Meizu MX5 review

The Meizu MX5 is a Helio X10 octa core powered smartphone that is running Lollipop with 3GB RAM and 16GB storage space. The handset is also available with 32GB storage, however only the 16GB version is available in India. The MX5 is currently priced at ₹17,999.

MX5 Unboxing
When you open the box pack inside you will find a small book style box with key highlights mentioned followed by the phone, nicely packed. Box pack also contains the user guide, warranty card, data cable, SIM tray ejector pin and travel charger (5V ~ 1A).

Design
The handset is CNC crafted using a full Metal Body and some area are using PPS material (around the antenna) that does not affect signal strength. Overall the handset looks premium with a very good build quality and finishing.

The handset is silver coloured with matte finish and there shiny silver lines around the top screen border and on rear top and bottom (check image). On the rear you will also find a slightly darker shade covering the top and bottom segment.

Handset is comfortable to hold, gives good grip and is not that slippery. Weight with built-in battery is 149 grams and dimensions are 74.73 x 149.99 x 7.62 (mm). MX5 has got a curvy design.

Dual SIM tray is on the left side. Power button and volume rocker is on the right side. Audio jack and secondary mic is on the top and at the bottom there is primary mic, micro USB port and speaker out vent.

This is a dual SIM handset with two nano SIM slots, there are no micro SD card slot. 4G works on both the SIM slots.

There is LED notification, native video calling is not supported you can however use SKYPE to make video calls. MX5 is packed with following sensors – Accelerometer, light, proximity, Gyro, Magnetic and Hall.

Display
Meizu MX5 is using an AMOLED screen of size 5.5 inches supporting 1920 x 1080p resolution. The screen also comes with corning gorilla glass 3 protection. Colour reproduction, viewing angles and touch response are very good.

Memory, Storage and OS
This handset is packed with 3GB RAM (LPDDR3) and 16GB storage. On the first boot you will get about 11GB free internal storage space and around 1.1GB free RAM. OTG is supported.

It is running FlyMe OS 4.5.5.1l based on Android Lollipop 5.0.1 (64 Bit).

Performance and Benchmark
This smartphone houses the MediaTek MT6795T 2.2GHz 64 bit octa core (Helio X10) processor coupled with PowerVR F6200 GPU. Performance is very smooth, handset does tend to heat up with heavy usage but also cools down faster.

Benchmark

Benchmark App Score
Quadrant 23336
Antutu (64 bit) 1st – 43954 , 2nd – 43118
Nenamark 2 59.5fps
Internal Storage speed Read – 146MB/s, Write – 81MB/s
Multi touch 10 point

Gaming
I played asphalt 8 and it did really well in high visual quality mode. The handset is powerful, can play high end games but it does heat up with heavy usage (check battery section).

Camera
There is a 20.7MP laser assist AF camera on the rear with dual tone LED flash support and a 5MP camera on the front. Camera quality is above average. There are different modes available, HDR is supported and rear camera can shoot 4K videos.

I did face some issues with 4K recording as well as 1080p recording. When the battery temperature touches around 39 degrees and if you are recording a video at that time, the recording will stop with a message ‘system temperatures high and video use is suspended‘.

This is a software controlled procedure to keep the handset heat-up under control. May be they should increase the value to around 45 degrees.

Check the sample images at the end of this review. I shot the video in 4K resolution however there seems to be some issues with YouTube not being able to process those 4K videos (the same 4K issue happened with Elife E8 too).

Others
Sound is very loud and clear. No issues with in-call sound. Reception is good (as experienced on other smartphones). 4G, 3G, WiFi, GPS (Instant lock) and Bluetooth worked well.

There is fingerprint scanner (touch ID based). The home button doubles up as the finger print scanner. Also there is only an single button for navigation – it supports touch as well as press. Check video review to see the buttons in action.

Battery
The Meizu MX5 houses a 3150 mAh non-removable battery that does a pretty good job. You can expect 4 to 5 hours of continuous moderate to heavy usage on a single charge. I am getting one and a half day of mixed usage.

Performance Time Battery drop % Battery Max Temp
Benchmark 13 Minutes 5% 37 degree
Gaming (Asphalt 8) 19 Minutes 9% 42 degree
4K movie play with full brightness + Wi-Fi on 25 minutes 9% 34 degree
Wall Charge (on standby) 2 hour 2 minutes 28% to 100% (wall charge) – For 0% to 100% estimated charging time under 3 hours. 38 degree

Verdict
The Meizu MX5 is a powerful handset using 64 Bit hardware and running 64 Bit Software. The key attraction is 20.7MP camera, AMOLED screen and touch ID based finger print scanner. Performance is smooth, camera quality is above average and battery backup is also pretty good. Overall a good buy for the current price tag of ₹18K

Meizu MX5 is now available for ₹17,999.

Image Gallery

Rear Camera Sample

Front Camera Sample

Video Review