Meizu m3 vs m2: What's changed and what's not?

Meizu launched the much-awaited successor to its popular m2 smartphone in China on Monday. The new handset comes with new changes, adding competition to the ultra-affordable smartphone segment. While the m2's success was exceptional, the m3 is all set to carry the torch forward.

If you are a Meizu m2 user and looking for reasons to upgrade, here are all the changes that users will see in the new handset. It's worth noting that the handset is not yet available in India, but the company has said it will launch it "very soon." The pricing for the m3 in India will be announced at the time of the launch. 

Design and Display

Design-wise, both Meizu smartphones look alike. Like the m2, Meizu m3 also has a polycarbonate body with a physical home button, dubbed as mBack, which also works as a back button. There is a tiny difference in the m3 smartphone, which is the display uses a 2.5D glass to give it a premium look.

Meizu m3 and m2 smartphones have sealed unibodies and 5-inch HD display screens. The m2 uses a Dragon Trail glass with GFF full lamination tech for protection, while the m3 has a new Schott Xensation cover glass.

Meizu m2 measures 140.1 x 68.9 x 8.7mm and weighs 131gm, and the m3 smartphone has 141.5 x 69.5 x 8.3 measurement and weighs 132 grams.

Camera

Meizu m2 and m3 have identical camera sensors too. The 13MP primary camera with f/2.2 aperture and LED flash adorns both the handsets, but PDAF with 0.2second speed is an additional feature in the m3 smartphone.

The front camera on both devices has a 5MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture.

Processor, RAM and storage

Meizu m3 comes in two variants unlike the m2 smartphone. The m3 is powered by a 1.5GHz MediaTek MT6750 octa-core processor, paired with either 2GB or 3GB RAM depending on the storage model, whether 16GB or 32GB.

The m2 smartphone powered by a 64-bit MediaTek MT6735 quad-core processor clocking speeds at 1.3GHz, combined with Mali-T720 GPU for graphics and 2GB DDR3 RAM. It scored 27,760 on AnTuTu 64-bit and 619 in single-core and 1788 in multi-core on GeekBench, but we are yet to test the m3's performance.

Both smartphones have hybrid microSD card slot, which doubles as a secondary SIM card slot, when necessary.

Battery

Meizu m3 has an improved 2,870mAh battery compared to the 2,500mAh unit found on the m2. While we are not sure how long the m3 will survive, but the m2 survives a day if used sparingly.