Meizu mBlu 21 vs nubia V70 Max Comparison Review

In need of a spare phone? We might have a couple of good options for today’s comparison review. For today, we have the Meizu mBlu 21 and the nubia V70 Max.

Both devices are relatively affordable pickups priced under just PHP 5,000. We’ll be breaking down their pros and cons to find out which one fits more of what you need.

Design

At first glance, both devices are fairly muted with differences in how their camera islands were fleshed out. In my opinion, the mBlu 21 comes off more lowkey.

This is because the V70 Max has a large circular camera island that’s hard to miss with three working sensors. Meanwhile, the mBlu 21 has what seems like a dual-rear camera array but only has one working sensor.

The mBlu 21’s back panel features what Meizu calls Prism Edge design. For those who missed our published review on this device, we inferred that this just pertains to its shininess.

As for the V70 Max, it has an etched glass back panel that feels like it has a matte finish. I believe this benefits the device’s drop resistance rating as it’s certified for drops up to 1.5 meters.

For dimensions, the mBlu 21 is just a bit thinner but noticeably lighter compared to the V70 Max.

Frankly, there’s not much to consider here apart from design preferences. However, we’ll have to give the first segment win to the nubia V70 Max due to its drop resistance rating.

While I get that both devices are under the entry-level segment, I think it isn’t bad for potential buyers to note down which phone can survive an accident.

If it was from looks alone though, I’d lean more towards Meizu because of its thinner frame and subtler design.

Display and Audio

Moving on to display, the Meizu mBlu 21 has a 6.79-inch IPS LCD with a refresh rate of 90Hz. It also comes with stereo speakers and a 3.5mm port for audio output.

The V70 Max, on the other hand, has a 6.9-inch screen with a higher refresh rate of up to 120Hz. Audio output options include a 3.5mm port and a mono loudspeaker.

The viewing experience from both devices come with a bit of contrast but have similar issues. I could say the V70 Max offers a better streaming experience because of its slightly larger screen and refresh rate.

I could also say that the mBlu 21 feels better to hold as it’s slightly smaller when I’m binging YouTube videos. Not to mention that the phone has stereo speakers over the V70 Max’s mono loudspeaker.

For cons, both devices struggle in outdoor use, specifically under direct sunlight. It’s understandable that the easiest fix for this is turning up the brightness more at the expense of using more power.

This segment could boil down to preferences but I’m leaning more towards nubia. The V70 Max has a bigger screen and higher refresh rate in spite of its lack of another speaker. I’m sure most of us would rather plug in earphones or connect earbuds via Bluetooth anyway.

For those curious about sound quality, the mBlu 21 doesn’t really have an edge with its stereo speakers. The V70’s mono loudspeaker isn’t too shabby either, so long as users don’t blast it to max.

Chipset, Memory & Storage

Now it gets a bit tricky, as both devices are powered by a UNISOC T606 chipset clocking up to 1.6GHz.

As readers can infer from our benchmark scores below, there’s not really much to cover here. Both devices were on equal footing with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage to work with.

While the nubia V70 Max does have higher scores across the board, it isn’t really far from what the Meizu mBlu 21 was able to pump.

This also reflected based on my experience reviewing both devices. Generally, browsing and streaming are my recommended activities for both offerings.

Gaming isn’t really high up on the list. However, running titles like Genshin Impact is possible with the lowest graphic settings enabled. Just don’t be too surprised with the occasional frame drops or stutter.

Overall, both phones do alright for the day-to-day grind. It delivers the bare minimum for smartphone needs. We’ll have to give this one a tie as both devices are too evened out for this segment.

Cameras

For optics, the nubia V70 Max has clear advantages. It has triple-rear shooters including a 50-megapixel main, 2-megapixel depth, and an AI camera.

It also uses post-processing to hash out images better than what you’d think you’ve taken.

As for the Meizu mBlu 21, it has a single 13-megapixel rear camera that doesn’t leverage AI for processing photos. Both devices come with 8-megapixel selfie shooters.

The V70 Max has better detail, contrast, and general dynamic range compared to the mBlu 21 by a mile. This was evident from our sample shots, where the V70 Max is actually capable of taking a nice photo in broad daylight.

Meanwhile, the mBlu 21 kind of struggles under this segment as the light from the sun just comes out on full blast. Nowadays, we expect phones to handle photography with natural light better than this.

Readers could argue and say that it’s just an entry-level device, but the V70 Max was able to do so much better in the same segment.

For selfies though, I wasn’t a fan of how the V70 Max smoothened out my face. Beautify wasn’t even on and I still felt odd about the outcome.

The mBlu 21 feels better to use for selfies indoors with lighting conditions that could be controlled more.

Either way, this segment still has to go to the nubia V70 Max.  I can look past how the selfies turned out because of how its cameras generally performed.

OS, Connectivity & Features

For software, the Meizu mBlu 21 runs on Android 14 while the nubia V70 Max ships with MyOS 15 based on Android 15 out of the box.

Both devices are pretty barebones under this segment. The main difference here is that the V70 Max has bloatware pre-installed while the mBlu 21 is clean from anything.

Connectivity options include dual nano-SIM, 4G, GPS, and Wi-Fi 5 for both devices. Another difference here is that the V70 Max has Bluetooth 5.2 over the mBlu 21’s Bluetooth 5.

Call quality and connections on both phones work well either way. It works as intended over Wi-Fi or via a cellular network.

Again, this round has to go to the nubia V70 Max for its higher Android version. Bloatware isn’t really that much of an issue since users can uninstall unwanted apps.

Battery Life & Capacity

Wrapping up the segments, the Meizu mBlu 21 packs a 4,900mAh battery while the nubia V70 Max packs a 6,000mAh battery.

We’ve used both devices mostly for tasks like browsing, video streaming, and taking photos. We also used the usual couple of tests to see how both devices would fare in battery life.

In PC Mark’s Work 3.0 Battery Test, the Meizu mBlu 21 offered 14 hours and 20 minutes of uptime.

Surprisingly, the nubia V70 Max only ran for 13 hours and 44 minutes. I can only infer that Meizu wired their device way to do more with less.

For our video loop test, the Meizu mBlu 21 was able to give us 24 hours and 4 minutes of playback.

Again, the nubia V70 Max came up with lower numbers. It was only able to pump out 16 hours and 40 minutes of playback.

With that, we’ll be giving the Meizu mBlu 21 its first segment win. Frankly, I was really surprised by the numbers considering that the V70 Max has a bigger battery and the same chipset.

Pricing & Conclusion

At the start of the article, we mentioned that both devices are affordable entry-level pickups worth PHP 5,000.

After going through each segment, we hope we’ve helped you find which one has more value.

Needless to say, the nubia V70 Max is the clear winner. For those interested, it retails for PHP 4,699 with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It clears the mBlu 21 in almost all areas.

However, it doesn’t mean that it’s all bad for Meizu’s offering. We can’t forget that it performs just as well as the V70 Max as per our benchmarks and has a better overall battery life.

This phone is even more affordable as well, priced at PHP 3,999 with the same configurations as the V70 Max. If you’re really strapped for cash and need a quick, functional spare phone, it wouldn’t be a bad call.

Meizu mBlu 21 vs nubia V70 Max specs: