Gadgetory

just six months after the original of OneNote launched meizu is back at it again with the m2 note with very similar hardware is the meizu m2 note a worthy refresh this is Bailey Stein with Android authority and this is why for review of the meizu m2 note the m2 nose design is very similar to that of the m1 note with a few seemingly minor changes it still looks like a larger curved iPhone 5c and that's especially apparent when looking at the color options mazes inspiration from Apple doesn't translate to a bad design by any means however the curved polycarbonate unibody design helps the phone fit nicely in the hand the camera is flush with the back of the phone Bunz are responsive and the phone feels very solid overall although mazes mentality towards the m2 notes design could be described as if it ain't broke don't fix it there are a couple of notable changes the first being the shape of the phone the curve isn't as harsh as it is on the m1 note which makes the sides easier to grip while holding the phone secondly the power button has moved from the difficult-to-reach top right of the device to the left side below the nail volume rocker if you're still not a fan of the button placement you can always use the number of unlock gestures or the physical home button to wake the device the physical home button is actually the third and for me largest change that Mizzou has made with the m2 note the new button no longer glows and consequently no longer functions as a notification LED but it's much better for navigational purposes why well it not only functions as a home button but also as a back pine that's important because on the m1 note Flemmi added an additional navigation bar for the back key a poor implementation to say the least the swipe up to access the recent app tray gesture is still present but I think that the gesture still ties in well with the experience unlike an amazing mx-5 the home button sadly does not function as a fingerprint reader meizu did add a traditional notification LED though to the left of the earpiece and five megapixel front facing camera the 5.5 inch 1080p sharp IGZO display on the m2 note is beautiful it's very similar to that of the m1 else display except with more vivid colors and a slightly warmer color temperature it's fully laminated coated in Corning Gorilla Glass 3 has excellent viewing angles and looks great outdoors the brightness range is also pretty good and the adaptive brightness is responsive to environmental changes it's the best smartphone display I've seen for under $200 and it makes media consumption a very enjoyable experience this time around Mesa was offering a system setting to adjust the color temperature something that some users will definitely appreciate powering the m2 note is the octa-core 64-bit mediatek mt6752 collect it 1.3 gigahertz what size that the processor is actually slower than the slightly older mt6752 used in the m1 note which is also an active core 64-bit chip except that it's clocked at 1.7 gigahertz this makes the phone feel slower than the m1 note and the benchmark scores are about 25% less than they are on the f1 note dated a performance is still good but that is good as some other phones in the same price category including the m1 note there's also still two gigabytes of RAM which should be enough for most users the mali t 7 20 g pu is also a slight step back from the mali t760 but it should be able to play most games without any serious issues the meizu m2 note supports 802 11 and Wi-Fi GPS and Bluetooth 4.0 the GPS signal could be a bit stronger but it's much better than it was on the m1 note and should work while using the phone outdoors unlike its older brother the m2 note supports quad-band WCDMA as well as FDD LTE and TD LTE unfortunately it only works with up to HSPA+ on AT&T and t-mobile but speeds do seem to be pretty good at least an 80 in the Detroit area the side firing speaker sounds exactly like it does on the m1 note fairly loud but distorted at full volume it's unfortunately very easy to cover the speaker while holding the phone that's really the case with any phone with side firing audio there is an internal 30 100 milliamp hour battery which in my testing lasted through a full day of heavy use I started my day at about 9 a.m. with brightness set to auto and Wi-Fi off for most of the day I took a bunch of pictures and also use GPS for about 20 minutes the phone lasted until about 11 p.m. with just over 4 hours of screen on time I think that's pretty good considering that particular day's usage the 13 megapixel samsung rear camera captured some good images and some not-so-good images it's really just kind of average at this price point images seem to have good color reproduction and detail but it does have some exposure issues tapping a light object can result in images that are too dark and vice versa the camera app does provide a respectable amount of control and manual mode and the auto mode is fairly easy to use the maze um - no chips with fly me four point five point one a forked version of android 5.1 lollipop flammie does get a lot of things right but it also has a few flaws I'll start with a list of the positives the gesture wake up settings are great letter gestures can be customized on the phone execute gestures very quickly I like how you can choose which jets you want to launch when swiping left or right of a lockscreen the custom icons used for fly these launcher are actually pretty good you can always turn them off in the settings the system apps are all beautifully designed the music app has a large collection of free to stream music and the tips app is very informative Smart Touch is kind of cool they included power saving modes go beyond what is offered in stock Android and the Flyleaf 4.2 cruiser bug has been fixed in 4.5 finally the animations throughout the operating system despite digging some obvious inspiration from a certain fruity tech company are consistent and provide a very nice visual experience now to the negatives the lockscreen doesn't display your notifications the launcher does not include an app drawer and the phone ships with a bunch of useless Chinese apps which thankfully can be uninstalled the notification tray still lacks a setting shortcut so if you want to access the settings you have to go home first and then find Settings app the Settings app itself is a very watered down version compared to stock Android and the pre-installed keyboard isn't very good for English users unfortunately many apps and features require you to either speak Chinese or live in China you can't buy any music subscriptions apps or themes and the voice assistant and dry mode are both limited to the Chinese language there's also a lack of Google Play services out of the box some retailers will install these services for you but if you perform a factory reset you'll likely lose them fortunately there are a few Google installer apps available in the meizu App Center but even after running the Google app does not work at least for me that means that I wasn't able to use Google now nor able to use voice for any sort of text input I realized that the phone wasn't intended for markets outside of China but I think that means it could have at least made the experience better for non Chinese speaking users the meizu m2 note is available through many online third-party resellers starting at about $160 color options include white grey blue and pink there are 16 and 32 gigabyte variants but if that's not enough you can always expand it using a microSD card up to 128 gigabytes just keep in mind that you're going to lose one of the sim slots if you choose to do so the meizu m2 note is a great phone which improves on the already solid at one note although mezuzah update comes just months after the initial release of the m1 note the changes made in the m2 note are relatively minor it should not upset on one note users the m2 note is really just a slightly better version of the m1 note with more refined edges with a comfortable design excellent display and great battery life the m2 note signed in areas where most other budget devices don't that's not to say it's without its flaws however as the performance is disappointing the camera is still about average and the fly meself per experience could be better for non Chinese users if you can deal with its software quirks the meizu m2 note is an excellent choice for under $200 thank you for watching this video and please make sure to give it a thumbs up below if you enjoyed it also please be sure to subscribe to the channel if you'd like to see more content and feel free to leave a comment below finally be sure to visit the Android Authority website for additional coverage as we are your source for all things Android