Meizu is looking to strengthen its position in India, which is seen as the rapidly-growing market for smartphones. The Chinese company launched the all-new m2 smartphone in India on Monday, 12 October, to take advantage of the booming budget smartphone popularity in the country.
Meizu m2 is smartly priced at Rs 6,999 for the specs it has to offer, which will garner a lot of attention over the days to come. After the first successful sale, Meizu is promising to return with another open sale for m2 exclusively on Snapdeal but the exact date remains unknown at the moment.
Meanwhile, we received our review unit on Tuesday and we shared some photos of the handset to offer you a closure. Diving deeper into the specs, we are now sharing our first impressions on Meizu m2.
Design and Display
Meizu m2 has a pretty straightforward design strategy. The m2 follows the company's signature design for smartphones, with a minimalistic look. The handset measures 140.1 x 68.9 x 8.7mm and weighs 131gms. It sports a five-inch display with 1280 x 720 pixel resolution, protected by Dragon Trail Glass. The rear side of the phone sports a polycarbonate cover, which is sealed into a unibody structure with rounded edges.
Meizu m2 is extremely light and feels smooth in hand. There is a big home button placed at the center bottom of the display, which also serves as the back function on a light touch. The volume buttons are placed on the top right hand side of the device, just above the power/lock button. On the left-hand side, there's a SIM card tray, which also houses a microSD card slot.
Towards the bottom of the handset, there is a microUSB slot to connect the charger and a speaker grille that sits right beside. Finally, there is a 3.5 headphone jack on top of the handset.
Camera
We are yet to review the camera capabilities of Meizu m2 to the fullest but glanced through the multiple features and modes it has to offer. The m2 smartphone sports a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash. It has an aperture of f/2.2, which determines how much light it can let into the sensor.
The camera offers different modes to get the best shot. These modes include, Light field, Panorama, Beauty, Manual and of course Auto. There is also a scanner mode integrated within the primary camera that scans for QR codes. The Manual mode grabbed our attention, as it lets users set the shutter speed, ISO, exposure compensation and focus.
All essential camera buttons are placed in a dedicated bar taking up one-third of the screen. There are three vertical dots in the UI that let us in the camera settings, which allows changing the photo size, video size, settings countdown, activating level gauge, gridlines, HDR and metering separation. The flash icon on the lower left lets you change the status of the LED flash to off, on or auto. Additionally, you can take photos in various hues such as black and white, sunny, pale blue and brownish among others. The handset can record up to 1080p videos at 30fps.
Meizu m2 also sports a front facing camera, which has a five-megapixel sensor with f/2.0 aperture and upgraded FotoNation beautifying system. All settings and modes are accessible in the front camera just as the primary cam.
Under the hood
Meizu m2 is powered by a 64-bit MediaTek MT6735 quad-core chipset clocking speeds at 1.3GHz. The processor is paired with Mali-T720 GPU that takes care of the graphics and there's 2GB DDR3 RAM. Like most phones in the sub-Rs 10,000 range, m2 also offers 16GB onboard storage with microSD card expansion. The handset supports 4G FDD-LTE and TD-LTE for high-speed browsing. There are integrated sensors such as accelerometer, proximity, GPS and compass.
After using Meizu m2 for over a day, we found minimal lag. But there was some heating and lags while running multiple apps. We are yet to test the handset under vigorous conditions by playing games and high-def videos.
Software and UI
What really impressed us is the UI of the handset, which runs Flyme 4.5 based on Android 5.1 Lollipop. All the apps and menu buttons are arranged in three windows and gives quick access.
There are several integrated features such as a Security app that scans the handset for junk files and virus. Other features include a data speed tester, which can be activated to show the real-time speed of your mobile data on top of the screen. You can also lock individual apps without having to install a third party app. You can customise the phone using Flyme themes (available only in Chinese), wallpaper and icons.
Battery
It is too soon to determine Meizu m2's battery performance as we haven't had the chance to fully charge it and check the backup. Meizu m2 sports a 2,500mAh non-removable battery, which according to the company runs for 23 hours on 2G phone call, 10 hours on 4G, 12 hours on Wi-Fi or 680 hours of standby.
Since Tuesday, we had to charge the handset twice, while using mobile data, Wi-Fi and calls. There is a power saving mode that can extend the battery life comprehensively by deactivating all core services such as data, browsing and leaving users with option to make calls and SMS.
Meizu m2 has three modes, Power-saving, Balance and Performance, which users can switch to whenever they want. There are additional modes in power-saving, namely, smart power-saving and super-power saving mode.
