Meizu MX4 Review

While the Android market is currently dominated by big manufacturers such as Samsung, LG and HTC, up and coming Chinese manufacturers like Oppo, Xiaomi and Meizu are starting to make their presence felt in the US market.

In this review, we take a look at one of the offerings from Meizu, the Meizu MX4.  The MX4 is an example of how these Chinese manufacturers have developed high-end devices for a fraction of the cost of those from the big manufacturers.

Design

• The Meizu MX4 high quality looking device that is sleek and durable
• Full glass front panel.
• A chassis made from aluminium alloy.
• Buttons are also made from aluminium and are very responsive.
• A smooth back plate made of plastic. Slightly curves so it fits well in the hand. The plastic back is just a bit too smooth and is slightly slippery.
• Camera is placed towards the top portion of the back plate. The design is unobtrusive and it is covered with a glass enclosure.
• The back plate is removable and protects a Micro SIM slot

 

Dimensions

• The Meizu MX4 is 144 mm tall and 75.2 mm wide. It is 8.9 mm thick.
• This phone weighs 147 grams

Display

• The Meizu MX4 has a 5.36-inch IPS LCD display. It has a 1920 x 1152 resolution for a pixel density of 418 ppi.
• The phone display is very good, images are sharp and text can be seen clearly.
• The Mx4’s display can get very bright which gives it good outdoor visibility.
• While there is an auto brightness function, you can also adjust the brightness manually.

Battery

• Uses a non-removable 3100mAh battery that allows the MX4 to last about a day under moderate to heavy use conditions.

Storage

• No expandable storage available.
• The MX4 has several options for on-board storage. You can choose a unit with 16, 32 or 64 GB.

Performance

• The Meizu MX4 uses quad-core 2.2GHz Cortex-A17 and quad-core 1.7GHz Cortex-A7 processors which are backed by 2GB of RAM.
• The MX4’s software is light and the processor enables quick animations, fluid movements between screens and fast multitasking. However, there can be problems if you use the phone for intensive gaming or if you open to many apps.
• The phone’s software has a lot of bugs and faces stability issues.

Speaker

• Uses a single speaker placed at the bottom.
• The sound comes through loud and clear and is good enough to watch a quick video or even listen to music around the home.
• While the external speaker works well, the earpiece speaker can be very quiet, even when on the maximum setting.

Connectivity

• Has HSPA, LTE Cat4 150/50 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0, GPRS
• While this seems extensive, US customers will find this lacking as the LTE bands that the MX4 are compatible with are only Chinese networks.

Sensors

• The Meizu MX4 has gyro, accelerometer, proximity and compass

Camera

• The Meizu MX4 comes with a 20.7 MP Sony Exmor camera with a dual-LED flash, and a 2 MP front facing camera.
• The camera software presents the user with a don of shooting options but is extremely easy to use. This includes modes such as Panorama, Refocus, 120fps Slow Motion, Facebeauty, and Night Mode.
• You get good image quality with the MX4’s cameras. Shots taken both indoors and outdoors are sharp and bright, though the colors can seem dull and lack the saturation that can be found in other comparable cameras.
• The MX4 does not take good low light photos. It has a hard time focusing and the shots tend to lack vibrancy.
• There is a good Auto Focus mode, but unfortunately, it does not always take a very good lock on the photo subject.

Software

• The Meizu MX4 runs on Android 4.4.4 Kitkat.
• Uses Meizu’s custom Flyme 4.0 software.
• There are no Google apps installed so you need to use the Flyme app store to download Google Play Services. Setting these apps up though the Flyme store is difficult.
• An update to overhaul the UI and pre-install Google services is supposed to be on the way.
• As with most Meizu devices, there is no app drawer. Users who are used to Android might not like this.
• Utilizes the swiping function well. You can wake up your MX4 by double tapping the locked screen, swipe up to unlock, swipe down to see notifications, swipe left to open the camera.  Swipe right is a programmable feature and you can set it up so that this allows you to open any app you choose.
• Does not allow you to download custom launchers.
• Volume control doesn’t control ringing volume, only media volume.
• The pre-installed apps are not optimized for the display’s 5:3 aspect ratio.

Currently, the Meizu MX4 is sold, unlocked, for around $450 on Amazon.  This phone is meant primarily for the Chinese market and the lack of LTE in the US is the biggest drawback for this device.

In general, though the MX4 is a beautiful and well-crafted device, the OS is problematic, the battery life is a letdown and the camera needs ideal lighting conditions if you want to get a good shot.  If these are factors your willing to compromise on, then you will find that you have a phone with a great screen, a super powerful processor and good build quality for around $400.  For that price, you could do worse.

Do you think the Meizu MX4 worth its price?

JR

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