Meizu 15: smartphone review

Content:

Getting to know your smartphone
Specifications Meizu 15
Meizu 15 Camera Review
conclusions

Getting to know your smartphone

Meizu recently celebrated its fifteenth birthday. During this time, the brand went a difficult and thorny path, releasing music players first, and subsequently entering the smartphone market. I recognized Meizu from the 2013 flagship MX3. Then it was an extremely interesting smartphone with a good camera, and it also sounded great thanks to a dedicated audio chip. The latter made it possible to call the smartphone one of the first musical flagships. Get Meizu 15 Price In honor of its anniversary, Meizu introduced two smartphones at once, incorporating all the best from the brand: Meizu 15 and 15 Plus. Moreover, the company abandoned last year’s revolutionary solution with a small additional screen on the back wall, making classic flagships. Meizu 15 came to Russia first. Interestingly, the difference between the two flagships is small: the diagonal of the display, the size and capacity of the battery. But there is one more important detail - different processors. In the usual “tag” stands Qualcomm Snapdragon 660, which proved to be excellent, but in power it is inferior to Snapdragon 845, essentially representing the middle class of chipsets. But in the Plus version, the Exynos 8895 Octa processor is installed: the flagship-level Samsung chipset. Prior to that, it was installed in the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 + smartphones, as well as Note 8. Of course, we can say that Samsung cleans the warehouses and that’s why Meizu 15 Plus received a batch of these processors, but the chipsets have proven themselves, built on a 10 nm manufacturing process and still not out of date. Technically, the camera blocks are also almost the same, the only difference is in the post-processing processes. So the models 15 and 15 Plus are still not identical. Therefore, this test is relevant only for Meizu 15, and we hope to test Meizu 15 Plus separately a little later. Meizu 15 has a dual camera unit with wide-angle and telephoto lenses. The main one in this case is a wide-angle camera. A Sony IMX350 sensor with a resolution of 20 megapixels is installed here. Its physical size is 1 / 2.8 inches. The equivalent focal length of the lens is 25 mm, and the aperture is F1.8. The second camera is a Sony IMX380 sensor with a resolution of 12 megapixels and a size of 1 / 2.3 inches. A lens with an equivalent focal length of 38 mm and aperture F2.6 is mounted here. Thus, a lens that physically cannot do 2x optical zoom is responsible for double optical zoom and triple hybrid. We saw similar in Xiaomi Mi MIX 2S . This is a bit different, since there is both optical zoom and a higher resolution in the matrix of the main camera. In addition, the camera has phase autofocus and a laser rangefinder, as well as a ring two-tone flash. The front camera uses a sensor with a resolution of 20 megapixels and an aperture lens F2.0.

Specifications Meizu 15
Screen	5.46 inches, Super AMOLED, aspect ratio 16: 9, 1920 × 1080, 403 ppi
CPU	Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 2.2 GHz
RAM	4 GB
Built-in memory	Not supported
Memory card	Not supported
SIM	Dual SIM Support
The fingerprint scanner	Yes, front (mTouch)
Audio jack	Yes, 3.5 mm
Communications	LTE Cat.6, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2, USB Type-C
Geolocation	A-GPS, GLONASS, Beidou
Additionally	MTouch Linear Key
Battery	3000 mAh non-removable. Fast charge supported

Meizu 15 Camera Review

In this case, one cannot but say a few words about the camera application. On the one hand, it is very friendly in terms of interface: all the controls on the main screen, everything is at hand, you can turn on the level and the grid. On the other hand, the watermark is turned on by default (you will see this on most pictures), the sizes of photographs are not clear, since there is no resolution in the settings, you can only select the aspect ratio. Anyway, there are not many settings here. Resolution appears only once in manual mode: an icon with the explanation “Enable HD resolution”. In general, this interface seemed a little strange to us. In the afternoon, in good light conditions, the Meizu 15 camera showed excellent results. We shot with a 4: 3 aspect ratio and got 12-megapixel pictures on both the main and the camera with a telephoto lens. We liked the quality of the pictures: natural color rendition, high detail. Exceptional contour sharpness, better known as oversharp, can be noted, but it is noticeable only on one hundred percent crop. We also noted glare that may appear when shooting against the light: in some cases, they can be used as an artistic effect, but it is unlikely that everyone and everyone will like it.

15 Installations: ISO 51, F1.8, 1/4630 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 57, F1.8, 1/2597 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 50, F1.8, 1/1133 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 55, F1.8, 1/4255 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 50, F1.8, 1/237 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 50, F1.8, 1/224 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 50, F1.8, 1/4630 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 50, F1.8, 1/7092 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

The Meizu 15 camera has dual optical zoom and triple hybrid zoom. The double zoom works confidently and performs its functions well, but the hybrid triple zoom is rather weak: it is clear that this is nothing more than a crop of images.

15 Installations: ISO 50, F1.8, 1/2475 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 50, F2.6, 1/659 s, 39.0 mm equiv.

15 Settings: ISO 50, F2.6, 1/680 s, 39.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 69, F1.8, 1/495 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Settings: ISO 85, F2.6, 1/100 s, 39.0 mm equiv.

Available and the usual for smartphones shooting function with an extended dynamic range of HDR. However, her work can be compared with the imposition of the effect. In the photo of the red car, new parts literally appeared. The overexposure from the setting sun has gone a little, but most of all the changes are in the dark areas: car, brickwork and window frames. 15 Installations: ISO 126, F1.8, 1/1075 s, 25.0 mm equiv. 15 Installations: ISO 50, F1.8, 1/426 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 113, F1.8, 1/5076 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

Thanks to the use of a dual camera, Meizu 15 has a portrait mode that works quite accurately. Moreover, for its correct operation, the presence of the model in the frame is not necessary: ??the device recognizes not only the person, but also the contours of other objects, blurring the background.

15 Installations: ISO 85, F1.8, 1/818 s, 4.6 mm equiv.

In the panorama mode, Meizu 15 feels rather well: gluing is almost invisible, but there are slight distortions of the geometry of the objects. There are also problems when working with light: in bright sun there may be overexposures, or the whole panorama will be too dark. Meizu 15 also performed well in the room: the right colors and white balance, accurate focus work.

15 Installations: ISO 62, F1.8, 1/985 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 53, F1.8, 1/630 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 50, F1.8, 1/103 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 53, F1.8, 1/33 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Settings: ISO 66, F1.8, 1/100 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Settings: ISO 76, F1.8, 1/33 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

In low light conditions, the camera also feels rather well, providing the correct color reproduction and good detail. But not everything is perfect: greases from increased exposure, noise and artifacts may appear.

15 Installations: ISO 795, F1.8, 1/33 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 317, F1.8, 1/33 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 337, F1.8, 1/33 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

15 Installations: ISO 509, F1.8, 1/33 s, 25.0 mm equiv.

Meizu 15 can record videos in 4K resolution. The device has four-axis stabilization, but it does not save from hand trembling. And with very good image quality, the video suffers from a “shake”. It is also necessary to hold the smartphone very carefully, because it is easy to close the microphone and get a muffled sound at the output. The device can record video in slow motion. It turns out very well. Quality - HD. The front camera with a resolution of 20 megapixels does its job well: self-portraits are high-quality and clear. We note the correct colors and only three degrees of beauty - off (this was used), weak and strong.

15 Installations: ISO 50, F2, 1/86 s, Unknown equiv.

conclusions

Unfortunately, last year we were not able to test the interesting and innovative Meizu Pro 7, so we forgot a little about how well this Chinese company can make smartphones. Meizu 15 is not only versatile and good on camera, it is also pleasant in appearance, although some design decisions are surprising. We tested the blue version with a polished aluminum back cover and regret that the smartphone for some reason is very dirty. In addition, antenna inserts seemed controversial, namely the ancient Greek pattern on them, not explainable either from a practical point of view or from a design point of view. We also noted a slightly protruding camera unit. In 2018, seeing the flagship smartphone with an aspect ratio of 16: 9 is at least strange. At the same time, the side frames are very small. Unfortunately, we noticed false positives when holding a smartphone - this is not very pleasant. Of the pluses, in addition to a decent filling, it is worth noting the updated branded mTouch button, which received a linear drive similar to the one on the iPhone. And the feeling of the click is very similar: we liked the vibration response. We noted, albeit a strange aspect ratio (16: 9), but a very high-quality Super AMOLED display. Meizu 15 is a rare representative of smartphones: it is convenient for them to use with one hand. It is also worth noting the 3.5 audio jack, which, coupled with the DAC (according to the Meizu tradition), allows you to give great sound to the headphones. The shell familiar to Meizu is Flyme. Comfortable, but almost unchanged in appearance for many years. We also regretted the relatively small 3000 mAh battery. As for the camera, it turned out to be universal and coped quite well with all the basic tasks. In the afternoon, indoors, in low light conditions - everywhere she showed herself well. It can be noted, perhaps, that there is a small oversharp, poor operation of the hybrid zoom and insufficient stabilization in video mode. We also consider the camera application as a minus: it is so simple that it becomes unclear in what resolution the camera shoots. We can note the absence of the RAW format, which for the flagship can be considered a flaw. In this case, it is worth saying a compliment to the front camera. We really liked it - the selfies turned out great! Pros: