Love the Apple iPhone but can't afford it? Well, with eye-catching craftsmanship, powerful specifications and an attractive price, the Meizu MX5 smartphone comes with a certain Apple feel.
Meizu - one of China's top 10 smartphone and consumer electronics manufacturers - is offering in the MX5 an all-metal body, octa-core processor assisted by 3 GB RAM, AMOLED display, dual SIM with dual 4G and 20.7-megapixel primary camera.
Available in grey, gold, silver and black colours, the phone comes in three variants - 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB.
What works for this device?
Well, the phone stands out with its slim 7.6 mm body, state-of-the-art colour, smooth finish and superb fine polishing. Handy and easily fitting in the pocket, MX5 is for those who favour smartphones with eye-popping designs.
The device has a 5.5-inch AMOLED (1080 x 1920 pixels) display offering a 10,000:1 contrast ratio that makes for bright, sharp and expressive colours.
The technology also cuts power consumption to zero in dark-hued pictures. For a movie geek (like myself), the phone provides entertainment in full high-definition for longer hours while relaxing or travelling in a crowded Metro.
The device provides equal clarity at all angles. Moreover, the presets for specific headphones (I used sennheiser CX 300 on sennheiser CX 200 preset) makes it stand out in the crowd.
The corning Gorilla Glass 3 enables sensitive and smoother multi-touch. The phone comes with three integrated buttons on the right bumper of the chassis - volume up, volume down and lock/wake up screen.
The left bumper is reserved for a dual SIM tray. Two nano-SIM (GSM and GSM) cards can be inserted into the MX5's single tray.
Like all other Meizu phones I have used till date, this device also has a one touch-enabled Home button that has three functions - a slight tap takes the user to the previous screen, a single press returns the user to the main screen and a long press locks the phone.
The MX5 is equipped with a brand-new fingerprint identification system: mTouch 2.0. The new oval fingerprint sensor makes identification faster and appearance smoother and elegant. The scanner unlocks the phone in a blink.
The MX5 has Android 5.0.1 (Lollipop) operating system that runs on 2.2 GHz Octa-core Cortex-A53 CPU with Mediatek MT6795 Helio X10 chipset. With 3 GB RAM, the phone works at lightning speed.
The phone has 16 GB on-board memory - enough to store over 250 songs and three high-definition movies.
It packs a 20.7-megapixel camera with dual-tone flash enabling a right white balance when taking photos in low-light areas. There was no distortion in photo when I blew it up to 150 percent.
The device also comes with a 5-megapixel front camera for high-quality selfies. The camera has slow motion, beauty, microspur and light field modes for accurate photography.
The camera has a 6P lens, which significantly increases its peripheral resolution. The non-removable Li-Ion 3,150 mAh battery charges fully in approximately an hour and is drenched out in almost 36 hours with Wi-Fi on for almost 6-8 hours.
The phone also has an in-built call and voice recorder.
The not-so-great side
The phone does not incorporate FM radio in the feature list. It also heats up after prolonged use and/or while playing games.
The phone lags a bit while playing high-definition games. This may be due to the running of apps in background that used nearly half of the RAM.
Verdict: With long battery life, and high-definition display, the phone offers features that a user craves for in a device and with a price tag of Rs. 17,999 on Snapdeal for the 16 GB variant, buyers are looking at a treat in Meizu MX5. The company has worked hard in keeping the design simple yet attractive and handy. As usual, Meizu scores the maximum for its camera quality and features.
(The author is a gadget reviewer with IANS)