Meizu MX6 review

Unless you’re reading this from somewhere in Asia there’s a good chance you haven’t heard of Meizu, a company which – like so much of the emerging smartphone talent – hails from China, where it competes heavily with Xiaomi, Oppo and Huawei.

Meizu offers a wide range of smartphones, but its latest selection shares more than a passing resemblance to the iPhone 7 and HTC 10 – a likely deliberate design choice.

The MX6 is one of the latest high-end phones in the range, and whilst not quite considered a flagship (that would be the Pro family of phones), the MX6 still has many of the assets we would expect on a top smartphone.

This 1080p, 5.5-inch handset comes in three eerily familiar colors: Rose Gold, Silver, Gray and Gold, but the spec of each model remains the same. Meizu has chosen a 2.3GHz MediaTek deca-core chipset to power the MX6, accompanied by 4GB of RAM and 32GB of memory.

Power comes from a 3060mAh battery, and you’ll find a 12MP rear camera, and a 5MP camera up front.

Meizu MX6 price and release date

• Shipping worldwide from MeizuWorld.com
• Available in four colors, priced at $400 (£340, AU$565)

The Meizu MX6 is out now, and you can buy it directly from MeizuWorld.com for the standard price of $400 (£340, AU$565), though it is currently available at a heavily-discounted $309 (£265, AU$437), making it an extremely tempting choice.

For the money it appears that all the major bases have been covered, but to find out whether the MX6 can really compete, we need to take a closer look at this unashamedly recognizable design.

Design and display

• The slender body has a familiar design
• Bright screen with good viewing angles
• The rear camera slightly protrudes

To those of you already up-to-speed on Meizu’s latest line-up, the appearance of the MX6 should come as no surprise. Whilst not marketed as its top-end “premium” handset, the build quality is surprisingly solid, yet avoids feeling unnecessarily bulky.

The body is just 7.25mm thick, only a hair’s width thicker than the iPhone 7, but noticeably thinner than the 8.5mm Google Pixel. Tipping the scales at 155g, the MX6 is a little weightier than the aforementioned flagships, but this only helps to make this considerably cheaper smartphone feel more solid.

As far as the design and button placement goes, Meizu has played it safe with the MX6. On the right-hand side you’ll find a volume bar and power button about a third of the way down from the top, both of which are responsive, clicky, and raised enough to make it easy to locate them.

The top edge is devoid of anything other than a noise-cancelling microphone, whilst the left side is similarly barren, save for the slot that holds a dual nanoSIM tray. Unfortunately, it doesn’t double as a microSD card slot, leaving the storage fixed at 32GB.

The layout on the bottom edge is almost identical to an Apple iPhone 6 or iPhone 6S, with a 3.5mm headphone port on the left, USB Type-C port in the middle, and the single speaker grille on the right.

On the rear there’s a little nod to Apple's design, with an inscription reading "Designed by Meizu, LTE Mobile Phone Assembled in China". Though it may not be quite as glamorous as Apple's "Designed in California" tagline, the MX6 is assembled in Zhuhai, a small city just across the bay from the Foxconn plant in Shenzhen where Apple's iPhone is assembled.

The rear of the phone has a smooth metal finish and white stripes on the top and bottom, closely resembling the design of recent iPhones. The camera protrudes very slightly from the back, and looks almost identical to that on the HTC 10, whilst a dual-tone LED flash resides underneath.

Up front the home button doubles as a fingerprint scanner, just like you’d see on new Samsung, HTC or Apple handsets. The rest of the front is sparse, as there aren’t any capacitive buttons accompanying the home button.

The bezels surrounding the 5.5-inch IPS LCD 1080p screen are not the slimmest you’ll find, but are only a shade thicker than those on the similar-looking Blu Vivo 6.

The screen itself packs in a pixel density of 403 pixels per inch, and achieves exceptional brightness levels with good viewing angles. Like other cheap IPS screens, the black levels aren’t a match for any of Samsung’s AMOLED displays, but they’re totally respectable for a phone of this price.

Interface and reliability

• Flyme OS takes cues from Android and iOS, but feels half-baked
• No Google apps are pre-installed
• Despite some flaws, the interface is fast and smooth

When you first pick up the Meizu MX6 you might expect a relatively straightforward Android overlay, similar to what you’ll find on other Chinese phones like the Huawei P9, but in fact the fifth version of Meizu’s ‘Flyme OS’ is quite a different animal.

Despite being built upon Android 6.0 Marshmallow, the skin covers up almost every trace of Google’s branding with its own interface, which ends up looking more similar to iOS.

Some similarities to Android are retained, though, such as the notifications panel that includes a wide variety of settings toggles. You can also add widgets directly to the home screens – something Apple has yet to master.

When you first boot up the MX6 there’s an introduction about the Flyme OS, which is followed by a rather perplexing suggestion that you download Google Play Services, in order to access the Play Store, and consequently download all of the Google apps you would expect to find on the phone, such as YouTube, Gmail and Maps.

Why the Play Store and other Google apps couldn’t come pre-installed is a bit of a mystery, but it’s likely something to do with Google’s licensing requirements for pre-installing their services in every country that Meizu ships to.

It may seem like a small thing, but it’s the kind of behavior you would expect from the cheap Chinese handsets you’ll find on eBay, not from a major brand trying to spread its wings beyond Asia.

Once you do download a few of Google’s key apps, the MX6 will feel a little more familiar to most, but of course this is entirely optional. If you prefer, you can stick with Meizu’s own app store, but it does feel like a cheap imitation of the Google Play Store, with some apps that we’d recommend you avoid, such as “Super Maryo Running Free”… yeah.

There’s also a “Hot Apps” section, which provides quick access to the most commonly used apps including WhatsApp, Instagram and, err, Pokemon Go. Downloads were speedy and the apps seemed to work well, but we'd still recommend that you install the Google Play Store to ensure the legitimacy of any apps you download.

Navigating Flyme OS is a bit of a bewildering experience, as there isn’t the default three-icon combination of back, home and multi-tasking buttons that most Android phones use. Instead, the single home button takes you back to the home screen when clicked, or acts as a back button when tapped.

Though it may seem like a good idea, it’s an unfamiliar way of navigating, and we often ended up going back to the previous screen rather than going to the home screen. We discovered the multi-tasking menu - which can be accessed by swiping up from the bottom of the screen - almost by accident.

Like on iOS, many of the apps and settings have their back button located in the top-left of the screen, which is particularly inconvenient when using the phone with one hand.

Hidden within the Accessibility menu, the ‘SmartTouch’ feature adds a floating widget that sits on top of the home screen or any apps, and adds easy navigation in the form of an ever-present dot that can be tapped to go back, swiped left or right to switch apps, and also offers various other handy navigational shortcuts.

The widget does sometimes obscure text and other onscreen elements, so it’s not as easy as having permanent icons or capacitive buttons, but it helps.

The MX6 also recognizes a number of wake-up gestures. You can double tap to wake, swipe up to unlock, swipe down to access the notifications, or add in a range of custom gestures that allow you to launch straight into your most used apps.

Other handy features include an ‘Eye protective mode’, which changes the color temperature of the screen depending on the time of day, and aims to reduce the amount of blue light emitted to help avoid eye strain – though this same feature can be replicated by apps on other phones.

Should you prefer, you can independently adjust the color temperature of the screen, allowing you to give it a warmer, cooler or more vibrant hue, depending on your preference.

Finally, we should mention that the fingerprint scanner is accurate and responsive, and gives you the option to register multiple digits to make unlocking the phone that little bit easier.

Performance and benchmarks

• Speedy performance but average benchmarks
• No hint of lag when switching between apps

MediaTek is now powering the vast majority of cheaper phones in China, though not all its chipsets are for slower budget phones. The Meizu MX6 features a MediaTek Helio X20, which is a deca-core chipset with two A72 cores clocked at 2.3GHz.

The SoC is coupled with a pretty powerful ARM Mali-T880 GPU and 4GB of RAM, which helps the MX6 fly through day-to-day tasks without any hint of slowdown. Apps launched without lag, and games loaded quickly and without any compatibility issues.

To compare the MX6 against other current smartphones, we put it through the Geekbench 4 benchmarking app, which tests a range of device capabilities and translates the results into a score based on single and multi-core performance. The scores may not necessarily reflect real-world speed, but give an indication of the chipset's power.

A multi-core score of 3576 puts the MX6 firmly in line with many other mid-range phones. It’s a fair way below a flagship like the Sony Xperia Z5 (which scored 4015), but not far below the HTC One M9 (which scored 3803).

The single-core result of 1318 isn’t too bad either, and puts it ahead of the Oppo F1 Plus, which scored a rather paltry 869.

Although the benchmark results were fairly average, they don’t tell the whole story when it comes to overall performance of the MX6, which was suitably speedy throughout our time with it.

Battery life

• Non-removable 3,060mAh battery puts it on par with OnePlus 3
• Can fully charge in just 75 minutes

Like so many other current smartphones, the Meizu MX6 comes with a non-removable battery, which will wear out over time. It’s important, then, to start off with a battery of a reasonable capacity, and with a 3,060mAh lithium cell onboard, the MX6 should last a similar amount of time to the Samsung Galaxy S7 (3,000mAh) and HTC 10 (3,000mAh).

Although it’s difficult to make a direct comparison between Android-based phones and the iPhone, the MX6 does have a larger battery than the iPhone 7 Plus’ 2,900mAh offering.

Discerning the longevity of the MX6’s battery life isn’t the easiest affair, as Meizu measures battery life a bit differently in Flyme OS. Most Android phones reset the battery stats whenever you fully charge the phone, whilst Flyme OS only gives you the option to view the past 3, 6, or 12 hours.

Meizu claims that you should expect 9 hours of continuous usage out of the MX6, making it pretty likely that you can get through a full day without needing to recharge.

If you do happen to need to reach for the plug a little sooner than you had hoped, Meizu’s proprietary mCharge technology makes it possible to charge the battery in just 75 minutes, thanks to a 24w charger that’s a whole 6w more powerful than the adaptors bundled with phones toting Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 technology.

To get our own perspective on the MX6’s battery life, we ran the legendary Nyan Gareth battery test for a full 90 minutes, with screen brightness at max and the handset connected to Wi-Fi.

Once an hour and a half had rolled around, the battery level had dropped by 24% to 76%, a single percentage point worse than that achieved in our tests of the OnePlus 3. By comparison, the Nubia Z11 lost only 20% in the same test, and has a 3,000mAh battery.

That’s not a terrible result by the MX6, but neither is it among the best we’ve seen – likely an indication that MediaTek’s chipset simply isn’t as efficient as Qualcomm or Samsung’s.

In the real world, we found ourselves easily getting to the end of a full day’s usage with between 20 and 30% of battery remaining – more than enough to meet most people’s needs.

Camera

• Distinctly average camera software
• The camera protrudes from the rear, which will annoy some

The camera found in the Meizu MX6 is the same used in the Pro 6 released earlier in 2016 – a Sony IMX386 12MP sensor with an f/2.0 aperture and a 6-element lens.

In day-to-day use the camera performance was fairly average, spoilt by the camera’s over-processing that made many of the images look fuzzy and soft on close-up inspection. Notably, the quality was considerably worse than the Nubia Z11, which is only slightly more expensive.

As far as the software goes, the camera UI is a relatively simple affair, and will be familiar to anyone who has used previous generations of recent Meizu handsets. The camera app boots from the lock screen in around 2 seconds, which feels like a millennia when you’re trying to capture the moment.

Once you boot up the camera app, you’ll find a selection of shortcuts and toggles on the left-hand side to access settings, filters, flash and to switch to the front-facing camera. On the right there’s the shutter button, mode button and a shortcut to the gallery app.

Remarkably, there's no quick way to switch to video mode like you’ll find on camera apps from most competitors; to access it, you’ll need to go into the modes menu.

Plenty of other modes are available including Auto, Manual, Beauty, Panorama, Light Field, Slow-mo, Scan, Macro and GIF. Manual mode gives you the most control over your images, with adjustments for white balance, contrast, saturation, ISO and shutter speed. GIF mode takes a 6-second video and loops it continuously.

The front-facing camera was better than we had expected, with the 5MP sensor pulling in plenty of detail to create quality selfies – a must for any new smartphone.

Camera samples

The Meizu MX6 is one of the company’s first handsets to be launched worldwide, and so we had high-hopes for this good-value smartphone.

The camera was a bit of a disappointment, and although battery life and performance were reasonable, we found the Flyme OS to be a real hurdle. It’s a pretty user interface, but feels somewhat lacking, as many of the Google apps you’ll no doubt be familiar with are absent when you first boot-up the MX6.

As far as build quality goes, the MX6 punches well above its price tag, with a quality screen and metal unibody that is similar in feel to the far-more-expensive iPhone 7 or HTC 10.

Speaking of these two handsets, Meizu has a lot to thank them for in terms of design, as the MX6 has blatantly borrowed elements from both Apple and HTC phones, and combined them to create a handset that feels like a 2016 wannabe rather than the real deal.

Who's this for?

The Meizu MX6 is a great value phone that looks the part – as long as you don’t mind the imitative design. Despite some flaws, it should be on the wish list of anyone looking for a smartphone with speedy performance and a great quality screen, without a flagship price-tag.

Should you buy it?

The MX6 is very well built and offers a speedy processor, good screen and a novel interface. There are plenty of features and customization options to tinker with, to help adapt the UI to your tastes.

Unfortunately there isn’t much else to recommend, as the camera quality is distinctly average, and other features such as expandable memory and NFC are notably missing.

Ultimately, there are other phones that are not much more expensive yet offer a better all-round package.

The competition

We liked the build quality of the Meizu MX6, but this wouldn’t necessarily be our phone of choice. Below we’ve listed three alternatives that you might want to consider.

Nubia Z11

Though it's a little more expensive, the Nubia Z11 offers a similar iPhone-esque all-metal design to the MX6.

Although we weren’t fans of Nubia’s twist on Android, the Z11 bests the MX6 in a number of key areas: performance, camera and design. Also, where the MX6 screen is just good, the bezel-less screen on the Z11 was a joy to use.

The Nubia Z11 was one of the biggest surprises to come out of China in recent months, and takes some beating.

• Read the full review: Nubia Z11

Motorola Moto G4 Plus

Motorola's Moto G4 Plus is one of the best value phones around right now, mixing an impressive set of specs with a proper low-end price. The Moto G4 Plus beats any other phone under $250/£200/AU$325, and is genuinely better than quite a few more expensive rivals. The Meizu MX6 is a bit more expensive, but does at least include a fingerprint sensor and a full metal body.

Like the MX6, the Moto G4 Plus has a 5.5-inch Full HD display and powerful chipset, but has a better 16MP main camera that produces admirable results in good lighting.

For less than $250/£200/AU$325, you can’t really go wrong.

• Read the full review: Motorola Moto G4 Plus

Blu Vivo 6

The Blu Vivo 6 is similar to the Meizu MX6 in many regards, but is also a fair amount cheaper. It matches the MX6 on just about every specification, and also includes a fingerprint reader.

Although the MX6 has a more powerful deca-core processor, the Blu Vivo 6 bests the MX6 with 64GB of storage capacity, microSD support and 4GB of RAM under the hood.

The Blu Vivo 6 may be something of an unknown, but it’s an all-metal contender that’s only let down by average performance and battery life.

• Read the full review: Blu Vivo 6

First reviewed: December 2016