Over the last couple of years, we've learned it's not just Samsung and Apple who make decent smart phones. We've seen quality devices and innovations from manufacturers like Sony, LG and Huawei too, the latter even leap-frogging some of the "bigger" names in certain features.
But here in New Zealand we still only get a fraction of the story. Due to the small size of our market and the domination of 2 major mobile suppliers, we're not being exposed to some brands that have just as much merit as what Vodafone and Spark want to sell you.
Meizu is one of those brands.
Before trying the m2 and the m2 note from Meizu, I'd never even heard of Meizu, let alone seen or used one. Turns out, Meizu makes a pretty good phone.
The first thing that stood out for me was how light these handsets are. Both feature a polycarbonate all-in-one body design that was so light, it had me wondering if they'd left the battery out. They hadn't, it's just I've become so conditioned to all the glass and metal surrounding some of the latest high-end phones, I'd forgotten how liberating and durable a plastic casing can be. Picking these handsets up reminded me of the Galaxy S3 I used to own, although no removable back here so these phones are significantly more streamlined and slimmer.
There are the fairly standard power and volume buttons situated on the side, although I found it strange these were placed on opposite sides on the two phones. This is really weird given the m2 and m2 note are physically identical in every other way (apart from the screen size, obviously)
Other than that, there's only one button at the bottom of the screen - standard for you iPhone users but a bit freaky if you're an Android guy like me. After all, the m2 nd m2 note are still Android devices, so what's happened to the Go Back and Menu buttons?
That's where Flyme comes in; Meizu's own user interface. You navigate around these phones by swiping across the home button, as well as pushing it. Swipe left to go back. Swipe up to show running applications.
The home screen layout itself is beautifully boring, no bells or whistles unless you add them yourself. There's almost no bloatware to be found on these phones out of the box. No offers of subscription music services or personalised magazine and news feeds you never asked for.
Both phones feature a 13MP rear camera, which is very high-spec for this price range, while the 5MP forward facing camera uses something called FotoNation, which is supposed to enhance your selfies to make them look better than ever. I usually just end up looking like me, which is always a slight downer.
Both phones have excellent battery life - not the best I've experienced but definitely better than most. While there's no wireless charging option, Meizu does supply a fast-charger which is another advantage.
The laminated screen is not the brightest, sharpest or highest definition around, but I was immediately impressed with how black the blackness was. (I'm sure there's a technical term for that, it's something LG always goes on about)
For those of us familiar with Android devices, it's easy to be lured into a false sense of security when you first try to operate the m2 or the m2 note. But controlling everything by twiddling your thumb over the home button does take a while to get used to. Once you do get used to it though, it becomes very intuitive and I found it hard to change my new thumb habits once I went back to my more familiar 3-button setup.
As usual, neither the stock home screen or email app works in landscape mode, even on the m2 note, which boasts a 5.5inch display - certainly big enough for me to want to use it sideways more often than not.
Putting these two devices through their paces, I noticed the difference wasn't just half an inch of screen space. The octa-core processor of the m2 note out performed the quad-core capabilities of the smaller m2 pretty noticeably. (Did you catch my pun? note-iceably?... Never mind) Multi-tasking was a lot more convincing on the m2 note, and there was the odd thing I couldn't get to work at all on the m2, like the Gear Manager plugin for my smart watch. None of these issues were a major concern, but given the price difference between these two sub-$300 phones is only about 50 bucks, I'd definitely recommend shelling out a bit more for the m2 note unless you have a major aversion to large screen phones.
And that's the crucial factor here, budget. These Meizu contenders are too well priced not to consider when you're shopping around, especially if your teenager is trying to talk you into the latest "big name" handset priced over a thousand dollars. You just know they'll drop it out of their schoolbag on the second day and crack the thing. Give one of these polycarbonate phones a go and they might be surprised at the functionality.
They'll certainly be impressed with how light they are to carry around.
There's one final feature that really sets the Meizu phones apart, especially in New Zealand; dual sim capability. By taking advantage of two networks at once, you can also take advantage of extended coverage and specific offers and plans. That's why you won't find either of these two phones in either of the big phone stores. They're not keen on having their competitor's sim cards nestled beside theirs in the same phone. But if you are, it might be time to have a play with a Meizu.
Click here for information and pricing on the Meizu m2
Click here for more information and pricing on the Meizu m2 note
It's not every day your mother is the one who puts you on to a new and exciting piece of technology. So it was with some trepidation I decided to research her query about a phone she'd heard about from one of her friends.
"A smart phone for oldies," - her words, not mine.
I found it. I used it. I instantly hated it. But then, I'm not an oldie. (Not yet, anyway) So I gave it to Mum to review instead...
The Doro Liberto 820 Mini is a very weird piece of kit.
Let's start with Doro itself; I mean, who's even heard of this company? Turns out, it's a Swedish-based outfit specialising in providing user-friendly phones for seniors. What's more, they appear to be going from strength to strength all over the world.
The strategy is quite brilliant in its simplicity - how many times has your mum, dad or grandparent sent you a blank text? Or pocket dialed another country? Or taken 17 photos of the footpath? And how many times have you tried to explain to them how to not do those things?
The Doro Liberto 820 Mini has been specifically designed to prevent issues like those ever arising, thereby saving everybody a lot of stress all round.
It has a friendly appearance straight out of the box. Rounded corners and a chunky feel that's very easy to hold, unlike some of the new-fangled phones that are so skinny they're likely to slip between the couch cushions and never be seen again. The Options, Home and Back keys are actual, physical buttons, so you're not just pushing at the handset randomly, blindly hoping something will happen. There's also a separate, physical Camera button and there's even an Emergency Assistance button you can program to contact your preferred first responder with a single touch.
The Liberto 820 Mini is also packaged with a convenient charging cradle that's a lot less fiddly than dealing with a micro-USB cable and a tiny socket. What's more, the handset sits in that dock sideways, conveniently transforming into a bedside clock.
So you can see what they're trying to do. The reason I struggled with it is what happens when you actually turn the thing on. Perfomance-wise this ain't no rocket ship. I've become spoiled by the miniaturised super-computers available at the top end of today's smart-phone market and if I can't stream the latest episode of Billions directly to my Chromecast while wirelessly charging, what's the point?
Then I realised, I'd missed the point...
Me: "How's the new phone going?"
Mum: "It's good. I find the actual phone part, you know, like now, what we're doing, much easier than my other one."
Me: "Why's that?"
Mum: "Because it's more clear. And I haven't actually tried to ring up. But I think, when I go to where I ring up, it brings the numbers up, and the other one I used to have difficulty finding the numbers."
Me: "Riiiight..."
Mum: "And it doesn't seem to take so long to charge up as the other one."
Me: "So it charges quicker?"
Mum: "Yeah. I think so. And it's good because I can make the letters bigger which I couldn't with my other one. I found out where I can do that."
Me: "Oh. Wow."
Mum: "The only thing is, I've got emails on it, you know?..."
Me: "Yeeees?..."
Mum: "But there were photos, and I couldn't get the photos. It had a little thing, like an attachment, so I pressed that but I couldn't get the photos."
Me: "Oh okay. We'll have to have a look at that."
Mum: "And I'm not sure yet, when I get a text or an email, whether there's a little light that flashes. But I haven't had a lot of traffic. Nobody's sent me anything."
Translation; very clear audio quality. Easy to use directory and keypad. Easy to change font size. Attachments not automatically set to download in emails and no notification LED light.
I was impressed with how impressed she was. Mum seemed amazingly self sufficient. She'd even found out how to change the "tunes and tones and things like that."
Mum: "And I set the alarm just for fun yesterday."
These kids and their phones. They just can't leave them alone.
Turns out the reason she couldn't see a notification light blinking anywhere is there isn't one. Ironically, that's one of the first things I deactivate on a new phone. Who knew there were people out there who actually like annoying little lights?
As for the email attachments, it seems the Liberto 820 Mini is really just a normal (fairly entry level) Android phone with a very simplified operating system laid over the top. It's easy enough to access more complicated settings like downloading email attachments automatically in much the same way as you would on any phone.
The Doro tries to help out as much as it can - every time you open an app, whether it's email, camera, messaging etc, a window appears offering to walk you through a step-by-step guide to teach you what to do. This can be turned off by ticking a box of course... something I still had to point out to Mum after she'd been using the phone a few weeks.
Me: "How's the phone going?"
Mum: "Well, it's okay. I was very pleased with it because I found I could read it outside, even in the bright sunshine with my sunglasses on."
Me: "Gosh."
Mum: "But it's got a bit stroppy and it thinks it knows better than I do what I want to write and it changes words on me without me noticing."
Me: "Right. Well, you should pay attention and select the word that you want to write."
Mum: "Yeah, but you think you've put the right word, but sometimes you go back and read what you've got and you see it's put something different to what you originally put."
Me: "And then you go back and correct it..."
I then gave Mum a long lesson in managing predictive text. I think she got it. Eventually. Good to hear the screen brightness ramped up automatically in the sun. Things seemed to be going really well... Then I got a text claiming the emails had stopped working altogether.
Me: "I don't understand how it could have changed between now and the other day."
Mum: "No. Except I went to Email, just to see if there was anything there and it showed up. There were emails and then it disappeared just like that. Then I put the computer on and there were 3 emails there just like that and they were no longer on the phone."
Me: "You understand once they're on the computer, they won't be on your phone?"
Mum: "I know that. But these were new ones I hadn't seen before."
Do you really think she did know that? I gave her the benefit of the doubt, fiddled with the phone settings and somehow the automatic email sync had been switched to manual. Mum claimed she wouldn't have done that. Obviously I have to believe her. She's my mother.
This business with the emails not appearing seemed to happen one more time. Again, difficult to explain without accusing my own mother of being technically challenged... and I would never do that.
The upshot is, after using the Doro Liberto 820 Mini for a month, Mum absolutely loves it and doesn't want to give it back. She thinks it's a million billion times better than the $49 phone she was using before and I have to admit, as frustrating as some of those "tech support" phone calls may have appeared, they weren't a fraction of what I was expecting.
This all leads me to believe Doro has achieved what it set out to; it's not a phone for me. It's a phone for Mum. I wonder if she'll ever stop calling it her Dora phone?
Click here for more information on the Doro Liberto 820 Mini
Or here for a good deal on one...
