunting, camping, or general wildlife spotting, it might be the best pick.

The camera app includes some good filters (Beauty, Skincare, Slim, Zoom). Android 12 also brings a lot of filters after shooting like Dynamic, Vivid, Luminous, and many more in the Photos app.

AGM H5 Pro Performance

If we talk about performance, AGM H5 Pro offers great performance in most of its basic and entertainment uses such as browsing the web, watching videos on YouTube, using social media applications, and even playing games, as everything worked efficiently and without facing any problems with stopping applications or high degrees.

AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone Review

The AGM H5 Pro comes with a MediaTek Helio G85 processor featuring two Arm Cortex-A75 CPUs clocked at 2GHz and six Cortex-A55 processors running at speeds up to 1.8GHz. This puts the H5 Pro along with the entry-level smartphones, by the way, this processor is also present in many models of famous brands such as Xiaomi in the Redmi Note 9 or even the Ulefone Power Armor 14 Pro. However, using an ARM Mali-G52 GPU will boost its overall performance. That’s why pair such gear with an HD+ screen resolution of 60Hz refresh rate, and you’ve got a rugged phone that’s surprisingly good for mobile gaming!

AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone Review

The H5 Pro can run the most popular games or first-person shooters smoothly with low or standard graphics like PUBG and Need for Speed. But it is different for games that require high graphics.

Running the AGM H5 Pro through the GeekBench 5 benchmark yielded some interesting results. The single-core score came to 336 and 1250 for the multi-core, also the AnTuTu Benchmark 222627 score was a complete surprise, it seems that the ARM Mali-G52 GPU performs better with this phone.

On top of what appears to be a rugged mid-range phone, the 8GB RAM will ensure smoother and lag-free multitasking. Also, you will have 128GB of storage space for storing data and other files. You can also expand the storage space with an external microSD card.

Software

One of the standout features of the AGM H5 is that it will be an early adopter of Android 12 for a better user interface, privacy dashboard, and some interesting customization additions with UI that has better gesture navigation controls, a dark theme, and contains most of the features that come with the system, the most important of which is the presence of all Google services, Making the smartphone experience smoother and more personalized. Also, I like the large icons, animations, and overall responsiveness of the GUI.

As I always say, the stock Android system is best for these devices, with a simple and smooth launcher for better performance, especially since it does not contain pre-installed apps or games, I really hate this because of the large number of ads, Thanks here it is different. However, it has a toolkit app which is the User Defined Key, and the cleanup function that clears the RAM, but does not burden the device and is without pop-up ads.

Other than that, there is Google News when you swipe to the right and the entire list of apps will appear when you swipe up. Swiping down opens the notifications and quick actions menu that can be modified and comes with a wide range of options like screen recording, screenshot, and many more.

Playing Content

Playing the content on YouTube, was very smooth. You can play videos at a maximum of 720p at 60 FPS without any problems or lag, And this is the highest quality you can get. Next, let’s take a look at the DMR information and Widevine security. I can tell you I’m a little disappointed with this because it’s only Level 3, so you won’t be able to get HD on Netflix or other streaming services. and this level maybe not be found on all Chinese smartphones without exaggeration. However, you can still enjoy Netflix and all other streaming services in 480p resolution.

Connectivity

AGM H5 Pro is a dual-SIM smartphone equipped with a SIM slot that accommodates two 4G nano-sim cards that support all bandwidth offerings of 4G and 3G and so on, so its expected that you will get wide coverage and good signal quality for making the phone calls and accessing the Internet easily, In addition to having a MicroSD card on the same socket.

To connect to WiFi networks, It supports dual bandwidths of 2.4GHz and 5GHz providing low latency and faster transmission speed, resulting in greater efficiency, reliability, and security. of course, there is Bluetooth 5.0. That’s not all, there are also some basic sensors for a smartphone, including a gyroscope, accelerometers, and even an electronic compass. Also, has NFC so you can make mobile payments ( Supports Google Pay ).

AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone Review

Battery And Charging Time

As a rugged phone, the battery in the AGM H5 Pro is no less important than the rest of the requirements. Thanks to the 7000 mAh battery it is enough to handle the daily demands and it will easily last for at least two days, if not more. It supports 10 hours of continuous gaming, up to 423 hours of standby, 150 hours of non-stop music, and 32 hours of video. And don’t be surprised if I tell you this is real and not a marketing ploy. This means you can go on weekend on a camping or fishing trip without having to worry about charging your phone every day.

  • AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone Review

Charging times are not very fast which is acceptable for a battery capacity of this size. Take about two hours from about 30% to full using a USB-C cable and a fast charger, and you’ll likely be able to charge from under 10% to full in less than three and a half hours. Interestingly, AGM has brought a special feature for wireless charging of the phone via an exclusive wireless charging dock for the H5 Pro, which connects to the metal contacts on the back of the device and charges the charging base at 10W. Which is noticeably less than the 18W that the phone can draw when charging with a USB-C.

Final Verdict

There is no doubt that the AGM H5 Pro holds all the ingredients to be a leading rugged smartphone in this price category. And what really distinguishes it from any other phone is the loudspeaker surrounded by RGB lighting ring which can reach 109dB that ensures that you will never miss any calls in addition to the quality infrared night vision camera that will be a great help for those who work or deal in dark environments.

AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone Review

While the large 6.5-inch screen ensures an enjoyable viewing and good use of the latest Android 12 features and most importantly the battery that will last all day that you will not need to charge while you are on a safari or camping with friends, or just finding a gadget for your daily work, it will be a reliable companion, especially with the build quality and durability, and the best protection certificates for a smartphone against water, dust, and even shocks, and there are many attractive features, and most importantly, it is affordable.

AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone Review

Despite the many features that we mentioned, however, it is not a phone that focuses on performance and it will not be the ideal phone as the screen resolution is modest and the camera is average, and this is expected if we look for what made this phone, that the AGM H5 Pro does not try to be the best and most feature-rich phone, Instead, it looks like a fairly balanced device. The H5 Pro has positioned itself as one of the top contenders for the title of the best affordable rugged phone on the market, with features perfect for anyone who needs a rugged phone at this time.

AGM H5 Pro Price And Where To Buy

The AGM H5 Pro Smartphone is currently available on AGM Amazon Official Store or eBay USA and Official Website, for a very good price So, don’t miss out on this great deal. And when you make your purchase, you can choose if you want to include a charging base that allows you to charge it wirelessly.

AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone Review

What’s in the Box?

  • AGM H5 Pro Rugged Smartphone
  • USB Type-C cable
  • 18W Charger
  • Quick Start Guide
  • Stickers 
  • Card PIN
  • Screen Protector (pre-applied)
  • Charging Station (sold separately or ordered with the phone)

AGM H5 Pro Specifications

ModelAGM H5
Network2G: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz (B5/B8/B3/B2)
3G: WCDMA 1/2/4/5/8
4G: TDD B38/B39/B40/B41
FDD B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B8/B12/B13/B17/ B18/B19/B20/B25/B26/B28A/B28B/B66
SIM Card Slots: Dual SIM Card Dual Standby (Nano-SIM), Card Slot 2 supports Nano-SIM Card/TF Card
HardwareOS: Android 12 
CPU: MediaTek Helio G85  
GPU: Arm Mali-G52
RAM: 8GB 
ROM: 128GB 
Card Extend: Supports an external TF card up to 512GB
DisplayDisplay Size: 6.51 inch HD+
Screen Resolution: 720*1600 pixels 
Touch Panel: Incel 5points multitouch
Rear CameraMain Camera
Sensor: Sangsun S5KGM2SP
Lens Quantity:6P
Aperture:f1.79
Megapixels:48M
Macro Camera
Sensor: Gcoreinc GC02M2
Lens Quantity:3P
Aperture:f2.2
Megapixels:2M
Night Vision camera
Sensor: Sony IMX350
Lens Quantity:6P
Aperture:f2.2
Megapixels:20M
Front CameraSensor: Sony IMX376
Lens Quantity:6P
Aperture:f2.2
Megapixels:20M
LanguageMulti-Language
Battery & ChargingBattery: 7000mAh, Built-in Li-polymer battery 
18W Fast Charging
Charge Interface: USB Type-C 
Other FeaturesIP68 IP69K 810H Waterproof
Loudspeaker, Music color LED
NFC, Bluetooth 5.0
Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2.4G/5G
Sensor: Fingerprint, Proximity, Compass, Acceleration, Light Sensor
Size & WeightProduct Size: 176.15*85.5*23mm
Product Weight: 360g