Meizu and Xiaomi smartphones have gained a foothold in the minds of users as products with an excellent price/quality ratio that can offer an alternative not only to the flagships of mass manufacturers, but also to their mid-price segment models. But if a year or two ago many people looked closely at the flagships of Chinese companies and bought them, today they are more likely to just look at them - prices in national currencies make few people happy. However, even in times of crisis you can find interesting offers. The hero of the review, the Meizu M1 Note smartphone, can be classified as one of these.
Design and usability
Meizu M1 Note is positioned as a more affordable device for the youth audience compared to the company's flagships. Immediately after the announcement, it was dubbed an enlarged iPhone 5C, which had the same positioning.
The resemblance to an Apple product is possible, but in most cases it is clearly exaggerated. Yes, smartphones have a completely overlapped palette of body colors, but similar plastic was used in smartphones long before the iPhone 5C, for example, in Xiaomi Mi-2/3, and the M1 Note’s body shape is similar to that of the MX4 and MX4 Pro.
The body of the smartphone has become completely plastic, but inside there is a magnesium alloy base to which all components are attached. A rather interesting plastic is used, which is first completely painted and then varnished.
In real life this material looks interesting. The white body collects fingerprints, but you can only notice them if you look closely. Over time, the glossy finish will probably get scratched; it’s clear from the test sample that it has already seen a lot, but on a white case, traces of use are not noticeable, but on versions of bright colors they will certainly be more noticeable.
Naturally, glossy plastic turns out to be slippery. At first, the association with the bar of soap haunted me, but after a week I managed to get used to it and not pay attention to it. At the same time, the owner of the glass LG Optimus G M1 Note did not find it so slippery.
The arrangement of elements is similar to Meizu smartphones: a round touch key that acts as an indicator of missed events, an earpiece, a front camera lens and sensors on the front side, a microphone, a speaker and MicroUSB on the bottom, a power key and an audio jack on top, separate volume buttons on the left, a tray for two MicroSIM on the right and a camera with dual flash on the back.
The power button is located inconveniently, you have to reach for it. But the screen can be turned on by double tapping the glass, immediately unlocked by swiping from the bottom of the screen and locked by holding the touch key. These functions work absolutely correctly, so you don’t have to use the power key at all. All three physical keys have the same short travel, a characteristic click, and the pressing force is slightly above average.
Thanks to the rounded edges of the back, the Meizu M1 Note fits very comfortably in the hand and, although the top edge of the display is relatively difficult to reach, the smartphone is comfortable in everyday use.
Display
Meizu M1 Note received a 5.5-inch display with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels (403 ppi). The IPS matrix is made using IGZO technology, manufactured by Sharp/AUO, there is no air gap between the glass and the matrix, and Corning Gorilla Glass 3 acts as protection.
The measured brightness adjustment range is from 1.7 to 480 cd/m², contrast is 1:719. Automatic brightness adjustment works correctly; due to the very high level of maximum brightness, there are no problems with readability in the sun, and the minimum level is more than comfortable for working in complete darkness.
Everything is fine with factory calibration, the display has a gamma close to the reference value, and the color temperature is lower than that of the Meizu MX4 Pro screen, so the colors do not have characteristic cold shades.
Perhaps flagship displays will boast even greater viewing angles, but overall there is nothing to criticize the Meizu M1 Note screen, absolutely everything about it is good: brightness levels, clarity and smoothness of the picture, viewing angles, natural color rendition, even the oleophobic coating is good.
Hardware platform
The basis of the smartphone is the modern MediaTek MT6752 platform. This is an 8-core 64-bit chip, made using a 28 nm process technology, in which Cortex-A53 cores operate at frequencies up to 1.7 GHz, and the video core is Mali T760 MP2, 700 MHz.
Volume RAM– 2 GB, internal memory can be 16 or 32 GB, depending on the version. Traditionally, Meizu smartphones do not have a memory card slot, although there is OTG support. We had a 16 GB version in our review, which leaves 11.9 GB for the user’s needs.
Meizu M1 Note shows not only decent results in benchmarks, but also an enviable speed of operation when normal use. The interface works as smoothly as possible, applications launch quickly.
The smartphone can easily be called a gaming smartphone. We tested Real Racing 3 and Modern Combat 5 and there were no performance issues. Avid gamers can watch videos on , which demonstrate the excellent performance of many games.
The Wi-Fi module supports two modes frequency ranges, there is Bluetooth 4.0 with support for the LE profile and GPS. The operation of all modules did not cause any complaints.
Calls, multimedia
The hero of the review is the company’s first smartphone with two SIM cards, their operation scheme is completely similar to other devices, the Meizu M1 Note has one radio module. In the Phone application for each SIM there is separate key making a call, and in SMS – the corresponding menu. One of the features of Meizu is the ability to record telephone conversations from the line (both individual and all automatically).
Good quality speaker. It has a normal volume reserve, the voices of the interlocutors retain their usual recognizable notes, and communication is comfortable even in a noisy environment. The vibration alert is average in strength, like most smartphones. The multimedia speaker turned out to be of average quality, it is noticeably simpler compared to flagship Meizu smartphones. The maximum volume level is usually enough to not miss a call, but it sounds completely flat; in the same Moto G of the first generation, the speaker is noticeably better quality. Plus, it is poorly positioned - with a horizontal grip while playing games or watching videos, the speaker holes are easily blocked by your hand, so you have to slightly change your grip.
The company has always paid a lot of attention to the quality of music reproduction. Unfortunately, Meizu M1 Note did not receive a special chip or amplifier for headphones, but this does not prevent it from showing good quality music playback. Yes, the MX4 Pro plays more interestingly, but the M1 Note is not inferior to most smartphones in this field - the sound is clear, detailed, there is a good volume reserve and proprietary equalizers. In addition, the M1 Note works correctly with three-button headsets, at least no problems with the noname cable with remote control for Shure SE215, Xiaomi Mi Piston 2 and headphones from Samsung Galaxy S4 did not arise.
Operating system and shell
Meizu M1 Note runs Flyme OS 4.2.0.3 based on Android 4.4.4 KitKat. The features of the shell are described in detail in, here we will focus only on the minimal differences related to control.
The only control element here is a touch key. A single click on the button returns you to the desktop, swiping from the key to the screen acts as “Back”, although you can use the corresponding on-screen key, and holding the button locks the screen. Since you can activate Root rights on your smartphone right out of the box, you can also install the FlymeTools module. With its help, you can change the algorithm of the button, for example, assign “Back” to a single press, “Home” to a double press, and opening the notification curtain or “Menu” to swipe up.
Opening hours
The smartphone is powered by non-removable battery capacity 3140 mAh. The manufacturer claims that it will last for 12 hours of web surfing on 4G networks, 15 hours of video playback, 40 hours of calls on 2G networks or 60 hours of listening to music.
In my case, with a fairly active smartphone usage profile, including various tests, a few games, experimenting with FlymeTools and using the usual set of programs from messengers, players, clients social networks The smartphone worked for at least a day, more often a day and a half. With a more gentle mode of use, you can probably get two days of work. Usage different modes power supply affects performance in games, although simple programs and the interface work quickly even in energy-saving power mode. In addition, a software glitch was noticed - after being discharged to 10%, the smartphone rapidly lost the remaining charge in a few minutes.
| Device | Reading | Watch HD video | Watching HD videos from YouTube | GFX Bench (minutes) | 288,1 | 142,8 | 173,7 | 285,4 |
| GFX Bench (points) | PCMark |
