Meizu launched its affordable M3 Note smartphone with premium specs in China this month and has already witnessed a significant demand in the world's largest smartphone market. The international availability of the handset remains unknown at the moment, but popular online retailer GearBest is offering a chance to interested buyers to order the device outside China.
Meizu M3 Note 32GB variant is available for pre-orders on GearBest for $299 and buyers have until May 20 to place their orders. All the three colours — grey, silver and champagne — are available on the third-party retailer's website. GearBest will deliver the product to countries like the U.S., Canada, Australia, UK, Brazil and India. Shipping durations may vary according to the country. Standard shipping is free but buyers can expedite the delivery with a nominal fee.
For instance, if you are ordering the M3 Note from India, free shipping will take seven to 25 business days. If you are willing to pay an extra $26.40 (Rs. 1,757), the package will be delivered within 6-8 business days. The M3 Note's price in India translates to around Rs. 19,900, which is more than what it is selling for in China (¥999 or around $154/€136/Rs. 10,272). But that's the price you must pay to get the handset before it is officially launched in the country.
If you prefer waiting, Meizu is expected to launch the M3 Note in May in India. But nothing is official yet.
If the handset does make it to India, the M3 Note will compete against key players such as Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, Lenovo K4 Note, Huawei Honor 5X and LeEco Le 1s. Considering the competition, Meizu might price its M3 Note so it can compete well with the rivals.
In terms of specifications, Meizu M3 Note is quite impressive. It has a premium metal body made of 6000 series aluminium alloy, a 5.5-inch full HD 2.5D glass display, a physical home button with fingerprint sensor, a 13MP primary camera with PDAF, dual-tone flash, and a 5MP front snapper.
It is powered by a 64-bit class MediaTek Helio P10 octa-core processor, 2GB/3GB RAM and 16GB/32GB storage. There's a 4,100mAh battery that runs the show and the M3 Note is based on FlymeOS, which uses Android 5.1 Lollipop as a platform.
Meizu has already sold 100,000 units in its first flash sale in China, which lasted seven minutes. It remains to be seen whether the handset will create similar demand in India when it is launched.
