Meizu M2 Note Smartphone Review

When I talk about Meizu, I’m sure all of us reading this have heard of this smartphone manufacturing company but the same cannot be said for everybody. And we don’t blame them. While Meizu has bought out some amazing smartphones in the recent past that are loaded with features and boast of some top of the line specs and do not burn a hole in your pocket, the limited availability of these devices mainly in China and some other south Asian markets has not been a good marketing strategy for the brand. Today though, we will not be talking about this topic as we have the company’s recent offering, the Meizu M2 Note to review. So let’s get to it.

Meizu M2 Note Front

In The Box:

1. Meizu M2 Note with non-removable battery
2. MicroUSB cable
3. 2A 5V wall charger
4. User manual
5. SIM ejector tool

Design and Hardware:

Coming in a plastic body, you might expect the phone to feel a little cheap in hand but that’s not the case. The phone has a pretty solid build and the plastic material used to build around the body is of pretty decent quality. It also sits comfortable in your hand and is not difficult to hold at all. The 5.5” screen is adorned with very thin bezels which makes it a delight to use the phone and at the same time also trims out the extra space on the side of the screen. This means the device measures less that most of the 5.5” screen devices out in the market. For all the perfrctionists out there, here are the actual measurements: 50.9 x 75.2 x 8.7mm. It weighs in at 149 grams which again for a 5.5” device is not bad at all.

Meizu M2 Note Back picture

Moving on, you will find a rather unusual elliptical shaped home button on the Meizu M2 note just below the screen. This home button, or as Meizu likes to call it the ‘mBack key’ serves two purposes. You can click it once to go back to the previous step or long press to out the device to sleep. A rather functional feature to lock the device qucikly and also somewhat necessary for right handers as the volume rockers and the screen lock button are located on the left side of the device. The buttons are not the best click buttons we have seen on a smartphone but then they work for a device this price.

Starting with the front, you have the 5 MP front camera and the usual promixity and light sensors located above the display. On thr right side of the phone, you will see the SIM card slot which houses two nano SIMs or one nano SIM and one microSD card. The top houses the stsndard 3.5mm audio jack and the secondary microphone while the bottom of the device carries the microUSB charger, the primary microphone and the speaker grill. The back of the device carries the primary 13 MP camera with dual LED flash and the Meizu branding towards the bottom of the back panel.

Specifications:

  • Display: 5.5-inch HD IPS display, 1080 X 1920 resolution
  • Software: Android Lollipop 5.1 with FlyMe UI 4.5
  • Processor: MediaTek MT6753 1.3 GHz octa-core processor
  • Graphics: Mali-T720
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • Camera: 13.1 MP Rear camera and 5 MP Front camera
  • Storage: 32 GB inbuilt storage with MicroSD expandable option up to 128 GB
  • 4G LTE Support
  • Battery: 3100 mAh non-removable

 

Display:

Meizu M2 Note

Talking about the 5.5” AGC Dragontrail/NEG T2X-1 tempered glass portected screen, we were pretty impressed by it. The display comes with a 1080p resolution which churns out 400ppi. The display is quite sharp and the stauration is upto the mark too. Except for the higly reflective glass and the poor contrast perfromance in bright sunlight, the screen peformed just fine. Also, we would suggest you to get a screen protector for the display as it picks up fingerprints and scratches very easily.

 

Performance:

Meizu M2 Note logo

The device scores a score of 32358 on AnTuTu benchmarking app which is not bad for a device this price. During out time with the device, we never experienced any lags or crashes or shutdowns. The device being powered by the MediaTek MT6753 processor paired with 2 GB of RAM is very responsive and any lags or accidental freezes were completely absent.

Software and UI:

The Meizu M2 Note runs on Android 5.1 with the Meizu FlyMe OS version 4.5 applied on top of it. This makes the UI really snappy and responsive. Like many Chinese smartphone manufacturers these days, the app drawer is absent and when you unlock the phone you enter an iOS like menu with all the icons directly in front of you. You can though change the icons from the default FlyMe look to the stock Android look in the device itself. Other ways to customize your device include downloading themes and of course launchers.

Camera:

Starting with the rear camera which is a 13 MP unit with dual tone LED flash, it did not fail to impress us. The camera performs well in daylight as well as in poorly lit conditions. The detailing and the color saturation of the camera are upto the mark and so is the autofocus. The shutter speed is also good and doesnt give out blurry pictures but takes a hit in the HDR mode.

Meizu M2 Note Back

The camera works fine in the auto mode but you can gain control over the ISO, exposure, shutter speed and the focus point in the manual mode. The front camera too is decent and will more than suffice for all your social networking needs.

Battery:

The battery is a decent 3100mAh like we mentioned above and is enough to last your full day. With a decent amount of talking, wifi and 3G browsing, video playing and playing games the device lasted about 13 hours and 30 minutes. On normal usage, it ended the day with about 11% charge left.

Final Verdict:

The Meizu M2 Note fared well on all our tests and is a great device for its price. The perfromance was better than many devices its price and the build quality is not bad either. Though the device takes some time getting used to due to its ‘mBack’ key and the FlyMe OS, we would recommend this device if youre looking for a new one.


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