Meizu Pro 6 Review

Meizu's Pro line includes the manufacturer's flagship smartphones for the year, together with the MX series, which offer very similar specs, but at more affordable prices. The latest model from the Pro series is the Meizu Pro 6. After its announcement in mid-April earlier this year, it has stirred up the smartphone community as being one of the main models that has aspirations for being a high-end one, while retaining an affordable price tag, which ultimately means that it will definitely be taken into consideration by potential buyers. On paper both design and specifications sound perfect, but real life experience is another story, so here it is - our in-depth review of Meizu Pro 6 in its quest of revealing as much details as possible.

Specifications

One of the most noteworthy features of the Meizu Pro 6 is its 3D pressire touch-sensitive display. It has a 5.2-inch on-cell Super AMOLED panel with an FHD resolution (1080 x 1920) and a pixel density of 423.6 ppi. It is covered with a 2.5D curved top glass layer and protected by a Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Its static contrast ratio is 10000:1, while the peak brightness is 350 cd/sq.m. A second noteworthy feature of the model is that its hardware is based on a MediaTek Helio X25 (MT6797T) chipset. It has a deca-core CPU with a tri-cluster architecture. More specifically, inside the smartphone tick two 2.5GHz Cortex-A72 cores, four 2GHz Cortex-A53 cores and another quadruplet of these, but clocked at 1.4GHz. They are coupled with an 850MHz quad-core Mali-T880 MP4 GPU and 4GB of single-channel LPDDR3 RAM clocked at 933MHz. The internal memory can be either 32GB, or 64GB and cannot be expanded. A fingerprint sensor by GoodiX with mTouch 2.1 is on board as well, embedded in the home button and providing 360-degree recognition. Other important sensors include proximity, light, accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, barometer, and Hall. The camera department includes a 21.16-megapixel primary shooter made of a Sony IMX230 Exmor RS sensor and a 6-element lens with an f/2.2 aperture and a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for protection. Its work is aided by phase detection AF, laser-assisted focus and a 10-LED flash. The latter is a ring module consisting of five pairs of dual-tone LED lights, which encloses the laser focus module. The front-facing camera includes a 5-element lens with an f/2.0 aperture and is aided by the latest Meizu beautification software. Power is supplied by a 2560 mAh Li-Pol battery that is non-removable and is coupled with mCharge 3.0 and a 5V;8V;12V/3A;3A;2A fast charger. Meizu Pro 6 runs FlyMe 5.2 OS based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow and supports a wide range of networks bands, including 2G GSM, 2.5G CDMA, 3G UMTS, 4G LTE FDD/TDD Cat. 6 ones with VoLTE. The device also supports dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 802.11n 5GHz, Wi-Fi Hostpot, Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.1 as well as GPS, Glonass, and BeiDou. A USB Type-C 3.1 and a 3.5 mm jack are provided as well. For the full list of Meizu Pro 6 specifications you can check the model's page.

What's in the box

Meizu Pro 6 is packaged in a large rectangular dark gray box with rounded corners, made of hard plastic. It has the Meizu logo on the lid and information about the model on its bottom. Inside there are two compartments. On the left hand side is the device and below it, there's an envelope with the user manual and the SIM tray pin. The device has two variants in terms of packaging - with and without earphones. Our review unit is without earphones. Their compartment is the one below the device. On the right hand side are the Type-C to USB 2.0 cable comfortably attached to a circular cable holder and the wall charger. The latter has two flat pins and no grounding area, meaning it is the US NEMA-1 plug standard. It is used in the US, Canada and some Latin American countries. If you don't reside in these areas, you will need an adapter for the plug.

Design, build and controls

There's no doubt about it. Meizu Pro 6 is meticulously crafted and the end result definitely makes an impression. For starters, it features a unibody all-metal design (98% metal ratio) with the main material being magnalium alloy used in aircrafts. This is aluminum alloy with magnesium and small amounts of nickel and tin. Each piece of metal undergoes more than 100 strict production processes, including from the bottom to the top CNC cutting and carving, PBT nano-molding, 360-degree polishing, 3D abrasive blasting and multi-color anodizing, all of which are responsible for the high-end final result. CNC cutting and carving is already widely known for providing precision and is used for making a solid frame. However, Meizu have also increased the plate thickness to slightly above 0.5 mm, thus reinforcing the body. The upgraded nano-molding process builds upon it by combining PBT injection molding material with an advanced electrochemical processing technology. The latter creates strong and deep 3D nano structures on the surface of the metal, thus increasing its cohesion with the injection molding parts. It also improves the strength and quality of the frame. Blasting speed, air pressure and other processes have been experimented with in order to discover the optimum design that provides "exquisitely fine touch". 360-degree polishing and chamfering are applied to the whole body, even to the smallest parts such as microphone and speaker holes, etc., in order to ensure perfect look and feel. The anode coating has also been improved as to allow the achievement of more intense and pure colors. Actually, Meizu Pro 6 is available in Champagne Gold, Star Black, Moonlight Silver, and we are reviewing a Star Black variant. We must say that the color is really beautiful, indeed. It is not pure black, but very dark gray with some very deep, dark violet hues. It does look premium and refined. Creating an all-metal unibody ultimately leads to employing a different-than-standard solution for the antenna design. Meizu have opted for an elegant curved antenna design that includes advanced isolation technology. The bands are beautifully colored as well, to match the main color of the device. They look as if they are an integral part of the metal rear cover, especially when there are no edges, but a single piece of metal with gently arched corners. The body meets the display unit literally seamlessly. The 2.5D curved top glass beautifully merges with the frame creating a feeling of solidity, yet fineness to the touch. Meizu Pro 6 is one of the most compact smartphones in the 5.2-inch class. More specifically, it is one of the narrowest devices with a width of 70.8 mm, while its height is close to the average for that size class - 147.7 mm. Its thickness of 7.25 mm makes it also quite thin. The weight - 160 grams - is a little above average, especially having in mind that the battery is not that large, but being an all-metal device with increased thickness of the plate, this is explicable. Another design feature of Meizu Pro 6 that makes an impression is its symmetry. This effect is achieved with an entire restructuring of some internals, without sacrificing quality. The upper microphone is right in the middle of the top frame, while the 3.5 mm jack is placed at the bottom frame along with the second microphone to the left of the USB Type-C 3.1 port. To the right of it is a single speaker. On the left frame the dual-SIM card tray is positioned, while on the right are the volume and power buttons. They are made of metal, too, and their surface is matte, while the small furrow, in which they are placed, is glossy - a nice small design touch. The position and dimensions of the front and rear cameras are redesigned. The selfie snapper is symmetrically positioned with the proximity/light sensor on both sides of the earpiece above the display. The left of the front camera there's an LED notification light. Below the display, there's a single button - the home one. It is both pressure- and touch-sensitive and similar to the ZUK Z2, the home button is the only hardware navigation tool you get. Tapping on it serves as a back function, pressing it leads to the home screen, a tap and hold activates the voice search. It even has an embedded fingerprint sensor with mTouch 2.1. The rear of the smartphone is as symmetric as all other parts. There, vertically along the center of the body, are placed a circular camera module and below it - a circular LED flash module. Actually this is a ring, which contains five pairs of warm and cold LED lights, which encircles the laser autofocus unit. Besides being an innovative design solution, it is also a very beautiful one. Below the whole setup is the Meizu logo.

Display

Meizu Pro 6 features a 5.2-inch Super AMOLED display with an FHD resolution (1080 x 1920) and a pixel density of 423.6 ppi. Protection against scratches is guaranteed by a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and the top glass layer is a 2.5D curved one. The panel has a static contrast ratio of 10000:1 and a peak brightness of 350 cd/sq.m. OLED is the abbreviation of organic light-emitting diode. This means that the layer, which emits light, is made of organic semiconductors, which by emitting light show their reaction to an electric current. This layer is placed between two electrodes. A type of OLED display is the AMOLED one. The abbreviation is for active-matrix OLED, which means that AMOLED displays include a thin-film transistor backplane, which allow each pixel to be individually switched on and off. Moreover, pixel switching response times are faster than those in classic OLED displays. A more advanced type of such displays are the Super AMOLED ones. If typical AMOLED screens remove one layer of glass and air, compared to a traditional LCD display, the Super AMOLED ones remove an additional layer. This is due to the fact that the touch-sensing layer is integrated in the screen, not overlayed on it. All of this means that the whole display unit is thinner, lighter, more responsive, reflects less light and consumes less power. Every display technology has its own specific treats. One of the AMOLED ones is the ability of such a display to transfer more power to each pixel for displaying a small white part of the screen, instead of full white. That's why a single value for the peak brightness does not depict such screens correctly. In order to do this, we use the Average Picture Level (APL) parameter. It shows the percentage of white portion on the display that is lit up compared to a full white display. After making measurements of different in size white areas on the display, we can observe the way the peak white luminance values change at one and the same brightness level (100%) with the change of the size of display area that shows white. The APL graph for the Meizu Pro 6 below shows peak white luminance dropping when measured on a 1/10 of the display to a full white image (100% APL). At 10% APL the peak brightness reaches almost 450 cd/sq.m., while at 100% APL (full white image), the peak white luminance measures 360 cd/sq.m. More interestingly, the graph demonstrates that the decrease in the white luminance is not linear. AMOLED displays are also known to display the black color as an infinite one. Due to the individual switching off of pixels, displaying black areas is even more precise. This is very often called an "infinite black" effect, meaning that the actual black luminance cannot be measured. Respectively, the static contrast ratio cannot be measured, too, with regular tools. The table below demonstrates the white luminance at different bright levels - from 100% to 0% of brightness, as well the black luminance (N/A) and the contrast ratios. It also includes data about the temperature of the white point, which is within the range of 7700-7800 K. First, the temperature does not vary within wide limits, which is good, and second it is a very good value for a smartphone display, meaning the colors are neither very warm, nor very cold. The Display settings do provide you with several tools to tweak the display of your smartphone, including color saturation and temperature.

Brightness	White luminance	Black luminance	Contrast	Color temperature
100 %	359.682 cd/m2	0.000 cd/m2	-	7717 K
75 %	212.198 cd/m2	0.000 cd/m2	-	7834 K
50 %	128.553 cd/m2	0.000 cd/m2	-	7807 K
25 %	52.449 cd/m2	0.000 cd/m2	-	7735 K
0 %	3.482 cd/m2	0.000 cd/m2	-	7659 K

Super AMOLED displays have a PenTile matrix sub-pixel design. Developed by Samsung, this pixel geometry consists of five sub-pixels - two red, two green, and a central blue one in each unit cell. However, newer Super AMOLED displays employ a variation of the PenTile matrix, called Diamond pixel. Such is the case with the Meizu Pro 6 display - check the matrix close-up below. With 94% coverage of the NTSC color space, one would expect that colors would deviate. However, the CIE diagram shows values that are close to an excellent sRGB mode coverage with normal deviations in all three color ranges. This measurement has been taken with the Display mode set at Standard from the Settings menu. If it set to Adaptive mode, than the CIE diagram shows larger deviations and it is obvious that colors are more saturated. The viewing angles are excellent with almost no loss in brightness when the display is looked at from aside. The first most noteworthy feature of Meizu Pro 6 is its Super AMOLED display that employs a 3D touch functionality. We have already tested another smartphone with such a display feature - the Gionnee S8, and we think that, if developed deeper, 3D touch would improve the way people interact with their mobile devices. 3D touch a.k.a. force touch means that the display is sensitive to the amount of pressure you put on it and reacts differently according to the different types of pressure. The display sensors can detect finger movements at a frequency of more than 100Hz, thus, capturing even slight changes in pressure. Moreover, Meizu Pro 6 provides you with haptic feedback. This means that there is an internal linear vibration motor that provides multi-level micro-vibrational feedback as a response to your touch and notifies you about various events with different vibrations. The technology monitors finger movements at a frequency of more than 100Hz. The main 3D touch function is to press a bit strongeron an app icon and get access to shortcuts of several of its main functions. All apps on the home screen and most of the apps on the second screen as well as most of those in the Tools folder support this function. When you 3D press the Settings icon, you get direct access to Wi-Fi, Accessibility and About Phone; a 3D press on the Accelerator icon, provides direct access to the app's features. A 3D press on the Dialer icon allows you to create a new contact or search among stored contacts. These are only some of the hotkey functions of the 3D Touch feature, to name a few.

OS, UI and software

We have received the Meizu Pro 6 with a webshop ROM that had Google Play services pre-installed. We did, however, install the original FlyMe OS because we wanted to test and present the real UI. It turned out that our review unit is hardware-bound to the Chinese (domestic) FlyMe OS as we tried to install the global ROM version, but the device did not recognize it as valid. So, here it is - FlyMe OS 5.2.3.0A. This is the latest software version as we received it as an update on September 27th after installing the previous one. The A at the end of the software version means that it is the Chinese one. You can recognize the international versions of the Flyme OS by the G at the end. The differences between both is mainly in the apps that are pre-installed. The Chinese version has many apps that are widely used locally and with the latest update, the number of pre-installed apps increased. FlyMe OS 5.2 builds upon the 5.1 version retaining many of its features and is deeply customized. The lock screen contains only one shortcut - to the camera app. By default notifications and media apps appear on it, but you can switch this off. On the home screen you get a row of docked apps - Dialer, Browser, Messenger and Camera. Above it there are three rows of pre-installed apps and a weather-time-search widget, which can be removed or placed elsewhere on the screen. The second screen showed eight pre-installed apps (Chinese) and the latest update added seven more. There's no app tray, all apps appear on successive screens designated by letters in alphabetical order after the home one. The Volume shade looks standard, but does not expand. It shows a corresponding volume level depending on where in the system you're at. For example, if you're listening to music, it will display the media volume, if you're on the screen - it will display the system volume, and so on. A long press on an empty space on the home screen activates the Widgets menu, which has three groups of options. The first is re-arranging of icons on the screens. The second provides a choice of wallpapers. The third one is the choice of widgets, which you can add to your home screen. In order to access the list of running apps, all you have to do is swipe up from the bottom of the screen - either from the left or the right. The area above the home button is inactive in order to avoid touching the home button by mistake. There's a Clear all function as well. The Quick Settings shade appears after you swipe once from the top of the screen downwards. There are 16 toggles, a Settings icon, and a bar for the brightness level. When there's a single notification, it appears attached below the toggles, however, if more notifications appear simultaneously, the Quick Settings shade is collapsed to a single row of toggles and expanding it needs a second swipe downwards. Another interesting feature of the UI is the ability to capture a long screenshot. This happens when you press the volume and power buttons simultaneously and hold them pressed for a while. The Settings menu looks very compact on the surface, but when you start browsing though it, you'll discover a ton of options and customizations. It starts off with the Wireless & networks section, which is standard and holds no surprises. The second main group of settings is the Sounds & notifications one, which lets you manage the Notification and the status bar, Sound and vibration, and the DND mode. The first subgroup of options includes apps notification management, Quick Settings toggles re-arrangement, and other related settings. Besides the standard ringtones and sound notifications, the Sound and vibration group includes the four main types of volume, which are grouped in a Volume folder and there's a Silent mode toggle for quick access. Moreover, this section is where the Haptic feedback settings (whether it should be strong, normal, or gentle) are along with the Earphone control calibration. The DND mode is self-explanatory and even contains a scheduling option. System is the third and largest group of settings in the menu. Its first subgroup of options is the Personalization one, from where you can choose wallpapers, themes, font types, icon styles. The second subgroups is Display and brightness. Its most interesting features are the adjustment of color temperature and color saturation (display mode). It also includes settings for the Eye-protection mode, which warms up (visually) the display for more comfortable reading at night or other low-light conditions. The Eye-protection mode can be scheduled as well. Fingerprint and security is the third subgroup and is not as extensive as expected. It lets you setup and manage fingerprint IDs, which is very easy, as well as manage the security control of your device (type of lock, app lock, etc). The Security section also provides a Guest mode in case a friend or colleague wants to use your smartphone. Language and time settings are not very interesting, so we arrive at the fifth and last main group - Accessibility. For starters, it lets you activate various gestures, with which you can interact with the device and open various apps. There's a SmartVoice wake up function, which is a voice-recognizing feature that unlocks the smartphone once it recognizes your voice password. The SmartTouch is a floating dot and it serves as another means of navigation. A tap on it means back, side up goes to the home screen, side down opens the notifications shared, and so on. You can change these properties to suite your preferences better. And now we arrive to the 3D Press settings. Depending on the strength with which you press the display you can preview content, display shortcuts or perform an operation. The picture below the settings is for testing the intensity of mPress. The FlyMe laboratory includes two experimental features, the first being a type of game and the second - regarding the style of the UI. Under Accessibility you will also discover settings for the home button and more specifically - what happens if you tap and hold it and if you tap it while typing. From this subgroup you can also adjust how the Home screen search should function, the Scheduled power on and off, and the Drive assistant, which people who have already used Meizu smartphones, should be familiar with. It is a useful tool to interact with your smartphone safely, while you're driving. There's a separate section Accessibility, which equals the standard group of Accessibility settings in Android 6.0. It is followed by extremely extensive Developer options, and of course - the About Phone info, from where you can also monitor the storage and check for updates. Chinese versions of FlyMe OS do not have Google Play services pre-installed. They contain an App Store, from which you can find the apps you need, or just use any other way you're familiar with to download and install the desired apps. The list of pre-installed apps includes Dialer and Contacts, Messenger, default Browser, Clock, Gallery, Music, Videos, Themes, Life, News, Security, App Store, Game Center, Weibo, WeChat, QQReader, several apps of online retailers, and other similar ones, mainly with content in Chinese. There's a Flyme Tools folder as well, which contains the Calculator, Calendar, Files (explorer), Notes, Weather, Toolbox, Map, Update, EBook, AccountCenter, Recorder, Email, DownLoad, SmartVoice, UserSupport. The Dialer and Contacts is actually one app, but two different icons lead to the corresponding tab inside the app. It also includes a third function - Yellow Pages. The File explorer is standard as in other UIs by Chinese manufacturers and is very convenient to use. The Messenger does what it is expected to do and has a keyboard with extended settings and functions for more convenient and fast typing. The Notes app is very simple and you can choose from several offline and online templates. The default Browser is fast and easy to use. It offers a night mode, built-in ad blocker, incognito mode and no image mode for decreasing traffic. The Calculator has three tabs for standard and scientific calculations as well as for currency and measurement converters. The Calendar is also very simple and easy to use. The Clock app has four different tabs for the four functions. The Music app is explained in detail in the Audio section, but it follows the same structural logic, like all other custom apps. So does the Videos one. Its home screen is like a hub to online and offline content with various settings. The SmartVoice and Voice Recorder are self-explanatory. The Security app is rather extensive and provides various useful tools for software protection and performance optimization. These tools include a Cleaner, Accelerator, Data manager, Harassment Blocking, Permissions, Power, Files, and Anti-Virus. They work at system level and monitor unstable operations, report potential threats to the Cloud for analysis and troubleshoot to prevent damage to the system. The Power tool is created to optimize battery performance and will be described in detail in the Battery section of this review. Optimizing system codes, compressing, preventing apps being activated by each other, smart allocation of memory between apps and other improvements make the device run smoother and faster. There's a Toolbox app as well, which contains a Flashlight, Mirror (activated front-facing camera), Compass, Level, Ruler and Magnifier (by using the rear camera). You cam also choose to place shortcuts to one, some or all of these on the home screen (suffice there is enough space on it). The Themes app duplicates the Themes and Wallpapers groups of settings. It opens a home page, dedicated to themes and wallpapers and provides options for changing the current ones with themes and wallpapers that are already stored in the device or others, which have to be downloaded. There are also two apps for fans of reading - EBook and QQReader, as well as an app for downloading and enjoying games.

Networks, calls and connectivity

Meizu Pro 6 has a dual-SIM card slot, which is not hybrid as it does not provide an option for placing a storage card. It can house two nano-SIM cards, both with 4G LTE support. The exact network bands supported by the model are: 2G GSM (850, 900, 180, 1900 MHz), 2.5G CDMA 800 MHz, 3G TD-SCDMA (1880-1920 and 2010-2025 MHz), 3G UMTS (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz), 4G FDD-LTE (1800, 2100, 2600 MHz) and 4G TDD-LTE (1900, 2300, 2500, 2600 MHz). 4G speeds are Cat. 6 ones. Meizu Pro 6 also supports VoLTE and provides excellent call quality. Its wireless connectivity options include dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, 802.11n 5GHz, Wi-Fi Hostpot, Wi-Fi Display, and Bluetooth 4.1. We haven't experienced any issues with Wi-Fi connections, the model does a great job in detecting and connecting to such. It also features the latest generation USB Type-C 3.1 port. In terms of satellite navigation, the device supports GPS, Glonass and BeiDou, and during our test managed to detect satellites from all three systems with very good accuracy.

Performance

Meizu Pro 6 runs the current top MediaTek chipset - the deca-core Helio X25, also denoted as MT6797T. It is also the first smartphone with this chipset that we review. This system-on-chip is actually an overclocked Helio X20. It has the same tree-cluster CPU architecture with two Cortex-A72 cores clocked at 2.5GHz, four Cortex-A53 clocked at 2GHz and four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.4GHz. The quad-core Mali-T880 MP4 GPU is also overclocked to 850MHz. The three-cluster structure is created to provide more processing scenarios in order to provide better performance and power efficiency. Meizu developers have also made software optimization via FlyMe OS, which analyzes which apps are used most often and assigns in-depth core scheduling and tendering pre-acceleration, so the system decreases retarding and frame loss. Our review unit scored 101157 in AnTuTu, which places it right below the smartphones based on the top Qualcomm chipset - Snapdragon 820 and above all others. Curious enough, the PCMark Work performance score of Meizu Pro 6 is close to that of Vernee Apollo Lite, but is lower than the one of Zopo Speed 8, both of which run Helio X20. As long as it concerns 3DMark tests, the Pro 6 scores less than the Apollo Lite and Speed 8, which is an indicator of a weaker than expected work of the GPU. Nevertheless, the device is fast enough and you can run most games and apps without problems, but forget about heavy graphics games and apps. Meizu Pro 6 packs 4GB of single-channel, LPDDR3 RAM clocked at 933MHz. Even though the RAM is of older generation, it is quite generous even for current standards and you won't feel it, even if you have a number of apps running in the background. The internal memory can be either 32GB or 64GB and is not expandable. Our review unit has 32GB of storage. The PCMark Storage score shows an amazing result, while the Androbench results show reading and writing speeds from/to memory that are on par with those of eMMC 5.1 types of internal memory. Of 32GB, 21GB are available for the user. Meizu refers to the package of on-board sensors as to "Sensor Hub", which includes a proximity, light, accelerometer, compass, gyroscope, barometer, and Hall sensor. There's a LifeKit algorithm for tracking sports and health status. The fingerprint sensor, embedded in the home button is equipped with the mTouch 2.1 software. Made by GOODiX, it provides 360-degree recognition and you can store up to 5 fingerprint IDs. The sensor unlocks fast, even when the screen is off.

Cameras

The camera app of FlyMe OS 5.2 remains unchanged compared to the one of FlyMe OS 5.1. The start screen has a large, circular shutter button with a shortcut to the various camera modes to the left of it and a shortcut to the photo gallery to its right. On the top of the screen from the lest to the right are placed a shortcut for the flash settings, timer, camera switch, and the settings icon. The various modes include a manual one, which lets you adjust contrast, saturation, exposure, white balance, ISO, etc. A panorama and macro mode are also on board. You can use the camera as a bar-code scanner as well as to make animated GIF files. From the modes you also switch from photo to video shooting, which also provides a slow-motion mode.

Primary camera

Meizu Pro 6 features Sony's largest camera sensor to date - the 21.16-megapixel Sony IMX230 Exmor RS one. Meizu developers have customized the entire camera assembly with the 6-element lens, focus motor and all. The shooter also benefits from phase-detection auto-focus and the auxiliary laser-focus along with an entirely new graphic engine to optimize color saturation, white balance, etc. The lens has an f/2.2 aperture and is protected by a Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Finally, Meizu Pro 6 has an impressively designed 10-LED flash. It has the shape of ring, which encircles the laser focus unit and contains five pairs of warm and cold LED lights. They succumb to an advanced collaboration algorithm as to provide natural color rendering and temperature. The primary camera of Meizu Pro 6 makes photos with a resolution of 5344 x 4016 pixels and 4K videos (3840 x 2160) at 30 fps. The same camera sensor resides in the Zopo Speed 8, LeEco Le 2 (X620), and LeEco Le Max 2 (X820).

Secondary camera

For the front-facing camera, Meizu have opted for a 5-megapixel OmniVision OV5695 sensor coupled with a 5-element lens with an f/2.0 aperture. An interesting feature of this shooter is that every pixel is enlarged to 1.4 μm, so more light is received by the sensor, which, in theory, ultimately ends up in better photos. The camera utilizes a new ISP engine and the latest Meizu beauty algorithm - FotoNation 2.0 smart beauty. Finally, the camera unit has been placed at the upper middle of the smartphone in order to provide a natural shooting angle. It makes images with a resolution of 2560 x 1920 pixels.

Audio

Like all FlyMe apps, the music one serves as a hub with access to tons of online content - some paid, some free, some needing a prior login to your FlyMe account. The home screen of the app shows a shortcut to online and offline playlists, charts, selection of online radios and ringtones for download. There are also links to trending music online and at the bottom of the screen the actual music player is collapsed. When you click on the Local tab at the bottom of the screen you get access to your music downloads, offline radios, your playlists and recently added music files. The music player itself displays a cover photo of the album you're listening to, with options to get more info about the album and the artist, to set the current song as a ring tone, etc. You may also add a song to a list of favourites and shuffle the files in your playlists. There is no special software for audio enhancement, just a normal equalizer with several pre-set music profiles (rock, jazz, classic) and an option for you to create one according to your taste. We do our audio test by using the TASCAM US-2x2 audio interface and the RightMark Audio Analyzer software. Meizu Pro 6 has shown a Very good result in almost all parameters of the test, the only exception being the THD + Noise one, in which the device showed a Good mark. This is the first smartphone we test that does not excel in frequency response, but its overall result is Very good. Meizu is equipped with a Cirrus Logic CS43L36 chip for H-Fi audio through earphones and a single speaker coupled with a Smart PA NXP Gen 3 class-D amplifier - TFA9911UK, located behind the speaker grille to the right of the USB Type-C port at the bottom frame of the smartphone. The speaker, actually, sounds very good.

Test	Value	RMAA rating
Frequency response (from 40 Hz to 15 kHz), dB	+0.02, -0.14	Very good
Noise level, dB (A)	-94.3	Very good
Dynamic range, dB (A)	94.3	Very good
THD, %	0.0068	Very good
THD + Noise, dB (A)	-80.3	Good
IMD + Noise, %	0.0087	Very good
Stereo crosstalk, dB	-83.8	Very good
IMD at 10 kHz, %	0.017	Very good
General performance		Very good

Battery

The battery "app" is actually a combination of battery settings as part of the Settings menu and the Power tab from the Security app. The Battery settings include a bar displaying the percentage of battery charge and remaining time till it depletes completely. There is a ranking among apps and hardware parts depending on their power consumption and of course there's a battery monitor. You can choose from three power modes - saving, balance and performance. Balance is selected by default. There is also a More modes feature, which actually "redirects" to the Power tab in the Security app. From there you can activate a power mode of your choice. There are low power and super power modes. Both deactivated by default. You can change their pre-set parameters to serve you better. There's a customize mode, too, in which you can change all parameters to create a mode that corresponds better to a specific situation. The Scheduled power on and off feature can be found under Settings>Accessibility. Meizu Pro 6 is equipped with a 2560 mAh Li-Pol battery that is non-removable. It is coupled with a fast charger (US plug standard) that has an output power of 5V/3A, 8V/3A, or 12V/2A. It works along with Meizu's mCharge 3.0 tech. The graph below demonstrates the time, needed for the battery to charge in full from 0% to 100% and the battery temperature changes during charging. Our review unit needed only 1 hour and 5 minutes to charge completely. The first 20% of the charge were reached in 7 minutes and for the battery to reach 50% of its charge from 0% only 25 minutes were needed. The quick charging rate persisted till the capacity reached 82% and then it started to gradually slow down, especially after reaching 90%. The last 10% to 100% needed 17 minutes to be completed. At the same time the battery temperature did not exceed 37-38 degrees Celsius, while charging. The highest temperature point was reached at 25% of the battery's capacity and remained almost the same with slight ups and downs till the battery's capacity reached 80% and then the temperature started to drop down along with the charging speed. As long as it concerns battery stamina, Meizu Pro 6 does a very good job, at least according to PCMark's Work battery life test. With a score of 6 hours and 22 minutes for a 2560 mAh battery, it actually does better than other devices with larger batteries. Of course the test has been performed with the display's brightness calibrated at 200 nits as per Futuremark's recommendations.

Final thoughts

Meizu Pro 6 is one of those smartphones that subtly "grow" into you, until you grasp that this piece of craft deserves deep appreciation. Meizu have definitely tried and succeeded to do their current best with this model in terms of design. It takes some time with the device and a bit more looking into it, in order to see the perfection even in the smallest details. Meizu Pro 6 is, indeed, a smartphone made with inspiration and love for detail. Its design is genuinely beautiful in its simple symmetry and employs high-end materials to guarantee top build quality, looks and feel. Packing a number of innovative features like a 3D touch Super AMOLED display with very good quality, a better-than-average camera with a 10-LED ring flash, very good audio and the most powerful MediaTek chipset as of yet, the device guarantees excellent user experience. FlyMe OS is intuitive and won't be a problem (even with the Chinese ROM, language can be localized), especially if you have prior experience with other customized UIs by Chinese manufacturers. All in all this makes the Meizu Pro 6 one of the serious contenders for the users' hearts and minds that falls in the $300-something price range.