Meizu M5 Note Review - The New Budget Note King(Nokia 6 comparison)
Meizu is one of the best known Chinese smartphone manufacturers, it was a time before Huawei, Oppo and Vivo were around. Back then it was practically Apple, Meizu and Xiaomi in Asia.
Throughout the years the company has revamped their line and now offers a phone for every segment.
Today we'll be looking at their answer to the Xiaomi Redmi Note series, the Meizu Note line, and mainly the Meizu M5 Note.
HARDWARE AND DESIGN
The Meizu phones were never really centered around being the fastest phones on the market, but instead focused on Build Quality, Design and Camera.
The latest M5 Note continue along this path, offering the modest, but still very capable Octa-Core Helio P10 under the hood, with 3GB RAM and 32GB Storage(there is also a 4GB RAM/64GB Storage, but I don't recommend it because for that price you can get Meizu X).
The Display and Style are as usual best-in-class, offering 5.5 FHD IPS, with great viewing angles and colour reproduction.
Inside the box you'find a quick charger, USB cable, warranty, user manual and sim-tray pin.
The back is made of metal and feels very nice to hold, thanks to the very fine texture applied to it. It's not slippery or uncomfortable to hold.
On the Back the 13MP Samsung camera with dual-tone LED Flash is taking care of photography, and I was very impressed with it.
The M5 Note offers stunning viewing angles for the price.
On the bottom you'll find the signature All-In-One button/fingerprint scanner. Below that is the standard USB port(USB-C would have been nice, but not mandatory) with the speaker grill and 3.5mm headphone jack. All of that is rapped around the nice metal outline, which is bolted shut. Excellent build quality. The device feels super solid and buttons are responsive and provide good feedback.
The 4000mAh battery coupled with the very energy efficient Helio P10 means you'll be able to last 2 days with heavy usage without issues, or get 7hrs Screen-On-Time a day.
Great battery life.
Fast charge is also available and you'll be able to fully charge the battery in around 2, 2 and a half hours. The Meizu M5 Note has a dual-sim tray, with one of the sim-slots doubles as a MicroSD card if you don't need both sim slots and prefer to expand storage instead. NFC is not present in this device.
Here are the full specs of the device:
USER INTERFACE - FLYME OS
Meizu's signature FlymeOS User Interface is always a joy to use
with all its cool features
Split-screen multitasking, so you can browse and watch videos at the same time, or use 2 social medias at once!
Eye-Protection mode(for reading) and the Power Options. In general if you can think of an Android feature, FlymeOS has it available to customize. CHECK OUT THE VIDEO OF THE USER INTERFACE AND FEATURES
There is also a Theme and Wallpaper store where you can always change the appearance if you're bored.
As I said the Helio P10 is definitely a good solution for everyday browsing, gaming and multi-tasking and doesn't hurt performance. It's actually faster than Snapdragon 430 which will be used in the new Nokia 6 and is available in the Xiaomi Redmi 3S, Lenovo K6 Power/Note, so a very good choice since it beats more expensive devices like the Lenovo K6 Power/Note and certainly the Nokia 6(which will cost 100$+ more and has 1000mAh less battery).
Here is the Antutu scores from Meizu M5 Note and Xiaomi Redmi 3S(Snapdragon 430). Before you go jumping on the higher 3D score, the Redmi 3S's display is just HD in resolution, so the 3D score is higher only because the device has a lower resolution/quality screen and has to push less pixels.
Both Lenovo K6 Power and Nokia 6 will feature FHD panels, so score will be a bit lower.
You can see as far as CPU performance is concerned, the Helio P10 is clearly better, and as I mentioned above the 3D score is absolutely the same.
Since Antutu is not a very good measurement of real CPU performance, I'll use Geekbench and again demonstrate the superiority of the Helio P10.
The Multi-Core score on the Helio P10 is much higher, thanks to the faster cores. The Single Core Score is also higher. Somebody might think that Nokia will do something special with Snapdragon 430, no they won't as Qualcomm doesn't allow tinkering with their SoCs, so this performance will be what you'll get.
General performance was very smooth. Opening apps was quick and multi tasking was a joy to use.
Gaming was good as well, considering that with the big battery backup you could literally play for hours and hours on a single charge.
I had installed the most played and best looking games for Android and all ran very good, with the occasional skipped frame or fps drop, but they were very playable.
If you are looking for a strictly gaming phone at a similar price, I suggest you try the Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime Review.
CAMERA REVIEW
If you are not convinced to get the Meizu M5 Note for its looks, build quality or features, then get it for the great 13MP Samsung Camera!
I was really pleased and surprised with the Camera quality(since the M3 Note was a sort of a letdown). The Camera offers all the features a user needs, including Slow-Motion(at 480p), Full Manual mode for the Front and Back Cams, Macro mode for those extra close-ups and bokeh effects, it really has it all.
The focus speed and accuracy in capturing details is better than anything you can get for 150$ right now. A full Album of Photo and Videos is available in My FLICKR profile , but let me share a few shots I've done with the M5 Note.
The Video Recording is 1080P on both cams and is better than anything provided at this price point.
OIS isn't present, but the quality more than makes up for it. You can check out the Video Samples in my FLICKR Profile. The Front Cam Video Quality is really good, but as a selfie cam it's OK, but there are better options.
That doesn't mean it's bad or anything.
CONCLUSION
The M5 Note offers stunning value for money if you are looking for a fast and stylish phone with great battery life and camera quality. On the downside a USB-C port and NFC would have been nice at that price, but then again, no device does that, yet!
Only real downside I could mention is that for the same price you can get a more the more Gaming Centric Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime if you are willing to sacrifice Display, Build and Camera Quality.
Watch The Video Review For More Detailed Look At The Device Itself
I hope you enjoyed my review, here at TechPhlie we care about your hard-earned money and look to offer you the best Tech Reviews!
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