Meizu 15 in for review

We went to China's beautiful Wuzhen town to witness the Meizu 15 debut and we were left feeling very positive about its prospects. Now we get to welcome the handset in our office as it joins our review queue, so we are wondering if the positive impressions will stand.

What we have here is a phone that's oblivious to modern fads. It as a traditional 16:9 screen like the phones of yesteryear, a physical home button under it and not so much as a semblance of a notch anywhere on its metal-clad body.

Don't take the Meizu's refusal to join the notch trend as a sign that the 15 is an ancient bezel-heavy device. On the contrary, there are symmetrical top and bottom bars and almost nothing on the sides of the screen.

Those top and bottom bezels also house symmetrically-placed and equally round fingerprint scanner and front-facing camera.

That selfie snapper is impressive in itself thanks to its high 20MP resolution and detailed selfies - more on those in the finished review.

There are two cameras on the back - a 12MP sensor with a big sensor and a bright lens and a higher resolution 20MP snapper used for zooming.

We've compiled a quick gallery of shots from Wuzhen, captured with the main 12MP snapper. We'll bring you a detailed report on the cameras of the Meizu 15 in our full review.

Meizu 15 camera samples

The retail package of the Meizu 15 covers the necessities. You get a USB-C cable, a SIM tool and a wall charger that can output 5V, 9V or 12V for up to 24W.

The Meizu 15 will cost $400 when it launches in May but feels far more refined than that price tag would suggest. The display is a 5.46-inch Super AMOLED of 1080p resolution. It offers superb contrast and colors and is easily bright enough.

The back of the Meizu 15 is made of metal and it has a brushed pattern under the glossy finish. You'll be able to grab the Meizu 15 in either Black (which we have here on display), white, blue and gold, although Meizu calls them Ink, Yakin, Indigo, White.

Underneath the nice exterior, the Meizu 15 packs a Snapdragon 660 chipset with 4GB or 6GB of RAM. The software is Meizu's brand new Flyme UI 7.0 which is based on Android 7.1.2 Nougat.

If you've ever used a Meizu phone before, you'll feel right at home with the Meizu 15. If you haven't, it's a heavily customized launcher with no app drawer and a somewhat strong iOS influence throughout.

There's a lot to cover with the Meizu 15 and we intend to miss nothing in our full review. Stay tuned.