Meizu MX review: Amaze U

Phonebook could use more SNS

The phonebook on the Meizu MX is pretty basic. At its core is a list of all contacts but you can view only a specific group or filter where contracts come from - phone contacts, email account or a Meizu account.

You can't add Facebook or Twitter or any social network out of the box. Installing the Facebook or Twitter app will allow you to sync your contacts from there. You can link contacts, but the functionality is annoyingly limited.

The phonebook • Searching through the contacts list

The phonebook will automatically link contacts with the same name, but that's it. You can't manually link or unlink contacts.

You can only edit contacts saved locally

Viewing a contact's info shows you all the available info and that's about it. We liked how phone numbers are listed though - the whole line is a button that will dial the number, but there's a message icon to the right to send a text message instead.

Viewing a contact's details

The phonebook is a part of the same app as the dialer and the call log, but there's a fourth tab that lets you search contacts (which is identical to the phonebook tab save for the search field on top). You can use the alphabet scroll too.

Telephony

The Meizu MX had no issues with signal reception and the in-call sound was good, though not very loud even at the loudest setting.

The dialer of the Meizu MX lacks smart dialing but it does have one interesting trick - dial a number and it will tell you the country (e.g. "United States" for a number starting with +1, "United Kingdom" for +44 and so on).

Dialing a number (note the country code recognition) • In a call with Dexter • Vibrate on connection option

During a call, the proximity sensor will lock the screen when you put the phone next to your ear. There's an option for the phone to vibrate when the call is connected, so you won't miss it.

The call log is the first tab of the telephony app and it keeps a list of all your recent calls.

The call log • You can mass delete log entries

It turned out that there is a way to set custom ringtones, but we missed it at first. You need to copy the ringtone you want to the special Ringtones folder, which will make it accessible in the Settings menu. You can't just use the music player like on most Androids.

We performed our traditional loudspeaker test on the Meizu MX and it scored an Average mark. Here's how it stacks up against the competition.

Speakerphone test	Voice, dB	Pink noise/ Music, dB	Ringing phone, dB	Overall score
Apple iPhone 4	65.1	60.3	66.2	Below Average
Meizu MX	66.7	64.6	72.7	Average
Apple iPhone 4S	65.8	64.5	74.6	Average
HTC Sensation XE	65.8	65.4	76.9	Good
Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II	70.0	66.6	75.7	Good
Motorola RAZR XT910	74.7	66.6	82.1	Very Good
HTC Titan	75.8	66.2	82.7	Very Good
HTC Desire	76.6	75.7	84.6	Excellent

Messaging is iOS like

The messaging department is quite straightforward: there are no folders here, just a new message button. Under that button is a list of all your messages organized into threads.

Viewing the message threads

There’s application-specific search that lets you quickly find a given message among all your stored SMS and MMS.

When composing a message, the input field starts out at only one line tall, but will grow to up to seven lines if need be. To the left of it is a smiley button.

To add message recipients, just start typing the corresponding name or number and choose from the contacts offered.

Adding recipients • Viewing a thread • Multi-line input box • Smilie keyboard

When you add multimedia content to the message, it is automatically turned into an MMS. You can either quickly add a photo or an audio file to go with the text or compose an MMS using all the available features (like multiple slides, slide timing, layout, etc.). The multiple slides are all shown inside the compose box.

Adding any multimedia content automatically turns an SMS into an MMS

Batch operations are enabled for multiple threads - Mark as spam and Delete are available.

Moving on to email, there's the standard Gmail app available along with a generic email client. The Gmail app supports batch operations, which allows multiple emails to be archived, labeled or deleted. Multiple Gmail accounts are also supported.

The Gmail should be pretty familiar to everyone by now

The generic email client supports multiple POP or IMAP inboxes and you have access to the original folders that are created online, side by side with the standard local ones such as inbox, drafts and sent items.

Switching between accounts is pretty easy. The top row holds two labels – the first is the name of the inbox you’re currently viewing (tap it to change the inbox) and the one next to it is the name of the current folder (again, tap to change it). There's no combined inbox unfortunately.

The standard email app also does a good job

Batch operations are supported by the email client though - Mark, Filter and Delete are the available options. Filter acts against spam to weed out unwanted email addresses.

Google Talk handles the Instant Messaging department. The G-Talk network is compatible with a variety of popular clients like Pidgin, Kopete, iChat and Ovi Contacts.

Text entry is handled by a custom keyboard with well-spaced keys. It's quite easy to use and the relatively big screen helps too. Weirdly, there's no landscape mode anywhere in the messaging department, so you'll rarely get to use the roomier landscape keyboard (it is available if the app supports landscape).

The big display makes for a big, comfy keyboard but the landscape keyboard is a rare occurrence