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
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