Chinese smartphone maker Meizu might not be a well-known brand here in India but it is an established brand back in its hometown ranking in the top ten manufacturers. The company entered India earlier this year and already has a couple of smartphones selling online. One of the offerings is a budget smartphone called the Meizu m2 which at a budget of Rs. 6,999 sounds like a promising deal.
The company is known to mimic its design from the iPhone but that isn’t all bad since this smartphone, even with its simple looks, feels attractive. The handset has a single home button which can be used as the back with a simple touch and pressing it takes you to the home screen. It also offers a 5-inch 720p display making the overall handset compact, fitting very well in the hand. The back feels like metal but is actually fine polycarbonate with a matte finish giving a good grip. The design is simple, even the camera at the back has a clean finish even the volume and power keys offer a nice tactile feedback. In terms of weight and thickness it feels just right.
The handset runs on a MediaTek MT6735 quad-core processor with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. It is 4G capable and offers two SIM card slots, but the tray only lets you put either two SIM cards or one SIM card and a microSD card to expand the memory further.
Running on Android 5.1 Lollipop, the handset come with Meizu’s Flyme 4.5 OS on top. It is quite different from traditional Android smartphones and one might take time getting used to, but it feels quite snappy and thankfully doesn’t come with a lot of pre-installed apps meaning more space on the internal memory.
Apps running in the background can be easily accessed by swiping up from the bottom and all your installed apps reside right on the homescreens instead of using an app drawer. The Flyme OS a good effort by the company to bring in something fresh for Android users, even though it might not appeal to everyone. The performance is actually good even though there are minor hiccups, the handset doesn’t die on you. The processor never seemed to overheat and it managed to run full HD videos and 3D games with ease. Another nice feature is the speaker which surprisingly offers a good amount of volume. The battery life is pretty average lasting about a day thanks to its 2,500mAH battery.
The primary camera has a 13MP resolution and is backed up by an LED flash. The front camera can take 5MP pictures as well as full HD 1080p videos just like the rear camera. The camera app has a clean looking interface and has a few modes, including auto, manual, beauty, panorama, light field, scan, and slow motion. All of them work pretty well and since it is a budget device, the quality is not very exciting. Even the app goes slow on some occasions when you’re switching modes. The camera can take decent pictures in bright daylight, but most of the pictures lack details and colours are somewhat dull. The added modes can keep you engaged but if you are looking for a fantastic camera experience, the m2 might not impress.
The m2 is a surprise ball. It isn’t a performance oriented device, but it somehow feels different from the usual lot of Android smartphones. The design feels simple yet attractive and the Flyme OS is a new experience altogether. For its price, it is a great option to go for and it competes with the Xiaomi Redmi 2 Prime, Yu Yuphoria and the Lenovo A6000.
