Meizu m3 note: Balanced performance at affordable price (Tech Review)

There are nearly 50 Chinese smartphone players vying for space in the Indian market with affordable, feature-packed Android devices but very few have made their mark. Meizu is one of them and is back with its m3 note smartphone.

A successor to the highly popular m2 note, the Rs 9,999 Meizu m3 that appears like an iPhone 6s Plus, can give stiff competition to devices like Le 1S Eco and Xiaomi Redmi Note 3.

With curved sides, the bottom of the device houses a USB port with two screws in close vicinity -- a truly inspiring design.

The device packs a 5.5-inch full-HD display, 1.8GHz Helio P10 octa-core processor paired up with 3GB RAM, 32GB internal memory, 13MP rear camera, 5MP front camera and a huge 4100mAh battery.

Here's what works for the device.

The Meizu m3 note features aluminum-alloy design which feels sturdy in the hand. It is 0.5 mm thinner than m2 note and packs a larger battery unit -- 32 percent bigger in size than its previous generation.

Like other Meizu devices, the single physical home button at the bottom with grey finish packs the same functionality (single tap to back, hold the button to lock the device and a double tap to go to main screen) into it.

The full-HD display with 403 pixels per inch delivers good performance while watching movies, surfing web or playing games.

The viewing angles were perfect and we did not notice any shift in brightness or colour levels even when viewed off-axis, which is certainly better if more people are looking at the screen at the same time.

The smartphone runs on Meizu's custom Flyme user interface (UI) built on Android 5.1 Lollipop and feels smooth and fluidic.

The Flyme UI packs useful tricks such as gesture control to open certain apps from the lock screen. There is a "SmartTouch" feature which enables a floating button on the device.

The floating button can also be customised for performing operations such as go back, launch task manager, go to home screen, slide down the notification bar and switch between various apps.

I enabled the 'SmartTouch' and found it to be a convenient feature offering intuitive experience.

The octa-core Helio P10 processor clocked at 1.8 GHz CPU paired up with 3GB of RAM delivered smooth performance. Another good thing about m3 is that it did not get heated up during gaming.

The camera also includes a GIF mode that allows you to record a six-second clip that would be saved as the GIF.

The mTouch 2.1 fingerprint scanner built on to the home button unlocks the device in less than 0.2 seconds.

The two speaker at the bottom sounded best at 70 percent and above volume levels. In terms of connectivity, the dual SIM device offers 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, A-GPS/GPS and a micro-USB port.

The 4100mAh battery easily lasted for a day-and-a-half on moderate usage.

What does not work for the device?

In case you are a first-time user, Meizu m3 note may initially require some effort to get used to the single, multi-function physical button.

The 13MP camera on the device struggles to capture shots under low-light photography. While playing high-end games like "Asphalt 8: Airborne," the smartphone generated slight hiccups.

Conclusion: Meizu m3 note packs good display, better performance and a brilliant finger-print sensor. If you are looking for a device under the Rs 10,000 bracket, go for it.

(Anuj Sharma can be contacted at anuj.s@ians.in)

--IANS

anuj/na/vm