Meizu launched its M3 Note smartphone in India earlier this week, in competition to some of the best-selling devices such as LeEco Le 1s, Le 1s Eco and Xiaomi Redmi Note 3. While the new handset offers competitive specifications at a very disruptive price, it runs on the ageing Android 5.1 Lollipop version. As it appears, Meizu is in no rush to push the latest Android Marshmallow to its M3 Note.
In an interview with the Indian Express, a Meizu product team member Jennifer said the company's Flyme UI is bundled with features, which is more important than looking at the version of Android that the device is running. She said the company brings only important features to its Flyme UI and finds the best-suited Android version for its ROM.
Speaking about the latest security patch that Google released for all Android devices, Meizu said it is working towards pushing that to its devices as "security is a key to the success of Flyme UI and the reason behind its 20 million customers."
In our review of Meizu M3 Note, we found its interface quite intuitive and capable of performing all actions without any lags. The company is currently at Flyme UI 5, which includes card style multi-window feature, new gallery app, and lower consumption of memory from system apps, Jennifer noted. With the new ROM, the company also offers more than 1,000 themes and over 10,000 wallpapers.
Meizu might offer several features in its updated Flyme UI versions, but it certainly misses out on some features native to Android Marshmallow, such as Google Now on Tap and Doze.
"We believe the key with software is interaction and integration and our Flyme UI 5 brings seamless UI and neat software elements to make an otherwise old OS feel updated," Leon Zhang, Marketing Head of Meizu India, was quoted as saying by the Indian Express.
Even so, the company is running a two-year-old Android version, when Google is preparing the launch of the next Android N version at its I/O 2016 annual developer conference in San Francisco next week.
As a device, Meizu M3 Note is a worthy contender in the sub-Rs. 10,000 price category. It features a premium design with metal unibody, Full HD resolution display, a 4,100mAh battery, a 13MP primary camera with PDAF and a fingerprint sensor placed on the home button of the device.
