This new smartphone, which stands out thanks to its 4GB of RAM and 5.5 inch screen, amongst other things, has caused quite a stir, accumulating over 3 million pre-sales just a few hours after its official announcement. Now we take a look at the pros and cons of the Meizu MX6 too see if it's actually worth your money or if you should save your money for some other phone instead.
The Pros and Cons of the Meizu MX6 you must read
Cons of the Meizu MX6
Sketchy battery life
While the company hasn't gone public with the battery life we can expect from the Meizu MX6 (beyond the 9 hour claim), we are to assume that it's just within the one-day range.
Considering the fact that it's a 3060 mAh battery on a 5.5 inch Full HD phone with a 10-core processor, it seems unlikely that battery life will go beyond the one day mark. At a time when battery life is a major concern for most smartphone buyers we would've liked to see Meizu make a bit more of an effort in this front.
Non expandable storage (if you go with the Dual-SIM option)
As most chinese phones, the MX6 comes with a dual-SIM option, which means you can have both numbers working on the same phone. The problem is that the additional SIM slot is shared with the microSD card slot therefore the end-user must decide between upgrading storage or having both numbers on a single device.
Fortunately we've got 32 GB of base storage, unfortunately there's no upper tier so 32 GB is all you'll have if you go down the dual-SIM path.
USB Type C charger
While USB Type C is growing in popularity, it's still hardly the standard and buying a USB Type C charger will still cost you more than buying a tradition USB 2.0 charger. What's more, if you happen to lose or break your charger for whatever reason it's unlikely you'll just "happen" to have a USB type C cable lying around, something that you could probably argue for the standard microUSB 2.0 cable present in most smartphones and tablets launched over the past few years.
No radio, nor NFC
Another con of the Meizu MX6 is that it lacks a radio. I've been saying this for quite some time as I've noticed that lately it's getting harder and harder to spot a smartphone that comes with a radio. It's not that hard (nor expensive) to place a radio on a smartphone so it baffles me why most smartphone manufacturers are refusing to place an FM radio on their phones.
Another disadvantage of the MX6 is the lack of an NFC chip that would allow for mobile payments amongst many other uses. This is a pretty common lack within the chinese smartphone market but sometimes manufacturers make an exception, especially when they launch what they would consider to be a high-end device such as this one.
It's not the cheapest phone in Meizu's lineup
While the Meizu MX6 isn't a particularly expensive phone when you compare it to other high end smartphones in the market, it's still a far cry from what we'd call "cheap". To that point, there's a bit more scrutiny going around when you take a look at the pros and cons of this phone since you really need it to be perfect at this price range.
Meizu MX6 Pros
A very polished and ergonomic design
Once we've covered our bases with the MX6 cons, it's time to take a look at the pros. To this point we really love the design of the MX6 since it's both attractive as well as functional. Sure, it draws a lot of similarities with the iPhone 6 but we don't necessarily find that to be a bad thing.
Specifically, we love the 5.5 inch Full HD display, as well as the camera being located on the the center of the phone instead of on the side, which greatly reduces the chances of us pressing it when we're going to take a picture.
There's also the fact that the touch ID sensor is placed in the home button, which in general is much more comfortable than having it placed below the camera on the back of the phone. Finally, while it's a phablet we're dealing with, we also appreciate the fact that the phone is relatively light, weighing in just 155 grams, below the average 175-180 grams we find within this screen-size.
Super fast charging
We mentioned battery life as a major drawback to the MX6, however, there's a pro we can't neglect to mention which is the speed at which the battery charges. Specifically, the Meizu MX6 promises a full charge in just 75 minutes which means battery life isn't all that much of an issue if you can manage to charge 50% of the phone's battery in a little over half an hour.
Forget about the dreadful lags
Buying a phone that will freeze up of have a lot of lags is one of the major fears any new smartphone buyer fears. However, thanks to its deca-core processor and 4GB of RAM that's not much of an issue with Meizu's latest flagship.
Consider that a phone with 2GB of RAM running on Android 6.0 will generally run quite smoothly so 4 GB should prove more than enough to use multiple apps at any given time without fear of having to close tabs and apps to get the phone to be fully functional once again.
Super fast WiFi connectivity
This is something that many people don't actually pay attention to when looking at a phone's overall specs. They tend to see if the phone has 4G support but they don't care all that much for the WiFi connectivity that the phone has available.
To this point, one major advantage of the Meizu MX6 is that it boasts a dual band WiFi a/b/g/n/ac antenna, which means that paired up with a compatible router you'll manage to get up to three times the download speed of your average WiFi b/g/n antenna. If you spend a lot of time at home or in the office looking at your phone, buying a phone with fast WiFi support might be a great investment.
Summing it up; Are the MX6's pros better than its cons?
We've arrived at the end of our pros and cons review of the Meizu MX6 and while there are some powerful drawbacks to be considered, the phone is generally pretty good. The biggest cons would be the USB type C charger as well as the low battery life.
If we can live with this then we get a 5.5 inch high definition phone with a great design and powerful internals that promise high performance for years to come. Sure, it's not the cheapest phone in the market, but all in all you're getting a great phone at a great price.