Gadgetory

hey guys this is Bailey Stein with Android Authority and today we'll be checking out mazes latest affordable smartphones all right so before we get started yes this is indeed a single review of three different smartphones the m5 the m5 s and the m5 note we've balanced our critiques of each device and pack them into this single review because while there are some differences between these models they offer very similar overall experiences without any further ado let's get into the review the m5 s and m5 note follow majors standard design language their boxy metal slabs with deliberate antenna lines and chamfered edges unlike the m5 note the m5 s has plastic top and bottom caps but the outside note is otherwise more or less a larger version of the m5 s overall the design and build quality of each of these phones is impressive given the pricing the m5 takes a slightly different route with it's all plastic design it's not quite on par with the others in terms of build quality but we found it to be the most ergonomic of the bunch thanks to its more extreme curbs we wish that each of these devices had a texturized power button like some other phones do in order to make it easier to differentiate between the power and volume buttons other than that these designs are great since these are meizu phones they include mazes single key navigation setup dubbed em touch what this means is that the single tactile key on the bottom of the phone can be tapped to go back or press to go home for multi tasking you just swipe up from either of the sides and you're good to go this setup can take a day or two to get used to but we find ourselves preferring it over the traditional Android layout is it just feels more natural in practice it's nice to see meizu also embed fingerprint readers into the front keys of each device they're not very fast but they certainly get the job done and for this price that's all you can really ask for the displays on these units are find the m5 notes display is 5.5 inches and 1080p whereas the m5 and m5 SS displays our 5.2 inch and 720p the m5 and m5 s displays lack contrast which makes colours appear washed out the m5 s notes display is a bit better but it's still firmly low-end sunlight readability is a pain across-the-board though so you want to think twice if you spend a lot of time outdoors moving on to performance unfortunately all of the models here are noticeably slow even when doing simple tasks like launching apps with their processor choices - it seems like meizu is simply clearinghouse of all parts as the selection feels totally random these phones are each powered by different old low-end mediatek chips which range from one to two years old if you're looking for a better performance at this price we recommend taking a look at phones that utilize the Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 instead the m5 m5s an m5 note are all unlocked dual SIM devices sadly none of them include support for 4G LTE in the United States this means if you live in or travel to the US you'll want to look elsewhere as you'll be stuck on 3G on both AT&T and t-mobile the base variants of each of these include 16 gigabytes of storage but you can insert a microSD card in place of a second SIM card to expand the storage the Untied notes built-in speaker is the best of the three and the m5 s's is the worst but to be honest each produced crappy distorted audio they'll definitely want to stick to external audio with these phones we were really hoping for great battery life with these phones given their low-end processors and low resolution displays however even though our testing was limited to 3g we were left disappointed the unsigned battery life is adequate we estimate a full day with four and a half hours of screen on time one connected to LTE the m5s is slightly worse we estimate three and a half hours of screen on time under the same conditions but the m5 knows 4,000 milliamp hour battery left us the most disappointed we estimate two hours of screen on time and it was about 12 hours of use well connected to LTE but we had inconsistent results so take that with a grain of salt there seems to be a bug with system service as it drained a lot of power in our m5 milk battery tests hopefully made who can address this in the future also just something to keep in mind each of these phones includes the older microUSB scan but we'll let you decide whether that's a positive or a negative although the M side series all use 13-megapixel X to point to rear cameras and five megapixel F 2.0 front cameras each model delivers different results the Mizzou m5s cameras it's somewhere in the middle in terms of quality as you can see the colors are overly warm and there's a noticeable lack of contrast the phone tends to underexpose image too and struggles to capture both the highlights and shadows and many scenes sadly the camera on the m5s performs worse this one really struggles with dynamic range and colors can be incredibly inaccurate well it's certainly possible to get a nice photo we often found it difficult to work with the unsaved notes camera is better than slate but still has some major flaws it also has serious trouble with dynamic range but more noticeable is how flat and muted the colors look in most of our sample images oddly enough it also had trouble focusing on still objects as you can see from some of these blurry shots it can produce nice images though - but again these aren't great to work with video recording is capped off at 1080p at 30fps on each model as you can see from the sample clip taken with the m5 note the software can't really decide on white balance and exposure which leaves four abrupt shifts in color and brightness on a positive note the camera app is quite nice the ass Walker is a good amount of control while still remaining easy to use the software is the same across all three devices the running maze is slimey v skin on top of android 6.0 marshmallow while slimey is radically different from stock Android that doesn't make it bad flemmings design and simplified user experience is commendable everything seems well thought-out from the UI colors to the special balance between customization and practicality we want to highlight that the core slimy experience is great even for foreigners however there are still some issues that you need to be aware of since meizu doesn't have an official relationship with Google we use unauthorised methods to get Google asking services on their smartphones this means a few things some apps like Android pay won't work notifications can be hit or miss for some apps like hangouts and the overall experience can just be really quirky at times it's also important to recognize Mason's update strategy instead of offering Android OS and security updates Mazal instead updates their own slimy skin this is an unusual at this price but again it's something that you need to be aware of you can now purchase the Mizzou m5 m5 s an m5 note in China starting at 700 un or about 100 US dollars there's a bunch of different variants as you can see plus multiple color options for each model Mizzou has once again managed to deliver super affordable smartphones with few compromises for its target audience the Untied m5 s and m5 note plenty above their weight with premium hardware polish software and detailed additions like fingerprint sensors however mesas offerings do little to stand out from the competition what we think it's great to have options we do not recommend these devices for Western users the global software works poor performance and inconsistent battery life our major drawbacks even at $100 instead you might want to consider Shelby's budget options or if you're in the u.s. take a look at options directly available through your carrier and that will be all for this video please be sure to give it a thumbs up if you liked it and don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already finally check out our website for even more coverage is we are your source for all things Android