Meizu 15 Review | Fantastic Value For Money
Meizu 15 which is mid-tier smartphone release by Meizu in the occasion of their 15th anniversary. While Meizu does not use to make any smartphones back then, they were known for their MP3 devices. Jumping toward the future, Meizu became one of the known smartphone manufacturing company which provides awesome devices like the Meizu 15. It comes with a solid build quality and powerful specifications which outmatches many devices in its segment.
However, not everything is great about Meizu 15 so let's take a look at the Meizu 15 starting with what is inside the box.
Inside the box
Starting with the unboxing, Meizu 15 comes in a big square box with a glossy logo on top. The box felt like it is made out of high quality material and uses a dull black color. Opening up the box, the internal stuff including the device is found in an extremely impressive position. With Meizu 15 you get
Main device
Power adapter
SIM ejector
Warranty card
User manual
USB Type C charging cable
Sadly, there is no screen protector or back cover inside the box. Usually, almost every Meizu phones come with the absence of this stuff but having such stuff inside the box feels like a pleasant gesture from the company. Well, you are getting the usual stuff inside the box and the overall unboxing experience is actually above average.
Design and Build
Firstly, I gotta say, Meizu 15 does not follow the standard 18:9 mania of 2018 at all. However, it surely takes a few design element hints from the Apple iPhone 7. To be fairly honest, Meizu 15 based on its looks only, feels expensive. I mean you can easily confuse it to have a price tag of $600. However, it is actually a mid-tier device with phenomenal build quality. As you can notice, there is no glass sandwich design and the back is made completely out of metal. Although, there is a glossy finish on the back which frankly speaking, is the fingerprint magnet I have ever used. I mean just using it for 5 to 10 min will leave plenty of smudges on the back. You can fix this issue using a back cover but you will end up covering the beauty of Meizu 15. It comes in 4 different color options Ink, Yakin, Indigo, and White.
One thing to favor the beauty of Meizu 15 is the way it comfortably fits in hand. The device might look big but it actually just 7.3 mm thin with a weight of 152 gram. While it is not the slimmest device in the market, it is sleek enough to provide a great user experience for the user. Moving towards the front, Meizu 15 comes with an old standard 16:9 display along with an earpiece, front camera, and a fingerprint scanner. Talking about the camera, it comes in the middle position which is neat. The earpiece in on top of the front camera and also doubles as a secondary speaker. Other than that, the fingerprint scanner on the front looks similar to that on iPhone 7 or 8.
Unlike many other smartphones, Meizu 15 comes with the volume keys on the left and power switch along with Hybrid SIM slot on the right side. Usually, you get volume and power keys in one end and SIM slot on other. But this is not an issue and doesn’t take more than 15 min for getting used to. Coming to the rear, it comes with a dual camera setup along with an LED flash. The main speaker along with the Type C charging port and 3.5mm audio jack is at the bottom.
Finishing this up, I can confidently say that the build quality of Meizu 15 is super impressive.
Display
One of the plenty of reasons to buy Meizu 15 is the display. Although, I know how much users loves the new 18:9 panels. But if you have a better 16:9 display for the similar price, I will personally prefer the latter. The bezels around the display are so small that it makes the display look much bigger. Honestly, I have used plenty of smartphones in my life and I am sure that nothing can match the quality of OLED panels. Happy to say, Meizu 15 sports a Samsung OLED panel.
Meizu 15 comes with a 5.5 inch SUPER AMOLED panel with 1080 x 1920 Full HD screen resolution. Talking about the quality, it is seriously one if the best display you can find on a mid-tier smartphone. The colors are eye-pleasingly saturated with plenty of detail and sharpness. With Full HD resolution, you get a pixel density of 401 pixels per inch which makes the display sharp. There is no issue of pixelation while reading even the smallest of biggest text size on the screen. The display being an OLED panel generates true black color by shutting down the individual pixels.
The sunlight visibility is great and you will never face any issue using the device under direct sunlight. Although, do not let the sunshine in your eyes drop your Meizu 15 as it does not come with a screen protector pre-installed. I will recommend you to buy a good quality screen protection online or offline to protect the display from scratches or dust. Finalizing this section, I can surely say that Meizu 15 comes with one of the best display in mid-tier smartphone section.
Performance and Memory
With its exceptional build and display quality, Meizu 15 also integrates a powerful chip which can easily outmatch the performance of many mid-level devices. Honestly, Meizu 15 performs so well even with heavy use that you will forget the fact that you are using a mid-tier device. Even the heaviest games have no issue while running on this device. Hence, the question arises "Is the budget smartphone are getting powerful enough to rival flagship smartphones?". Well, technically the answer is YES. But the thing is, the performance is not the only factor which decides the worth of a device.
Meizu 15 comes with a 5.5 inch SUPER AMOLED panel with 1080 x 1920 Full HD screen resolution. Talking about the quality, it is seriously one if the best display you can find on a mid-tier smartphone. The colors are eye-pleasingly saturated with plenty of detail and sharpness. With Full HD resolution, you get a pixel density of 401 pixels per inch which makes the display sharp. There is no issue of pixelation while reading even the smallest of biggest text size on the screen. The display being an OLED panel generates true black color by shutting down the individual pixels.
The sunlight visibility is great and you will never face any issue using the device under direct sunlight. Although, do not let the sunshine in your eyes drop your Meizu 15 as it does not come with a screen protector pre-installed. I will recommend you to buy a good quality screen protection online or offline to protect the display from scratches or dust. Finalizing this section, I can surely say that Meizu 15 comes with one of the best display in mid-tier smartphone section.
Performance and Memory
With its exceptional build and display quality, Meizu 15 also integrates a powerful chip which can easily outmatch the performance of many mid-level devices. Honestly, Meizu 15 performs so well even with heavy use that you will forget the fact that you are using a mid-tier device. Even the heaviest games have no issue while running on this device. Hence, the question arises "Is the budget smartphone are getting powerful enough to rival flagship smartphones?". Well, technically the answer is YES. But the thing is, the performance is not the only factor which decides the worth of a device.
Talking about the Meizu 15, the company is using one if the best Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 SoC to calm the performance need of the users. The Snapdragon 660 is a 64-Bit Octa Core chip. However, the eight are divided into to batch. Out of eight, four power cores can reach a max clock speed of 2.2 GHz and the four power efficiency cores can reach a max clock speed of 1.8 GHz. Apart from the performance, the graphics department is under the control of Adreno 510 GPU which can reach a max clock speed of 850 MHz.
Meizu 15 crushes everything that you throw at it. Heavy apps, games, multitasking does not make the device break a sweat. Talking about the Antutu v6 scores, Meizu 15 gets above 120,000 on average which is fantastic for a device at this price point. Technically, this means that you can play even the heaviest games like PUBG, Asphalt 8, Modern Combat, Riptide GT etc on this device without any issue. During my testing, I found no thermal problems with this device. It gets a tad warmer during pre-longed gaming sessions but nothing serious.
Multitasking with Meizu 15 is a charm. With 4 GB of RAM at your disposal, switching between apps have no issues at all. Even the heaviest apps remain in the memory and you can easily multitask between 10 to 12 apps without any issues whatsoever. Storage is also enormous with 64 GB/128 GB, you can store all your favorite movies, games, applications etc on this device without any issue.
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