Meizu m2 note reviewBuild and Design
Meizu m2 note uses the same design language as its predecessor. It comes with a plastic unibody design that completely wraps around the phone. Resemblance to the iPhone 5c and some older Nokia Lumia phones is pretty obvious. The dark gray coloured phone has quite a smooth finish and the rounded edges do not assist with a rock solid grip. But we like the fact that the camera is flush with the rear side and does not jut out. 
The top edge has a 3.5mm audio jack, on the left hand side you have the nano SIM card slot, on the right you have the volume rocker button followed by the power/standby button. The base has the microUSB port beside which you have the opening for the speaker grills. On the base in the front you have a physical button in place of the soft key that was there in the m1 note. The button has a nice feedback to it, but it also works with touch interface. There are no back or task switch soft keys on either side of the button. Features: The Meizu m2 note features a 5.5-inch full HD IGZO capacitive display and although the side bezels are thin, the top and bottom ones are thick. The phone comes with MediaTek MT6753 SoC which features a 1.3GHz Cortex A53 octa-core processor and Mali T720 graphics solution. This chipset is paired with 2GB of RAM and the phone comes with 16GB of storage of which only 11.7GB is available to the user. It does offer you the option to expand the storage using a microSD card.
The phone comes with Android 5.1 with the Flyme 4.5 UI atop it. You get a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front camera. On the connectivity front you get a dual nano-SIM card slot, Wi-fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS with A-GPS, GLONASS, along with sensors such as accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity sensor and a compass. Software: Most of the Chinese phones we have seen in the Indian market offlate, come with their own custom user interfaces. Meizu is no different and it bundles its phones with the Flyme user interface. The Meizu m2 note comes with Flyme UI 4.5 atop Android 5.1. The design language is completely different from the Android Lollipop. It does come with its quirks. For starters, there are no back or task-switch soft keys. To go back you simple touch the home button and you will be able to go back. To come to the home screen from anywhere, just press on to the home button. Also to pull up the recently used apps, you need to swipe up from the left hand side of the button. These gestures will take some time getting familiar with, if you are used to using the soft keys on either side of the home button to either go back or see currently open apps.
It seems that the user interface has been designed keeping Chinese fonts in mind. This becomes evident when you open the settings menu as well as with the notifications. The font size, even when made small, gives text which overflows on notifications and in the settings menu. The two columns for settings menu is quite cumbersome and if you are used to the traditional Android settings menu, this will come across as a bit odd. Also in terms of apps, the phone only had Play Store, Maps and Search from the Google bouquet. Other apps such as Gmail, YouTube need to be downloaded. It does come with its own file manager, email client, browser, and Security apps. The Security app lets you clean junk, clean apps, manage traffic, tweak power-saving mode, select app permissions and so on. If you are coming from a stock Android OS, then this will involve some learning curve to find your way around. Display: The Meizu m2 note comes with a 5.5-inch full HD display which gives a pixel density of around 401 ppi. It is sufficiently bright but the glossy surface makes the reflections quite prominent when watching a dark scene. The backlight bleeding was minimal. But the display tends to attract a lot of smudges and you will find yourself cleaning the screen too often. The text appears sharp, because the smallest font on the phone would easily qualify as medium on any other phone. | |
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