Meizu M2 Note the test: Damn much smartphone for little money
5.5-inch display, full HD resolution, Octacore processor, two SIM cards, Android 5.1. All this and much more you get the Meizu M2 note for less than 200 euros. That sounds too good to be true, right?
Packed is the Meizu M2 note in a unibody enclosure made of plastic, which acts in the silver hue of the test device, such as metal. In the white, blue and pink models this effect is natural. With rounded edges, the 149-gram smartphone is comfortable to hold, for me are unusual keys on the left side of the housing, but which are easily accessible - regardless of which hand you hold the M2 note.
Outside top and inside not bad
The 5.5-inch IGZO display of Meizu M2 Note has a Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and convinced me with a sharp and crisp image. The screen convinced me beyond a high level of detail, large viewing angles, natural looking colors and can be self-sufficient in sunlight still clearly visible. Because remain as just the typical criticism of reflections, which have all smartphone displays, and the traces of my fingers on the screen, the more noticeable than with other devices and let me more often than usual to pick up the cleaning cloth.
The built-in touch M2 eight-core processor MT6753 of Media Center is clocked at 1.3 GHz and can draw on a Mali T720 graphics chip plus two gigabytes of memory. Together they create in Antutu benchmark 31000-32000 points and are thus at the level of Qualcomm Snapdragon processor 615 middle-class, the infected, for example, in the trunk or Elephone ZTE Star 1 or UMI IRON. Regardless of these number games the user interface runs smoothly. The load times - even of larger apps - are fully suitable for everyday use. Even graphically demanding games like Asphalt 8, can be to gamble on the Meizu problems - but only in the second-best level of detail.
The touch of the M2 battery has 3100 mAh over a larger capacity than most top smartphones and comes together with the middle-class hardware problems over the day. I've done as a rule 36 hours. Anyone who handles particularly economical with the energy, the smartphone must charge until the evening of the second day again. Due to the unibody housing the battery does not replace, but the choice of 16 or 32 gigabytes of internal memory you can expand with a microSD card. Hands you the space from, you can instead also a second nano-Insert SIM into the card slot of your smartphone.
Average Camera
Meizu builds in the M2 touch a camera of OUKITEL whose CMOS sensor captures images at 13 megapixels. The quality of the recordings remains significantly behind the K4000 Pro. In daylight the smartphone camera then delivers photos with a good but not outstanding detail. The colors appear natural, with strong contrasts the camera copes well. In poorer lighting make fast artifacts and a coarse grain noticeable. Overall, the image quality in my eyes is slightly above average.
The 5-megapixel camera on the front provides innately inferior image quality, which is manifested by fewer details and more blur. In addition, they worked Selfies automatically. Not so nice.
Android without Google - or rather with?
The M2 grade is suitable for everyone who wants to use Android without Google's services. Because the pre-installed OS Flyme 4.5 of Meizu functions without any Google Apps. However, you must then also a little more time to invest in the establishment and dispense may in the usual app one way or another. Knowledge of the Chinese language would be helpful, which I can not say whether Mandarin or Cantonese would be more appropriate. But do not worry, you do not have on the Play Store and the familiar Android world without. The App Center of Flyme there is a Google Installer, which installs the Google Play Store and the settings on the M2 note and so lays the foundation for add all other Google services subsequently and can uninstall the preinstalled Chinese applications.
Apart from the additional time in setting up, me the user interface of OS Flyme like it very much. When updating to 4.5.2 Flyme ranged the English word scraps, so I understand what the alert want to tell me.
An additional features compared to the stock Android noteworthy I find the way to protect individual apps with a PIN code or password against unauthorized access, the different gestures to operate, which works even on the off-screen, as well as the pre-installed Sicherheitsapp. I can not make any statement about the quality of your virus scanner, but I am pleased that it scans the smartphone after the unnecessary files and deletes and cleans up the memory, indicates to me large files, I can manage traffic and gives me an overview of the app which has permission and this may also adjust individually.
Unusually for me than Android users of the home button. Like the iPhone it is the only key to the operation. Not even appear on the display a rewind or multitasking button. Instead, your taps the Home button in order to take a step back or pushes him to open the Applications Launcher. Do you take the key for two seconds to open a voice control, which, however, still does not understand German. A multitask Ting index is available at Flyme not - me personally but not absent.
Mid-range smartphone for entry-level price
What some users should discourage the additional effort to uninstall the pre-installed apps and make it perfectly usable for themselves. But one must clearly invest more time than foreseen by the German market Android devices without "China Branding".
The expense precludes the very good price-performance ratio. Various shops offer the Meizu M2 note for around 190 euros in Germany. The online store Pandawill who has provided us with the test device is available, calls for the tested version with 16 gigabytes of storage $ 160 - the equivalent of around 145 euros are the - no extra shipping costs for shipment from Hong Kong.
