Meizu launch the m1 note, and it’s as good as we expected!


meizu blue charm m1 launch

Ahead of today’s announcment in Beijing there was a lot of expectation surrounding the latest Meizu phone, and what a device the m1 note is!

With the timing of the m1 note launch so close to Christmas we didn’t attend this launch, but from the specs we have seen and the images it looks like a killer device and one we cannot wait to review once we get it in our hands!

meizu blue charm m1

The m1 note is officially the first phone in the new Meizu sub-brand, called Blue Charm. In fact the new brand, aimed at younger price conscious smartphone fans, is called Meilan in China and is roughly translated to “Blue Charm”.

Not only is it the 1st Meilan phone, but it is also the first 64bit phone running the latest octacore MT6752 chipset. This chipset not only provides a huge boost in power, but also has a new dual core Mali T760 MP2 GPU and brings LTE to the phone without the need of a separate modem. Current versions of the m1 note will be TD-LTE only, so don’t go importing an early launch model as it won’t work on your network! Instead wait for the FDD-LTE version coming soon!

Other specifications include a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080, 16:9 display with a pixel density of 403ppi sourced from Sharp/AUO. Meizu once again announced a lot of figures for the display including a max brightness of 450nit, and a reduction in reflection of 75% (so should be great in sunlight).

What Meizu have done with the m1 note is pretty impressive, in fact it all looks to good it makes us wonder if the m1 will eat in to MX4 (and even MX4 Pro) sales!

The processor and screen are already great features as is the LTE support, but the features don’t stop there! 2GB RAM with 16GB memory are on board as are a 13 mega-pixel rear Samsung camera with dual tone dual LED flash. A front 5 mega-pixel selfie camera is a great feature too, especially considering the MX4 has just a 2 mega-pixel camera! It’s a good 5 mega-pixel sensor too with F2.0 aperture with burst mode and 30fps video recording.

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meizu blue charm m1

What we have seen in the past is a great specification compromised by a small battery, thankfully this isn’t the case here and a 3140mAh battery is quite a treat!

Build on the m1 note is a little different from what we have seen from Meizu this year. Rather than going for an alloy chassis with removable rear panel to get at the SIM, the m1 note is a unibody phone made from polycarbonate. As the rear of the phone cannot be removed a SIM tray has been employed which allows for 2 SIM cards.

Colours shown include blue, yellow, pink, green, white and others, but it remains to be seen which colour options are confirmed for launch and when they will be made available.

As we haven’t held the Bluecharm m1 note yet we have no idea yet f the build is up to standard or not, buy the polycarbonate body with magnesium chassis is similar to the iPhone 5C so we hope for a similar build.

Finally the price, well the m1 note has only been released in China so far
and at a retail price of only 999yuan  it is a truly amazing phone! International release date and pricing is yet to be confirmed.

We should have the Meizu Blue Charm m1 note at soon so watch out for the first hands on and review.

[ Meizu ]
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68 Comments

  1. nexusprime
    December 23, 2014

    nfc? no black cover damn

    • Jason45
      December 23, 2014

      NFC in China is not so important. Too bad there is no black/grey cover. The specs are great though given the price.

      • nexusprime
        December 23, 2014

        better this or jiayu s3?

        • kaskus
          December 23, 2014

          Elephone P7000

    • aminiesta
      December 23, 2014

      DIssapointed with no black but the colour range still not confirmed.

      ‘ Colours shown include blue, yellow, pink, green, white and others, but it remains to be seen which colour options are confirmed for launch and when they will be made available.’

  2. luxman
    December 23, 2014

    sd card slot?

    • desponent
      December 23, 2014

      Nope.

  3. WielkiZnawca
    December 23, 2014

    Any date of international version launch?

    • December 23, 2014

      no not yet we are keeping our eyes peeled

      • Muhammad Yasir
        December 23, 2014

        does the international version HAVE to cost more :'(
        why cant we have it for the same price???

  4. Miken
    December 23, 2014

    wow. looking at the specs what it really make the difference in cost is the built materials. i have a recent mx4 and this one seems to be similar in specs and power but half price!. incredible!

  5. likvi
    December 23, 2014

    any info about 4,6 display version ?

  6. Kingu Prima
    December 23, 2014

    When will the international version with compatible 4G will be available ?
    Is there also a release date for the MX4 PRO International with 64Gb ? Thanks a lot !

  7. jj
    December 23, 2014

    cant wait for the review!!!! this week hope fully

  8. TheEvilPenguinGamer .
    December 23, 2014

    Want the smaller one.. there is already too many large meizu phones. Mx4 pro, mx4 and now m1 note are all in the 5.5″ size range.

    • Manu
      December 23, 2014

      screen size doesnt mean phone size by any means, the Screen to Body ratio is also quite important for example, lg g3 is 5,76 x 2,94 x 0,36, meizu mx4 pro is 5,91 x 3,03 x 0,35, zte nubia z7 is 6,03 x 2,98 x 0,35… (all are 5,5 inch) so i know 5,5 is big (fine for me since my hands are big) but you should also watch the screen to body ratio not only the display size 😀

      • TheEvilPenguinGamer .
        December 23, 2014

        True, but on most phones the bezel difference will be minimal. You won’t be able to get a 5.5″ screen size into the body of a typical 5″ phone regardless of bezel size. They will mostly be in the same ballpark. Hopefully meizu release a 4.7″ version with similarly slim bezels.

        • Manu
          December 23, 2014

          ye i think they will release one, like it was teased, and even if they dont, someone will because smaller phones seem to be more important to a lot of people

  9. Faux-News
    December 23, 2014

    Too much of a resemblance to Iphone 5c. But otherwise good all round specs and not short of anything.

    Huawei’s Honor 4x has similar specs for 899 (unicom, 1gb) & 999( Unicom 2gb) (telecom version for 799), except that 4x has 720p resolution as opposed to 1080p on M1 note, 4x has card slot while m1 note does not, Honor 4x has a 64bit A-53 octocore kirin chip equivalent to Snapdragon 410.

    • The Calm Critic
      December 23, 2014

      Well it’s a 5C wannabe done right price-wise if anyone ask me. That and Apple canned that C line already so as far as continuing image problem right there is already a non concern

    • Stroumpf
      December 26, 2014

      The 5c came after a nokia phone. So in essence it more resembles a nokia 1320 than an iphone.

  10. Muhammad Yasir
    December 23, 2014

    i hope its not too much expensive for internationals !

  11. desponent
    December 23, 2014

    No expansion slot. Why even bother when you can get Jiayu S3 or that new Elephone?

    • December 23, 2014

      JiaYu S3 is a killer and I think it will really do well against the Meizu. Elephone is promising but need to see it in the flesh first

      • desponent
        December 23, 2014

        Hope you get the chance to compare them both 😉

  12. ro.edi
    December 23, 2014

    Big HW & SW problems with 50% crippled functions from true (FUNCTiONS) potential of MT6595 & MT6752 !
    iMature & Extreme BUGS on/with Flyme OS !
    No tech support at all with no response at all for/to HW & SW relating TRUE PRO-blems (touch screen, quick battery drain, audio hiss…..among others…..) !
    Highly Exagerated prices !
    Remember if U want PRO-blems……in a word choose “MEIZU”

  13. Rahul
    December 23, 2014

    I heard that it supports WCDMA right now…from other site though… Andy, please double check and confirm that to me..

    • Jason45
      December 23, 2014

      That is the China Unicom version (works also internationally), but there is no release date yet as mentioned by Andy. There are 2 versions for the Chinese market, one also works internationally, but still no release date.

      The Chinese version that will soon be released has no FDD LTE and WCDMA 3G. Only TD LTE, TD-SCDMA.

    • December 23, 2014

      As far as I know TD are the only ones in the first batch launch.

  14. Showme
    December 23, 2014

    Mali T760 MP2 it’s weak, isn’t it?

    (Mali T760 MP4 or 6 would be a hellcat for gamers)

    • Manu
      December 23, 2014

      or mp16 😀 well i dont think any processor uses it already? well MP2 has 47,6 gflops (gflops are the the entity to messure how many Floating Point Operations per Second processors can do) the MP4 has 81,6 gflops and the mp16 (xD) has 326,4 in the cheaper version and 378 in this more expensive, for comparision Qualcomm snapdragon 801 uses Adreno 330 which has 166,5 gflops the upcoming 810 uses the adreno 430 which has 324~388,8 gflops hope this helps you 😀

      • Squizzy911
        December 24, 2014

        my old htc one m7 with snapdragon 600 has more gflops than this beauty 🙁 but the price is good 😛 maybe a second device ^^

    • vhd
      December 23, 2014

      lets see antutu 3d benchmarks
      yes its weak

      • December 26, 2014

        “No Lollipop, no fun.

        Without pure Android I can’t withstand any Chinese crap.

        You fool me once you fool me twice.

        Don’t buy anything unless it has Android One…”

        There it goes my New Christmas Song for everyone.

    • Faux-News
      December 23, 2014

      Well never buy China phones in first month of release. I always wait a couple of months for 1) feedback 2) remove initial software bugs 3) any hardware issues sorted in later batches 4) the WCDMA version releases a month or two later always 5) competitors bring out phones with similar specs 6) prices drop because of competition

      • Kingu Prima
        December 23, 2014

        anyway, the international version shouldn’t be available until february 😉

    • hehe
      December 23, 2014

      What this article is about? Total bullshit. There are no even sample phones reviewed.

      • Kingu Prima
        December 23, 2014

        you should ask gizmochina owner

  15. hehe
    December 23, 2014

    On Meizu page stated: FDD-LTE / WCDMA / GSM

    • Jason45
      December 23, 2014

      That is the China Unicom version (works also internationally), but there is no release date yet as mentioned by Andy

  16. realjjj
    December 23, 2014

    Actually it is not as good as we expected.It doesn’t have wifi ac and i certainly expected it to have that.
    Other negatives no microSD and the polycarbonate back that makes any device look bulky.
    Zero respect for you Meizu for the lack of microSD, your behavior is shameful.
    At least we have the Jiayu ,Orgtec and TCL as alternatives for now,with many more to come.

    Edit: And you can bet they’ll price it at some 250$ for international buyers because they don’t get how that harms their own image and how much they really need those international buyers in the coming years if they want to compete.They can get to 60 mil units in 2015 and 100 mil units in 2016 but not if they only matter in China.

  17. Alberto
    December 23, 2014

    4K video recorder? 😉

  18. Alberto
    December 23, 2014

    I answer myself… video is 1080p

  19. Andy
    December 23, 2014

    64-bit*
    Blue Charm*
    has done*
    if*

    You figure out the rest.

  20. realjjj
    December 23, 2014

    Starting to show up in Geekbench, only 2 results for now, here compared with the best MT6752 result http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/1398739?baseline=1555526
    The difference seems to be from AES and SHA so a software problem.
    vs Snapdragon 615 it wins more or less everywhere but the encryption results drag it down a bit http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/1498526?baseline=1555526

    update dec 27: a more recent run doesn’t suffer on the encryption side http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/compare/1555526?baseline=1583540

  21. Kingu Prima
    December 23, 2014

    According to the specifications page, the M1 seems to work with international 4G FDD-LTE http://www.meizu.com/en/products/m1note/spec.html

    Can you confirm ?

    Thanks

    • Jason45
      December 23, 2014

      That is the China unicom version. There are two versions of this phone.

      • Kingu Prima
        December 23, 2014

        So, you mean meizu will sell the China unicom and the international versions at the same time?

        • Jason45
          December 23, 2014

          China Unicom is the International version (because the 3G and 4G bands are almost the same).

          • Kingu Prima
            December 23, 2014

            China unicom uses TDD so it cannot be an international version :/

  22. Ivan Papalakov
    December 23, 2014

    How about the camera? Is any good? Front f-2.0, but the back f-2.2… 😮

  23. chloe pebbles
    December 23, 2014

    5.5 inch screen is a under statement for note!

    • Muhammad Yasir
      December 24, 2014

      nah… Samsung note 2 ?
      remember?

  24. Muhammad Yasir
    December 24, 2014

    i have a few question…
    if anyone’s from china , i hope they can answer me… (about meizu note)

    -Whats its camera sensor model ? is it a Sony ?
    – Does meizu pass out firmware updates? if so , Jiayu S3 is a better pick imo and i wanna know if JiaYu also gives firmware updates?
    – is Meizu’s sharp IGZO screen better than jiayu’s s3 ips screen ? (a/c to spec sheet , both are fhd 1080p)

    i hope someone can answer these…

    • Jason45
      December 24, 2014

      It is a Samsung rear facing camera. About the screen quality, that is hard to tell, we need one by one comparison to figure that out.

      • Muhammad Yasir
        December 24, 2014

        wat about Firmware updates?

  25. Bailey
    December 24, 2014

    Dont you just Love the Android community seems they are only happy when they are moaning

  26. Qidamin
    December 24, 2014

    Here is a comparison, in chinese, with MX4 and Mi4
    http://www.pcpop.com/doc/1/1063/1063573.shtml
    Conclusion is that the Blue Charm is really good!

  27. jasneskis
    January 19, 2015

    I like being able to take the battery out if for any reason the phone is damaged and can’t be turned off. I also like being able to charge a battery externally. I have used this method on damaged phones in the past that will not charge in the regular way. I and my children are rough on phones.
    I did not see that this phone held an SD card. Without it memory is low.
    Colors are pretty.