Meizu M3 Max will go up against the Xiaomi Mi Max, entering the lower mid-point of the market.
Just as many expected, Meizu has today launched a new phablet device. The last device to fit into this category was the PRO 5 and was actually the company’s flagship product at the time. While the M3 Max won’t be replacing it directly, it’s interesting to see the company making a splash back into phablet territory. Sporting mid-range hardware, the handset is expected to go up against the Xiaomi Mi Max.
From the outside, it follows the theme of pretty much every other Meizu device on the market, which is no bad thing. You’ve got a glass front and metal unibody, with colour coded antenna lines and a very clean looking appearance. Colours available at launch will be Gray, Silver, Rose Gold and Champagne Gold.
Looking at the internals, it never really seems to excel against the Mi Max in any particular area. With a 6-inch 1080p display and 4,100mAh battery, it’s both smaller in size and capacity. The processor inside is that ever-so-popular MediaTek Helio P10 backed up with 3GB RAM. It’s a solid chipset but for raw power at least, can’t compete against the Snapdragon 650/652 found in the Mi Max.
On the other hand, it doesn’t carry a bad camera sensor. Utilising the Sony IMX258, we’ve seen this produce very good images in the Xiaomi Mi 4c and other competitive handsets. This is backed up by a 5 megapixel front sensor which should be enough for the occasional selfie.
A dual-SIM slot is included, where the second slot also doubles as a microSD reader. There’s also USB-C, something which the Mi Max doesn’t include. The company’s unique mBack multifunctional home key is placed below the display and doubles as a fingerprint scanner.
The Meizu M3 Max will run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow, with their own Flyme OS 5.2 overlay. It’s not the worst Android skin in the world but does carry that familiar iOS styling which seems to be common with Chinese OEM launchers.
With a list price of 1,699 Yuan (£190.90), that puts it pretty much on a par with Xiaomi Mi Max. Or at least it was… until they announced a price-cut this morning which seems to be in direct response. From today, you can now get the Mi Max for just £145.97, making it an absolute bargain considering the hardware inside.
This puts the M3 Max in a difficult place, as there is now a more readily equipped handset out there for much cheaper. Aside from the addition of USB-C, there’s very little here to worry Xiaomi.
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