Meizu M2 Review

الهواتف الذكية الجيدة لا يجب دائمًا أن تكون مكلفة. إذا كنت توافق على هذا البيان، فستحب Meizu M2 - الهاتف الذكي الأحدث من الشركة الصينية ضمن الميزانية الذي يأتي بمظهر جيد، أداء جيد بالنسبة لمستوى سعره، وسعر أقل من 6,000 بيزو فيتنامي.

When it comes to aesthetics, the Meizu M2 is something you wouldn't take for a smartphone that costs around Php5K. It employs a simple design yet sleek, attractive and well-made at the same time.

Up front we have the 5-inch display mounted with Dragontrail glass. Above it are the earpiece and 5MP camera. Down below is a physical home button that also supports capacitive touch.

That is because it also doubles as the Back key. Press to go Home, touch to go Back. In addition, it has a chrome lining which reminds us of smartphones with fingerprint scanners.

To the right are the volume and power buttons, while on the left is the hybrid SIM tray that can accommodate either two SIMs or one SIM and a microSD card.

Right up top is the headset jack, while down at the bottom are the microphone, loudspeaker, and the microUSB port.

Turn it on its back and you will see the 13MP camera, LED flash, and the Meizu branding.

When it comes to build, the M2 features a polycarbonate body with a matte finish. It's more grippy and less prone to smudges and fingerprints.

It also feels solid yet very comfortable to hold, thanks to its relatively narrow unibody with curved sides. The body has decent thickness at 8.7mm and light at 131g.

Continued in next page: Display and Multimedia, Camera, OS, UI, and Apps

Display and Multimedia

The Meizu M2 has a 5-inch HD display mounted with AGC Dragontrail glass for protection. No mention of IPS but it has decent viewing angles. Resolution is also decent with a pixel density of 294ppi. Colors are good but not that punchy. If you think the display needs some work, you can go inside settings and tweak its color temperature.

As for the loudspeaker, it's sounds tinny but very audible. Bass also feels weak but has decent trebles. Still it will suffice for some private music listening.

Camera

Handling the imaging department is a 13 megapixel rear camera with a single LED flash and a 5 megapixel front shooter. Image quality is good in very bright conditions like outdoors and produces clear images with accurate colors. However, when indoors, performance feels inconsistent. Auto-focus becomes slow and often requires that you use tap-to-focus to make sure that the camera is focusing on the right subject. Exposure is sometimes a bit off and tends to over-expose images in dim environments.

The M2 has cool in-camera features for an affordable phone. It has filters, HDR, Manual mode, Slowmotion, QR Code scanner, Panorama, Beauty, and Light Field which shoots multiple photos in different focal points allowing you to adjust focus after the shot was taken or merge them in one all-focused image. See screenshot below.

As for its video recording, the M2 can shoot videos up to 1080p at 30fps. Slow motion video on the other hand is limited to 640 x 480 resolution. See sample below.

OS, UI, and Apps

Software-wise, the M2 uses the company's Flyme OS 4.5.3 based on Android 5.1 Lollipop. If you're familiar with Flyme then you'll know that Meizu did a lot of customizing on it. Although very much Android-like, the layout is different.

It doesn't use an app drawer and has all the apps directly accessible from the home screen similar to Apple's iOS or Xiaomi's MIUI. Apps sport Flyme's own set of icons with flat yet appealing color and design. Drag down the notifications bar and you'll see a grid of switches just like on stock Lollipop but with a different design and mono-tone icons.

Go inside Settings and here you'll see the major change which can be both convenient or confusing even to long-time Android users. Instead of the usual single column and multiple rows, Flyme uses two columns with tabs for quick access which eliminate the need to use the back button to go through between categories. It will take a while to get used to it but it's a nice layout nonetheless.

When it comes to navigation, Meizu employs a different strategy in comparison to other Androids. Instead of the usual Home button plus two other buttons for Return and Back, the M2 only has a special physical home button with a capacitive input surface. To go to the main screen just press the Home button. If you want to just go back, instead of pressing, you just tap on the surface. This one takes some getting used to as there are times we closed an app because we accidentally touched the Home button.

As for the recent apps? Just swipe up starting from that empty space on the left or right side of the home button and it will bring up a row of your most recently accessed apps. Swipe up on the apps listed to close.

Other notable features:
* Easy mode - turns the M2 into a phone with large icons with basic features
* DND mode - stops all incoming calls and disables sound and notifications
* Gesture wakeup
* SmarTouch - an assitive on-screen button similar to iOS
* Scheduled power on and off

When it comes to preinstalled apps, we're glad to say that the M2 almost don't have any except from the Google app. Meizu included its own app store called the AppCenter but only Chinese content is available as of the moment. That being said, the M2 has 16GB of internal storage with 14.56GB as usable. You can use a microSD card but at the expense of the other SIM slot. USB OTG is also supported.

Continued in next page: Performance and Benchmarks, Battery Life, Conclusion

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the M2 is a modest 1.3GHz MediaTek MT6735 quad-core CPU, Mali-T720 MP2 GPU and 2GB LPDDR3 RAM. Performance is okay when it comes to UI navigation and switching between apps. No app crashes or random reboots. Gaming is fine as well on the M2 but you will notice some sluggishness when handling graphic intensive ones. Overall, its good on basic tasks and light games but not that impressive on heavy gaming. See benchmark scores below.

* AnTuTu 6.0 - 32,880
* AnTutu 5.7.3 - 27,264
* Quadrant Standard - 11,110
* Vellamo - 1,403 (Multicore), 1,007 (Metal), 2,591 (Chrome)
* 3D Mark - 124 (Sling Shot using ES 3.1)
* Gaming Temp - 41-C

Connectivity and Call Quality

Connectivity-wise, the M2 doesn't have a lot to offer aside from the basic ones like WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS. NFC is absent which is understandable considering its asking price. What it does have though is 4G LTE which is supported in both SIM slots. The only downside is that you will need to sacrifice microSD card support if you want to take advantage of this feature. Call quality is okay and audible but the earpiece is not as crisp as we want it to be. Mobile data is good as long as you're in an area with good coverage.

Battery Life

Providing juice is a 2,500mAh non-removable battery which is acceptable considering the specs and would definitely last a whole day of light to moderate usage without much gaming. Although below the desirable minimum of 3,000mAh capacity the M2's battery life proved to a performer scoring 8 hours and 21 minutes on PC Mark and lasted 10 hours and 43 minutes in our standard battery loop test (1080p video, Airplane mode, 50% volume and brightness with headset plugged in).

Conclusion

The Meizu M2 delivered two things that a budget-conscious consumer is looking for in a smartphone - good specs and design for its class and affordable price. In addition, it has a decent 5-inch display with Dragontrail glass, capable CPU and RAM, 4G LTE connectivity with microSD card option, Android Lollipop, and a decent battery life. It has some limitations like its camera performance and the lack of a dedicated microSD card slot, but for Php5,499 it's still a pretty good deal.

The Meizu M2 is available for purchase at Lazada. See listing here.

Meizu M2 specs:
5-inch HD display, 294ppi
AGC Dragontrail protective glass
1.3GHz MediaTek MT6735 quad-core CPU
Mali-T720 MP2 GPU
2GB LPDDR3 RAM
16GB internal storage
Expandable via microSD up to 128GB via SIM 1
13MP rear camera with f/2.0 aperture
5MP front camera
Dual-SIM (nano)
Dual-4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
GPS, A-GPS
2,500mAh battery
Android 5.0 with Flyme UI 4.5
140.1 x 68.9 x 8.7 mm
131 g

What we liked:
* Good build and design
* Affordable price
* Good battery
* Cool in-camera features

What we didn't like:
* Inconsistent camera performance indoors and in low-light
* No dedicated microSD card