A word to all would be Chinese phone makers, build your devices with killer hardware at a killer price and you will be on to a winner. That’s exactly what Mlais have done with the M52 and we’ve take a good long look.
When I first head that Mlais were back and aiming themselves squarely at the international market it barely registered. I mean there are hundreds of Chinese phone makers which have given up on the domestic market to concentrate on the rest of the world, what would Mlais do that would be so different?
Then they released the Mlais M52 and we all started to listen.
Mlais M52 Review: Unboxing
Mlais M52 Review: Specification
Mlais have been very clever and exceptionally lucky with the timing of the Mlais M52 launch. If Mlais had tried a device like this last year it just wouldn’t have worked, well it just wouldn’t have been possible not at $159.99 anyway!
A quick read through the specifications of the M52 reveals an octacore 64bit processor, 2GB RAM, 13 mega-pixel main camera, 8 mega-pixel front camera, dual SIM, SD card support, LTE, a large battery and 5.5-inch HD display! Yes, all of that for just $159.99!
The 64bit chip that is kicking around inside the M52 is one of our favourite chipsets to date, the Mediatek MT6752. We love this SoC for its 64bit construction, native LTE support, low-cost but mainly because this octacore chip blows the Qualcomm equivalent out of the ocean! It seriously is that good (plus these new 64bit chips have amazing GPS performance!).
With a 64bit processor on board the Mlais M52 should really be running Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box, it isn’t though but the update is on the way and scheduled for a release on the 15th April (just 5 days away). Still, with Kitkat as standard we were getting Antutu scores of well over 42,000 points and we have seen higher! What Lollipop will bring should be very special. And did I mention this phablet is only $159.99?
Mlais M52 Review: Design and construction
Mlais have been clever with the design of their phablet too. Instead of concentrating on uber thin bezels, fancy glass and alloy materials or way out design, they have kept it all familiar and simple. So familiar that the M52 looks a lot like a certain 5.5-inch Xiaomi phone.
If you look at current design trends for thinner and thinner bodies and narrower overall widths you could pick apart the M52 for being a little thicker and wider than other devices, but why would you when it feels so comfortable and well made?
The design doesn’t seem to cut any corners either, we still have capacitive buttons along the chin and yes they are backlit. There is a notification light at the top, and yes it is an RGB unit (so you can choose the colour you prefer).
Plastics have been chosen for the construction of the M52, but not cheap creaky plastic, but good quality material with smooth rounded edges. With so many phones heading towards glass and alloy it is easy to rule out plastic, but when done correctly you end up with a hard-wearing and solid phone (just look at the Meizu M1 Note and the iPhone 5C).
Taking a tour around the exterior of the M52 we find no odd joins or badly fitted components, and all the usual parts are where we expect to find them. The headphone jack and USB are in the top of the phone, power button on the right and volume rocker on the left.
On the rear we have a large speaker grill (although there is only a single speaker behind there), single LED flash and rear 13 mega-pixel main camera.
There are no SIM or SD card trays on the Mlais as the rear is removable so you can get at the replaceable battery, dual SIM trays and memory expansion bay. Even poking around on the inside of the M52 everything is neat and really well put together.
As you can see in the photos there are 3 colour options to choose from for the Mlais M52. I was sent the white, blue and pink (red?) covers and the blue has fared very well living in the bottom of my backpack for over a week while traveling (hence the delay in getting the review up, sorry!). I’m still unsure if production phones get all the covers, but if not I’m sure they will be very cheap to buy after market.
Mlais also provided me with a flip cover with viewing window to see the time, or control my music without having to get at the full screen.
Overall there is nothing to complain about in terms of design, construction or build. It’s a very well but together phone.
Mlais M52 Review: Screen
At 5.5-inches we have a lot of screen on tap, and it makes the M52 comparable (in screen real estate) to many of the current crop of 2015 phones. Usually when we get to above 5-inch we see manufacturers opting for higher resolution 1080 or even 2K panels on their phones, obviously this isn’t possible at a sub $200 price so we have a 720p HD panel here.
This is not a complaint at all! Even at 5.5-inch a 1280 x 720 panel is acceptable and only the very picky user will point out that they can see pixels when they are an inch away from the display. If you are going from a 1080 phone to this then yes you might see a difference in clarity but it will be hardly worth mentioning.
As for the screen on the Mlais M52, well it is a fine panel. It’s bright enough most of the time and the viewing angle are perfect for sharing photos and films with people around you. Only outdoors in very bight light do you notice a lack of contrast.
Touch sensitivity is perfect too, there are no issues with ghost touching or unrecognised taps. It all works as you expect it should.
Mlais M52 Review: Performance
As mentioned at the start of this review the M52 has an incredible processing package that allows it to perform everyday tasks without complaint. Even gaming and continuous benchmarks don’t run the phone down.
Plenty of customers who have bought the M52 are reporting Antutu scores of 44,000+ which isn’t far behind the Meizu MX4 which was announced as the Antutu champion for 2014 (based on an average of scores), yet the Mlais is a couple of $100s less tan the MX4. You could buy 2 Mlais M52 and still have money left for the price of an MX4!
Of course having just the pixels of a 720p display helps in some ways, with a screen looking as good as this I think Mlais made the right choice going for a lower res panel for a lower price and higher performance.
As usual we ran a full suite of benchmarks of the phone during our review. The results and screenshots of each are below:
Mlais M52 Benchmarks
- Antutu: 42,594
- Geekbench Single Core: 819
- Geekbench Multi-core: 3972
- Nenamark 2: 61.2fps
- 3D Mark Ice Storm Extreme: 6840
- Quadrant: 9698
- GFX bench Manhattan: 711.0
- GFX bench 1080p Manhattan offscreen: 359.7
- GFX bench T-rex: 1412
- GFX bench 1080p T-rex offscreen: 880.4
- Vellamo metal: 1188
- Vellamo Multicore: 1851
- Vellamo Browser: 2793
Mlais M52 Benchmarks Screenshots
Mlais M52 Review: Camera
Ok, so I have been basically drooling over this phone, so you are expecting much of the same for the camera aren’t you. Well I’m sorry to disappoint you but the camera and image processing on the M52 is the achilles heel of the phone.
We all know by now that mega-pixels aren’t everything, and that one 13 mega-pixel sensor won’t peform as well as another. So, although 13 mega-pixels looks good in the spec sheet, in real life the camera on the M52 is average at best.
In reality Mlais could have give the M52 a better performing 8 mega-pixel sensor and offered better image quality, but then they would have probably found the phone difficult to market if they had.
Is the camera terrible? No it is not, but it could be a hell of a lot better. If you are out in bright conditions on sunny days then you are going to more than likely be pretty happy with the images the Mlais M52 is capable of, but once you start trying to shoot in anything but perfect conditions the dreaded noise begins to creep in.
Mlais M52 photo samples
Mlais M52 Review: Battery life
Mlais claim that the battery in the M52 is a 3200mAh battery. Pretty huge and a lot to get excited about especially if you are a power-hungry users and like to run plenty of apps in the background.
It’s quite difficult to tell if a battery is as large as a manufacture tells us, and while we have heard reports of the M52 battery being smaller than it states (2800mAh claims one reseller), we are still seeing pretty good battery life never-the-less. Screen on time of about 6 hours+ is what we were seeing which is around the same as the iPhone 6+.
Mlais M52 Review: GPS, WIFI, Bluetooth, LTE
Specs for the connectivity of the M52 include Wifi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and AGPS, and support for 2G, 3G and 4G-LTE networks (GSM 850/900/1800/1900Mhz, WCDMA: 850/00/1900/2100Mhx and FDD-LTE 800/1800/2100/2600).
Everything here works flawlessly. With a plastic body there is nothing to interfere with the WIFI signal so I have a nice strong signal, and FDD-LTE worked across my trip in the UK and Europe last week! All good stuff.
Mlais M52 Review: OS and UI
Again I have no complaints here. Android 4.4.4 Kitkat comes out of the box and that’s exactly what you get. There are no fancy skins and no custom UI going on, you just get a native Android user experience.
When Android 5.0 Lollipop comes along we can also expect the same Vanilla style install and enjoy the nice new transitions and animations which make the latest version of Android so desirable to have. It if comes as bloatfree as Kitkat does, performance should continue to be as good as we have seen so far.
Although mostly stock there are a few additions. We have a few screen gesture controls built-in which you can toggle on and off, including the much-loved double tap to wake. There are also settings to change the notification light the colour you like.
Mlais M52 Review: Conclusion
When I first read the specs of the Mlais M52 I was pretty excited, but sceptical too. I wanted the phone to be as good as the specifications suggested, but deep down inside I was worried that I would discover some deep dark secret lurking in the hardware.
So have I been impressed or has my heart been broken by this Chinese phablet? To be honest I don’t think I needed to ask that. The Mlais M52 is one of the best value Android smartphones I have used, full stop!
For the price of the phone you are getting a good-looking and well made handset with powerful hardware, 64bit processor and can look forward to an Android 5.0 Lollipop OTA in just 5 days time. How many other phones for $159.99 pack so much punch?
Ok so the rear speaker quality isn’t the greatest and the cameras struggle in low-light, but there are $300 phones with the same issues, but they don’t offer that latest Android, dual SIM LTE, 64bit processor and removable battery.
The only issues I see Mlais having with the M52 are how they are going to keep them in stock, and how they are going to improve upon it in the future at the same price point? Mlais have set the bar for $160 phones, what are they capable of when the budge is a little higher?
One of main problems of Mlais is software. Bought Mlais MX58 Pro, no support after couple months. Hardware games are useless without ROM optimisation and support.
Hopefully this has changed. The MX58 wasn’t meant for outside of China. These new models are aimed at the international market only. Let’s see
Lenovo K3 Note rocks even has a plastic cover makes me feel cheap.
Great phone but why! Why camera camera is so poor. It truly is the Achilles heel of that phone. I wonder which of the new MTK6752 phone will have best camera – S3 or maybe P7000… Looking for good shooter for under 200$
same
S3 has the same camera as the OPO. Can’t go wrong there
but which one has better quality in low light ?
you can get reduction with GBM52 code on gearbest
If a phone is thus cheap, watch out for spy software installed on it. I wouldn’t trust any chinese phone seller right out of the box, if I had not done a thorough examination of the Android and Linux stuff installed on it!
Great review Andi! 🙂 Glad i’ve got one on it’s way from Gearbest now 🙂
i believe its a backup for your opo ?
Ahh, well no, that was the original plan, but my mother in law wants to get into ‘this smartphone stuff’ to basically receive pictures of our new born baby and do a bit of skype/whatsapp lol and so I thought £104 delivered from gearbest, it was well worth taking the risk for I think…
Hopefully, she’ll get on with it anyway, but yes I think for this sort of money, anyone could have one as a back up phone and currently the chances of this getting Lollipop before my OPO gets the Official CM12s are looking very high indeed!
Lollipop will be released on April 15 😉
aww.. congrats on your baby !
Very nice review, would like something like that for the kingzone, thanks
it could be the best phone ever but I simply could not live with that ugly 4g logo top right. is that on there permanently?
Yeah it’s pretty ugly, like when they put “8MP” or “13MP” on the side of the camera.
ruined by something so pointless!
If it is “so pointless” as you say, how does it ruin it exactly?
Well some people are just very very shalow
i totally agree its shallow of me, but it would bother me every time I look at it, I am a designer and dont want to be looking at a comic sans logo.
A crappy phone from a silly manufacturer…
You are smart.
As long as you admit all is well 🙂
Thank you master
I agree, that’s fugly
The camera seems more than just fine for a $150-160 dollars phone.
Andi, are you sure of Wi-Fi ac? I checked up Mediatek’s product page for MT6752 and their details only say dual band 802.11n!
I’ll double check, I was going off the Mlais specs so it could be wrong.
I think it does have WIFI AC, 100% sure Jiayu S3 has WIFI AC and only uses MTK standard solution for all communication. So quite sure that its the same for this unit.
One of main problems of Mlais is software. Bought Mlais MX58 Pro, no support after couple months. Hardware games are useless without ROM optimisation and support.
Hopefully this has changed. The MX58 wasn’t meant for outside of China. These new models are aimed at the international market only. Let’s see
Lenovo K3 Note rocks even has a plastic cover makes me feel cheap.
Great phone but why! Why camera camera is so poor. It truly is the Achilles heel of that phone. I wonder which of the new MTK6752 phone will have best camera – S3 or maybe P7000… Looking for good shooter for under 200$
same
S3 has the same camera as the OPO. Can’t go wrong there
but which one has better quality in low light ?
you can get reduction with GBM52 code on gearbest
If a phone is thus cheap, watch out for spy software installed on it. I wouldn’t trust any chinese phone seller right out of the box, if I had not done a thorough examination of the Android and Linux stuff installed on it!
Great review Andi! 🙂 Glad i’ve got one on it’s way from Gearbest now 🙂
i believe its a backup for your opo ?
Ahh, well no, that was the original plan, but my mother in law wants to get into ‘this smartphone stuff’ to basically receive pictures of our new born baby and do a bit of skype/whatsapp lol and so I thought £104 delivered from gearbest, it was well worth taking the risk for I think…
Hopefully, she’ll get on with it anyway, but yes I think for this sort of money, anyone could have one as a back up phone and currently the chances of this getting Lollipop before my OPO gets the Official CM12s are looking very high indeed!
Lollipop will be released on April 15 😉
aww.. congrats on your baby !
aww.. man!
the shit camera is a HEARTBREAK :'(
” Mlais have set the bar for $160 phones”
take note ; Lenovo , Coolpad , Huawei , Oppo ,Asus , Jiayu , Bluboo , Ecoo , Meizu , Elephone AND ALL OTHER CHINESE PHONE COMPANIES!
P.S You can still beat the m52’s Camera sensor for its very very disappointing quality !
i want to import it. at 128 usd it looks good.
lol … did u follow me here ?
jokes apart … its a good phone , has all basics and good all rounder but see the cam for yourself , you do NOT want a red-tint camera man !
other than that , good to go …
no, I was searching for this phone. But from reviews and my past xp ,I think I might stick to a known brand.
What about root, is it possible ?
I saw some Youtuber review where guy rooted by IRoot.
http://chinamobilemag.com/how-to-root-the-mlais-m52-red-note/ i succes root with those link info
http://chinamobilemag.com/how-… i succes root with those link info
Very nice review, would like something like that for the kingzone, thanks
This review sounds too much like an advertisement. Lenovo K3 Note has better specs and costs about the same.
Comlpetely untrue! The K3 costs $200-+ and has it’s own skin which ruins the experience of Vanilla Android. And Gizchina has been around for a long time and never ever have i noticed him favoring anything.
K3 Note doesn’t even have tap-to-wake, which is necessary on 5+ inch phones
K3 Note is currently sold for $170 at aliexpress (via Russian group deals websites). I’ve had a number of phones from small brands like Doogee, Cubot, Zopo etc, and they always have lots of problems, that are never mentioned in paid reviews. Based on my experience, budget phones from well-known brands like Lenovo, Huawei, Xiaomi etc have much better quality, and they don’t lie about their specs.
Well we are not on a Russian group, and the fact you do not know a company doesn’t make it unknown. Nobody has proven the battery isn’t 3200 Mha. It is known that Chinese OEM’s phone batteries don’t last as long as others. Now i ask you to stop insulting Gizchina and stop calling him paid advertising. Have some respect, you are on his site!
Can the camera performance be improved by using different camera software?
I would like to add that i believe that the camera of the Meizu m1 note for example did not reach its full potential in the automatic mode, but image quality could be improved by using manual settings.
Using full potential of Camera FV-5 its for sure gona looks better.
it could be the best phone ever but I simply could not live with that ugly 4g logo top right. is that on there permanently?
Yeah it’s pretty ugly, like when they put “8MP” or “13MP” on the side of the camera.
ruined by something so pointless!
If it is “so pointless” as you say, how does it ruin it exactly?
Well some people are just very very shalow
I agree, that’s fugly
i totally agree its shallow of me, but it would bother me every time I look at it, I am a designer and dont want to be looking at a comic sans logo.
A crappy phone from a silly manufacturer…
As long as you admit all is well 🙂
Thank you master
You are smart.
The camera seems more than just fine for a $150-160 dollars phone.
Andi, are you sure of Wi-Fi ac? I checked up Mediatek’s product page for MT6752 and their details only say dual band 802.11n!
I’ll double check, I was going off the Mlais specs so it could be wrong.
I think it does have WIFI AC, 100% sure Jiayu S3 has WIFI AC and only uses MTK standard solution for all communication. So quite sure that its the same for this unit.
Hi Andi, I was wondering whether I could get more details on the battery life. I get a max of 3 hours of SOT, and even running a WiFi browsing test or a video playback test, the phone dies after 5 hours.
aww.. man!
the shit camera is a HEARTBREAK :'(
” Mlais have set the bar for $160 phones”
take note ; Lenovo , Coolpad , Huawei , Oppo ,Asus , Jiayu , Bluboo , Ecoo , Meizu , Elephone AND ALL OTHER CHINESE PHONE COMPANIES!
P.S You can still beat the m52’s Camera sensor for its very very disappointing quality !
i want to import it. at 128 usd it looks good.
lol … did u follow me here ?
jokes apart … its a good phone , has all basics and good all rounder but see the cam for yourself , you do NOT want a red-tint camera man !
other than that , good to go …
no, I was searching for this phone. But from reviews and my past xp ,I think I might stick to a known brand.
What about root, is it possible ?
I saw some Youtuber review where guy rooted by IRoot.
http://chinamobilemag.com/how-to-root-the-mlais-m52-red-note/ i succes root with those link info
http://chinamobilemag.com/how-… i succes root with those link info
This review sounds too much like an advertisement. Lenovo K3 Note has better specs and costs about the same.
Comlpetely untrue! The K3 costs $200-+ and has it’s own skin which ruins the experience of Vanilla Android. And Gizchina has been around for a long time and never ever have i noticed him favoring anything.
K3 Note doesn’t even have tap-to-wake, which is necessary on 5+ inch phones
K3 Note is currently sold for $170 at aliexpress (via Russian group deals websites). I’ve had a number of phones from small brands like Doogee, Cubot, Zopo etc, and they always have lots of problems, that are never mentioned in paid reviews. Based on my experience, budget phones from well-known brands like Lenovo, Huawei, Xiaomi etc have much better quality, and they don’t lie about their specs.
Well we are not on a Russian group, and the fact you do not know a company doesn’t make it unknown. Nobody has proven the battery isn’t 3200 Mha. It is known that Chinese OEM’s phone batteries don’t last as long as others. Now i ask you to stop insulting Gizchina and stop calling him paid advertising. Have some respect, you are on his site!
Can the camera performance be improved by using different camera software?
I would like to add that i believe that the camera of the Meizu m1 note for example did not reach its full potential in the automatic mode, but image quality could be improved by using manual settings.
Using full potential of Camera FV-5 its for sure gona looks better.
I bought 3 days ago my from Gearbest for about 143$ ! 😀
My current phone is Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo V. I have it for about 3 years now 😛
My first smartphone. So difference is gona be HUGE.
Now, im even more excited aboonut this phone, and now im sure this was a great choice.
I not exactly understand you complaining about camera 😛 its pretty good.
Thanks for great review.
Wow cool! Thought I was the only one still walking around with a Neo V ;). I don’t think I’ll follow you with the m52 though, because I’m aiming for something with a better camera.
The Ulefone gets 8+ hours of screen on time with a 2600mah battery according to Gizchinas review, this doesnt even get 6; yet you say its more than the 2600mah in the ulefone?
Sounds to me like its closer to 2000mah, which is what other reviewers say.
Hi Andi, I was wondering whether I could get more details on the battery life. I get a max of 3 hours of SOT, and even running a WiFi browsing test or a video playback test, the phone dies after 5 hours.
Receipt on one of the photos says Starbucks Madrid. On holiday or did someone from Gizchina.es make this review?
Thought it had been confirmed this is an 8mp camera interpolated to 13mp? If they had left as is it would probably have been a half decent 8mp, like Doogee DG850.
I bought 3 days ago my from Gearbest for about 143$ ! 😀
My current phone is Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo V. I have it for about 3 years now 😛
My first smartphone. So difference is gona be HUGE.
Now, im even more excited aboonut this phone, and now im sure this was a great choice.
I not exactly understand you complaining about camera 😛 its pretty good.
Thanks for great review.
Wow cool! Thought I was the only one still walking around with a Neo V ;). I don’t think I’ll follow you with the m52 though, because I’m aiming for something with a better camera.
The Ulefone gets 8+ hours of screen on time with a 2600mah battery according to Gizchinas review, this doesnt even get 6; yet you say its more than the 2600mah in the ulefone?
Sounds to me like its closer to 2000mah, which is what other reviewers say.
Receipt on one of the photos says Starbucks Madrid. On holiday or did someone from Gizchina.es make this review?
Thought it had been confirmed this is an 8mp camera interpolated to 13mp? If they had left as is it would probably have been a half decent 8mp, like Doogee DG850.
What about the headphones jack. In the hellenic forum myphone.gr two main problems have been identifed.
1)Not all headphones stay plugged correctly. This is a big problem for me. Has anybody checked the headphones?
2)There have been some problem with yellowish pictures. This can be solved by manual settings but it is still a problem.
“So familiar that the M52 looks a lot like a certain 5.5-inch Xiaomi phone”(cough.. redmi not…cough…) that part made me cry out of laughter.
Anyways great review
Ok i notice when u review u never take night time photos (photos that deffo need the flash example a dark room) – how come? i know flash from these phones aren’t the best and near useless but thats not the true for all phones but would the tested would be appreciated. Cheers
What about the headphones jack. In the hellenic forum myphone.gr two main problems have been identifed.
1)Not all headphones stay plugged correctly. This is a big problem for me. Has anybody checked the headphones?
2)There have been some problem with yellowish pictures. This can be solved by manual settings but it is still a problem.
“So familiar that the M52 looks a lot like a certain 5.5-inch Xiaomi phone”(cough.. redmi not…cough…) that part made me cry out of laughter.
Anyways great review
Ok i notice when u review u never take night time photos (photos that deffo need the flash example a dark room) – how come? i know flash from these phones aren’t the best and near useless but thats not the true for all phones but would the tested would be appreciated. Cheers
id go for jiayu S3 or k3 note, better screen and rep for the same money.
m52 is about us$130-us$142, jiayu s3 us$200 and k3 note us$230
id go for jiayu S3 or k3 note, better screen and rep for the same money.
m52 is about us$130-us$142, jiayu s3 us$200 and k3 note us$230
Are the dimensions of the M52 equal to that of the ‘certain Xiaomi phone’?
So can a mobile skin from that certain Xiaomi phone be used for the M52?
Are the dimensions of the M52 equal to that of the ‘certain Xiaomi phone’?
So can a mobile skin from that certain Xiaomi phone be used for the M52?
I have posted my first impressions of the M52:
http://bkhome.org/news/?viewDetailed=00193
Aah, the creator of Puppy Linux use Miais M52 too !!
Thanks for the writing Mr. Barry, great job as always 🙂
I have posted my first impressions of the M52:
http://bkhome.org/news/?viewDetailed=00193
Aah, the creator of Puppy Linux use Miais M52 too !!
Thanks for the writing Mr. Barry, great job as always 🙂
I have this Mlais 1 week, and i have problem with android, all aplications are freezing
someone can help me with this problem?
I have this Mlais 1 week, and i have problem with android, all aplications are freezing
someone can help me with this problem?