Our hands-on Impressions of Meizu M3 Note, Flyme 5 with Video Overview

Meizu M3 Note was launched in china in early April where they said that the India launch will follow soon. On 11th May the company officially released the phone in India and unlike another Chinese brand, Meizu decided to bring the more powerful variant to India first.

Before we begin with our hands-on impressions, let's get the hardware specifications out of the way

• 5.5-inch 1080p Full-HD Display with 2.5D Curved Glass
• 1.8GHz Octa Core Mediatek Helio P10
• Mali T860 GPU
• Flyme OS 5 running on top of Android 5.1 (Lollipop)
• 3GB RAM with 32GB of Internal Storage
• MicroSD Cards supported up to 128GB (Hybrid Slot)
• 13MP rear camera with dual tone LED flash, f/2.2 aperture
• 5MP front camera, f/2.0 aperture
• Dual 4G SIM Slots but the 2nd slot is a hybrid SIM/memory card
• Front fingerprint sensor, unibody metal build, USB OTG Support
• Colors available in Grey, Silver and Gold
• 4100mAh non-removable battery

The company added that all three colors will be available at the first Flash Sale on 31st May on Amazon India.

Meizu M3 Note Hands-on Overview (Video)

Physical Overview

The phone has full-metal unibody construction and there is no plastic at the back. Moreover the camera module is flush with the back and you also have a dual LED flash there. The edges are rounded making the phone easier to hold.

On the right we have volume rocker and the power button both of which are very tactile and offer good travel. They are made of metal and have a chamfered cut-out which adds another design element on the device. The top has a 3.5mm audio jack and the secondary noise-cancellation microphone.

You can see 2 grills at the bottom one of which houses the speaker and other, primary microphone. You also have a micro USB charging slot between the two grills.

Coming to the left we have the SIM Card slots where the second SIM slot is a hybrid slot which can be used to expand storage up to 128GB with microSD cards.

A 5.5-inch 1080p IPS display with 2.5D curved glass can be found in the front. Above the display you have a 5MP front-facing camera, proximity and light sensors. There are no on-screen buttons here and you only have a single physical home button which does the job of a home button, back button, fingerprint sensor and a power button.

At the back you can see two antenna lines which are metallic silver (on the silver variant) and do set well with the overall metallic design of the phone.

The Multi-function Home Button

Meizu is the only company that follows a completely different approach to buttons on an Android smartphone, a regular Android phone has at least 3 physical/capacitive/on-screen buttons but Meizu took Android’s liberty of customizing anything to a new level with only 1 physical button on front of the phone. The single rounded rectangle up front has quite a tough task, it has both a physical and capactive function.

You can do the following tasks with the home button on the Meizu M3 Note:

• Fingerprint sensor to unlock the phone
• Single tap to go back
• Press once to go to the home screen.
• Press and hold to turn screen on or off.

The fingerprint sensor worked well, may not be the fastest but was accurate.

FlyMe 5

Flyme 5 is a major update for the company and they have listed to customer feedback. Gone is the weird tabbed layout in settings and default apps making the UI far easier to get used to. The UI was lag free and animations were fluid.

Here are some important changes in Flyme 5 with the Meizu M3 Note:

• A settings button has been added to the notification shade.
• You can now move multiple apps from one homescreen to another in a group.
• Thames are also supported and will be available in India (finally)
• Now you can swipe from the bottom for the task manager/App switcher which has been re-designed in Flyme 5. You can now long press on an open app to lock it in memory and not be garbage collected.
• True multitasking with multiple simultaneous windows is also supported now.
• You can customize the display color temperature.

Camera

There is a 13MP rear camera here alongwith a 5MP selfie camera, Both can record videos in 1080p resolution. We were in quite poor lighting, as most smartphone launches are but still the images did turn out quite all right.

There is a manual mode available in the camera interface on the Meizu M3 Note and you also have a beauty mode for the front camera.

Here are some images we clicked at the event with the M3 Note.

Sensors

You do have a proximity sensor, light sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope as well as a magnetic field sensor on the Meizu m3 Note. The presence of the Gyroscope sensor does suggest that Google Cardboard and other VR headsets would work here too.

Conclusion

Meizu has a real chance to beat the Redmi Note 3 in India. It offers a better design, better build and strong hardware. Moreover, it seems to be good value for money at just Rs. 9999. You are getting a lot more than you are paying for. The company has also said that they are working to improve their service network in India and said that now your phones would be serviced within a week.

We will be taking a deeper look at the Meizu M3 Note when it finally becomes available in India on 31st May 2016. It is an exclusive to Amazon.in and will be available through flash sales, registrations for which are now open.