Meizu m3 Note first look: Great combination of specifications and design

By Kunal KhullarMeizu hasn't been very successful in the Indian smartphone market, but they have some really good looking handsets under their portfolio. Take for instance, the new Meizu m3 Note which was announced at an event in New Delhi on 11 May. Now it isn't flagship material, but on paper it sounds like a nice blend of design and specifications with a competitive price of Rs. 9,999.But with the likes of Lenovo, Xiaomi and LeEco does it stand a chance? Here are our first impressions of the smartphone.DesignLike many other smartphones in this price category, the m3 Note comes with a metal uni-body design, although Meizu’s inspirations from the iPhone are clearly visible. Nonetheless, it looks and feels great for something at just 10,000 bucks.The aluminium build gives it a premium finish and the overall design feels solid, yet similar to its predecessor, the m2 Note. At 8.2mm, it feels relatively sleek and fits well in the hand thanks to the curvy build at the back.The front has a 5.5-inch display and right above are the front camera, the ambient light sensor and the earpiece, lined up neatly. Meizu does not offer traditional Android navigation keys so there is just a home button below the display which doubles as a fingerprint reader.The right edge houses the volume rocker and power/sleep buttons, all of which feel solid. On the left edge there is a slot for the hybrid SIM tray, so you can either put two nano SIM cards or one nano SIM card and one microSD card. The bottom edge feature the microUSB port and grilles for the loudspeaker. At the back there is the 13MP camera with a dual-LED flash and the Meizu branding.The handset doesn't offer anything unique in terms of design, but it isn't shabby at all. In fact the clean and simple look works very well.Display Meizu has kept the same 5.5-inch full HD display which translates to 403 pixels per inch. It looks sharp and vibrant. We couldn't test it under the bright sunlight, but it offered enough brightness, we assume it should work pretty decent even under the harsh sun. Colours look nice and thanks to the peppy looking UI, they seem to pop out. Even the response of the touchscreen seemed fluid and didn’t show any lags. The panel seems pretty good and at par with other smartphones selling at this price.Chipset, RAM and StorageThe smartphone rocks MediaTek’s new MT6755 Helio P10 chipset which has an octa-core processor with four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.8GHz and the other four at 1GHz. In terms of storage, there are two versions of the handset, a 16GB storage and 2GB RAM variant and a 32GB storage and 3GB RAM variant, however only the higher version has been made available with no confirmation of the 16GB ROM + 2GB RAM version. Of course, the memory is expandable thanks to the hybrid SIM card slot and one can install a microSD card of up to 128GB.The combination of the hardware and software seemed pretty good for the few minutes that we tried the handset. It performed well and it felt pretty smooth without any signs of slowing down. Of course, the real results can only be determined once we test it out properly.CameraThe m3 Note features a 13MP rear camera with an f/2.2 aperture lens, phase detection autofocus system and a dual-tone LED flash. It sounds pretty much like the last year’s phone which had a fairly good camera. Probably the only area the camera doesn't keep up is the video mode as you can only shoot 1080p videos rather than 4K.The front has a 5MP snapper with an f/2.0 aperture lens and the capability to record 1080p videos as well. In our first impressions we felt that it can shoot good looking selfies if you are shooting in a well lit environment, else you are left with a soft and noisy picture.Software and OSMeizu uses its own Android skin called Flyme UI, a highly customised layer on top of Android 5.1 Lollipop which looks very similar to iOS. You don't get an app drawer just like other Chinese Android UIs, but the overall look is very different. In fact the new Flyme UI 5.0 is one of the most interesting Android skins that we have seen. Not only the icons and the notifications panel are different, but even the navigation is different since there is only one hardware key. A long press takes you to the homescreen, a tap acts as back and swiping on the display from top to bottom brings up the multitasking screen.Meizu claims that it has added over 200 animations to make the experience better and bunch of new additions that improve the performance of the system. The company also confirmed that the new Flyme OS 5 will be seeded to older phones in India by the end of this month.Bottom LineThe Meizu m3 Note at Rs 9,999 definitely will give some competition to its rivals in the budget segment. It feels very refined, be it looks or the software experience. Now we can't say much about the performance, but judging by the specifications, we think it would hold up pretty well. There aren't any major issues or complaints, in fact the smartphone feels as good as a Redmi Note 3, but will it perform as well? We can answer that only after putting the m3 Note through its paces in our review.The sole reason that the handset might not just sell all that good is the brand entity. While in China, Meizu does have a pretty good identity, the Indian market hasn't been really enthusiastic about the company. Maybe a more aggressive engagement in terms of marketing activities, user engagement activities and so on could help the company build a stronger footprint in the country.