Xiaomi Mi6 and Meizu Pro 7 are the best flagships in the manufacturers' lines at the beginning of 2018. Both phones are based on cool mobile processors, equipped with TOP cameras and screens. Which one is better? - a topical question, we will try to answer it.

Xiaomi Mi6

Comparison of characteristics

For clarity, we will indicate the main parameters of both phones in the table.

At approximately the same price, the flagships have different characteristics. The obvious differences are the screen, the processor. Also, “Meizu” uses a cool audio chip and an additional screen on the back - this cannot be boasted by Xiaomi. But he got more RAM and a battery. There are differences in the cameras - below we present the photos taken with both smartphones. Let's start the comparison with the most significant difference - the CPU.

Comparison: Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 vs Mediatek Helio P25

Qualcomm and Mediatek are competing brands. Xiaomi, Google, OnePlus and even Samsung use Snadpragon chips in their phones, while Metiatek processors are mainly purchased by Meizu. They are also used in other smartphones from lesser-known brands. Qualcomm's chips are said to be better.

Snapdragon 835 is the company's latest processor at the beginning of 2018. It was created using a 10nm process technology and has the following characteristics:

1. 8 Kryo 280 cores 2.45 and 1.9 GHz.
2. Dual channel LPDDR4X 1866 GHz.
3. Graphics core Adreno 540 at 710 MHz.
4. Dedicated signal processor Hexagon 682 DSP.
5. Dedicated chip to support Specrta 180 ISP dual camera.
6. 4K video recording at 60 frames per second.
7. Support for 4K displays.
8. Built-in LTE Cat.16 modem providing data transfer rates up to 1 Gbps. Unfortunately, there are no networks in Russia that could provide such a speed.
9. Qualcomm QuickCharge 4.0 fast charging (more on this). According to the manufacturer, the technology allows you to charge the phone up to 50% in 15 minutes.
10. Performance in Antutu on Xiaomi Mi6 - 181118 points. This is a record among Android platforms.

The Helio P25 used in the Meizu Pro 7 was introduced in early 2017. At that time, it was the flagship, but today its characteristics are far inferior to the TOP chips, including the 835 "snap". Its parameters:

1. 16nm process technology (10nm from a competitor).
2. 8 cores of energy efficient Cortex-A53 cores (versus 8 high-performance ones in Snapdragon 835).
3. Supports 1.6 GHz LPDDR4.
4. Integrated graphics ARM Mali T-880 MP2 at 900 MHz.
5. ISP chip to support dual-module camera.
6. Supports FullHD displays with a maximum frame rate of up to 30 frames per second.
7. The ability to record video in 4K resolution at 30 FPS (835th snap in this resolution can record video at 60 FPS).
8. Built-in LTE Cat.6 modem (versus LTE Cat.16).
9. Supports fast charging technology.
10. The test result in the Antutu benchmark - 67521 points.

Obviously, the Xiaomi Mi6 outperforms its competitor in terms of performance. Its Snapdragon 835 processor is head and shoulders above the weak Helio P25. However, it is worth recalling that the flagship Meizu Pro 6 plus (older version) received a more powerful 10-core Helio X30, which can “compete” with the latest chip from Qualcomm.

We will not consider the screens - they are almost the same. And although the technologies are different (AMOLED vs IPS), the picture is displayed perfectly on both.

Comparison of cameras

And although the phones received dual-module sensors, which in theory should affect the quality of images due to the receipt of more light on the matrix, they are poorly implemented. Of course, the detail and color rendition of the cameras has increased, as well as the dynamic range, but nothing supernatural has been achieved.

Let's start with Mi6. The phone received sensors with different focal lengths. The main lens is wide-angle with optical stabilization. During the day, the photos are cool, in the evening they are noisy. Sometimes in daylight, poorly dynamic scenes are blurred.

Examples of sneaks on Xiaomi Mi6

All images open in full resolution on click.

The dynamic range is wide - this is especially noticeable in the second photo. Notice the gray clouds and clear blue sky, as well as the dark visible areas under the bridge.

As for the Meizu Pro 7, here even the camera characteristics raise questions: why is there no optical stabilization in the flagship? Is it possible that a modern phone of this level has f / 2 optics? Even some state employees use lenses with aperture f / 1.8. And most importantly, this phone does not even have laser focusing, although it was in Meizu Pro 6.

Sample photos on Meizu Pro 7

All images are clickable - open in full resolution when clicked.

Night shots with strong noise
Bokeh effect

To be honest, the pictures are good, although initially it seems that the results should be worse. If Meizu used optical stabilization and laser focusing, then the camera would outperform the Xiaomi Mi6 sensors. In the meantime, they are on the same level. I was very upset with the quality of the picture taken in the evening - a lot of noise despite the excessively active noise reduction.

Peculiarities

The main feature of Meizu is an additional screen on the back side. This is an AMOLED display with a diagonal of 1.9 inches and a resolution of 240x536. In the phone settings there is a category "Second screen", where you can install different modules for display: camera, pedometer, weather, notifications, etc. Although this display is touch-sensitive, it has little functionality. You cannot answer a call on it, let alone make a call, there is no way to rewind music. However, it conveniently displays the number of steps taken, weather, date, time. This screen can be used as a mirror for selfies, and this is where its possibilities end.

The second feature is the Cirrus Logic CS43130 audio chip. Traditionally, the Meizu company installs cool sound chips in its phones, which provide high-quality sound in headphones and speakers. However, it is impossible to single out something special.

Xiaomi Mi6 does not have any unique features. Its main "weapon" is a powerful modern Snapdragon 835 processor. It is thanks to it that Mi6 wins in this rating, and this victory is well deserved. The Pro 7 is a weak smartphone that can hardly be called a flagship by modern standards.

Meizu Pro 7 powered by Mediatek Helio X30 processor

These phones are mainly sold in stores with Helio P25 processors, but there are also more advanced versions (Pro 7 Plus) with Helio X30 chips. These are powerful 10nm processors, they are equipped with 10 cores, divided into 3 clusters.

In 2015-2016, Meizu released new smartphone models one after another. In two years, the company has announced twenty-one new products. The devices differed little from each other, sometimes the difference between the models had to be looked for, if not under a microscope, then with a magnifying glass. The experiment with an additional screen on the rear panel, which the company went to in the flagship Pro 7 model, looks even more unexpected. Let's study it and see how successful this experiment turned out to be and what, in addition to it, is interesting for the compact flagship Meizu.

It should be noted that Meizu worked closely with MediaTek on many aspects of the smartphone, and for both companies, the implementation of the second display was a novelty. The Pro 7 model exists with the Helio P25 and Helio X30 processors, however the small smartphone with the X30 will not be sold anywhere other than the Chinese market. Therefore, hereinafter we will talk about Pro 7 on Helio P25.

Specifications Meizu Pro 7:

• Network: GSM (Band 2, 3, 5, 8), CDMA (BC0), WCDMA (Band 1, 2, 5, 8), TD-SCDMA (Band 34, 39), FDD-LTE (Band 1, 3, 5, 7, 20), TDD-LTE (Band 38, 39, 40, 41)
• Platform: Android 7.0 Nougat with Flyme OS 6 firmware
• Main display: 5.2 ", 1920 x 1080 pixels, 423 ppi, 10,000: 1, 350 nits, SuperAMOLED, 2.5D-glass, 10-point multitouch
• Additional display: 1.9 ", 536x240 pixels, 307 ppi, 10,000: 1, 350 nits, AMOLED
• Camera: dual (b / w + color), 12 MP + 12 MP, Sony IMX386, f / 2.0, phase focus, 6 lenses, dual LED flash of different tones,
• Front camera: 16 MP, f / 2.0, 5 lenses
• Processor: 8 cores Cortex-A53, 4 x 2.6 GHz + 4 x 1.6 GHz, 16 nm, MediaTek Helio P25
• Graphics chip: Mali-T880MP2, 1GHz
• RAM: 4GB LPDDR4X
• Internal memory: 64GB (eMMC 5.1)
• Memory card: no
• A-GPS, GLONASS
• Wi-Fi (802.11a / b / g / n)
• Bluetooth 4.2LE
• Ports: USB Type-C, 3.5mm
• Two nano-SIM slots
• MTouch 2.1 Fingerprint Scanner
• Audio: Hi-Fi DAC Cirrus Logic CS43130, SmartPA
• Battery: non-removable, 3000 mAh, fast charging mCharge 3.0
• Dimensions: 147.62 x 70.72 x 7.3mm
• Weight: 163g

Video review and unpacking

Complete set and design

Meizu Pro 7 comes in an unusual black plastic box. The kit includes the smartphone itself, a needle for ejecting SIM trays, a USB cable, an mCharge 3.0 charger (up to 24 W), documentation and - which is very unusual for Meizu - a case. A simple hard case that protects the smartphone from the back and sides, and also protrudes slightly above the front panel to protect the screen. The case is easily scratched and deprives you of the buzz from touching the metal case, but the smartphone protects - and this is the main thing.

In Russia, Meizu Pro 7 is available in black, red and gold. All colors are matte. I like the red and black colors the most. Red - because the combination of a red back and a black apron, which, unfortunately, Apple did not think of, looks very cool. And black - because in this color the second display does not stand out. In the red version, the display unit also, surprisingly, fits organically. What can not be said about gold - there the screen looks very alien.

I liked the design of the black Meizu Pro 7. The device looks very neat, all the elements are in place. Plastic strips merge with the body. If you don't know about them, you might not even notice. Perhaps, the second screen could have been beaten better, but the option chosen by Meizu does not seem to be unfortunate. And the recessed vertical company logo, sent to the bottom right corner, looks very appropriate and advantageous. There is no scattering of round holes above the screen - only the front camera's peephole. The light and proximity sensors are neatly placed in the cutout for the speaker grill. An interesting solution, this was the case with Smartisan.

The smartphone is small (5.2 "plus small frames on the left and right), the location of all the controls is good, the fingerprint scanner is in its best place - under the screen, so ergonomics should be at its best. However, not everything is so smooth. More precisely, everything is too much smooth: Meizu overdid it a bit with polishing the phone, and it turned out to be slippery. I will sound an engineering miscalculation - the only multimedia speaker is located on the left side of the bottom end, and it is very easy to block it. By the way, some other Chinese manufacturers are guilty of the same (OnePlus 5 is one example). The assembly is perfect.

The main SuperAMOLED screen has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels with a diagonal of 5.2 ". The pixel density is 423 ppi. The display brightness is 350 nits. For outdoor use on a sunny day, there is enough end-to-end. As is traditional for OLED screens, the black color is very deep, but white is not up to par (but not particularly annoying.) PenTile is noticeable if you look closely, but under normal use it also does not cause discomfort. Viewing angles are maximum, noticeable inversions appear only when looking almost along the display.

At first glance, it may seem that there is no LED indicator in the Meizu Pro 7, but it is there - to the left of the speaker, it reacts to missed events. The mTouch fingerprint scanner is in its usual place - below the screen. This is a button, pressing which means “home”, and touching it means “back”. The multitasking menu opens with a swipe up (or from right to left, if changed in the settings), there are no buttons for it. For those who switch to Meizu, such a control system may be unusual at first, but in one or two days you completely get used to it and begin to consider it convenient and well thought out.

Software

Meizu Pro 7 is based on Flyme OS firmware based on Android 7.0 Nougat operating system. The Flyme OS version itself is 6. As I said in the Meizu M3E review (link), there are a lot of small changes in it, but nothing revolutionary. All functions that we have never seen before concern the second screen, and we will talk about them separately. The shell is pleasant and convenient, I have no complaints about the stability of its work.

Second screen

It's time to talk separately about the main feature of Meizu Pro 7 - an additional screen on the back panel. It has a diagonal of 1.9 "and a resolution of 536x240 pixels (307 ppi), the brightness is the same 350 nits, the technology is AMOLED (this time, for some reason, without the Super marketing prefix).

By default, the secondary display interface consists of three screens scrolling horizontally: clock, steps, weather. With a swipe up or down, we get to the camera menu, where three modes are offered: background blur, face beauty, original. Taking pictures is carried out by touching the screen (with a three-second timer) or the volume down button (without a timer). When shooting on the volume rocker, especially when there is a lack of light, try to hold the device firmly - otherwise the frame will be blurred. A timer in such a scenario would also be helpful. The ability to use a second screen is also available in the camera application. When you press a dedicated button, the rear display begins to act as an additional viewfinder. As a result, the frame is seen by both the photographer and the person being photographed. What else is a second screen for? To show notifications and animated screensavers, of course!

But that's not all about the second screen! Many people know that Meizu began its journey with the release of players. Therefore, it is not surprising that a smartphone can be turned into a purely music player, which can be useful during a flight. To switch to music mode, you need to hold down the power button and select the appropriate option. After that, all telephone functions will be inactive, the main display will turn off, and tracks will be displayed on the additional one. As for the sound from the phone in general, I would put it on the level of Pro 6. The volume is enough, the tracks are played neatly, energetically, for most users this is enough with their heads. It is better not to connect high-impedance headphones. And what to connect? Well, the Meizu HD50 and the new Flow plugs played great with the device. I am glad that Meizu and MediaTek do not ignore the musical roots of the Zhuhai vendor and have agreed to enhance the audio capabilities of the device by integrating the Cirrus Logic CS43130 Hi-Fi DAC into the Helio P25 platform. But we could have put it on the stock codec!

The features of the second screen do not seem far-fetched to me. These are mostly interesting and convenient things that cannot be realized without an additional display on the rear panel. I hope Meizu will not abandon an interesting development, and in new models we will continue to see a second screen, which will eventually receive new interesting functions.

Camera

Meizu Pro 7 was the first among the company's smartphones to receive a dual main camera. And who came to the rescue? That's right - MediaTek! The Helio P25 chip has an advanced digital signal processor (ISP) optimized specifically for dual cameras with a monochrome matrix. This ISP can work with two 13-megapixel sensors (or one 24 megapixel), but for the Pro 7 they took a pair of 12-megapixel Sony IMX386 sensors, equipping them with six-lens optics (f / 2.0). The additional camera lacks a color filter and can be used to create black and white photographs. It also serves to blur the background in portrait mode. By default, the phone puts a watermark on the pictures taken by it, but this can be turned off (and it is better to turn it off, I think).

The Meizu Pro 7 is capable of taking very good photos. The camera of the smartphone practically does not make mistakes with the white balance and color rendition, and the detail is often pleasing, and this also applies to pictures in low light conditions. Sometimes there were problems with autofocus, which could not tune completely into the distance and he had to help with his finger. This is noticeable in early comparison shots next to the Pro 7 Plus. The photos of the Pro 7 are not so clear and it is clear that the focus was slightly not refined. Fortunately, this has already been fixed. We, as reviewers, were sent test firmware several times, and here one of them just corrected the camera's operation. With commercial vehicles, everything was fine at once.

By the way, despite the absolute identity of the Pro 7 and Pro 7 Plus cameras on paper, they still take pictures in different ways. The difference in color rendition is very rare and the pictures look the same with rare exceptions (a photo of a sunset, for example), but differences in noise and detail can be traced and they are not in favor of a small one. Why? Because the drivers are different and different chips - the P25 is of the middle level, and the X30 is the flagship. However, the differences are so small that they can be noticed only by direct and close comparison, and even then not always. In general, do not worry about the photo.

Meizu Pro 7 - Pro 7 Plus:

Meizu Pro 7 - Pro 7 Plus

Photo with old software - photo with new software
Each pair of Pro 7 on the left, Pro 7 Plus on the right

The portrait mode of Meizu Pro 7 and Pro 7 Plus works the same way - quite neatly, although the boundaries of objects are not always determined accurately. The main point of Meizu's portraits is the "aggressive" bokeh, which makes the picture in the background very blurry. It is impossible to adjust the strength of the bokeh, it does not always look natural, and there really is someone like that. Some people like the naturalness of portraits with the iPhone 7 Plus, while others like this wow-blur Meizu.

Meizu Pro 7

Meizu Pro 7 Plus

Meizu Pro 7 - Pro 7 Plus

Although it is easy to shoot selfies with the main camera with Meizu Pro 7, the smartphone also has a front one, and a good 16-megapixel one is useful for video calls. The selfies are good, but they are still inferior to the images on the rear module. We compared them for interest. Comparison in favor of the main camera, of course. This is the very moment when the resolution does not speak of quality.

Main camera, facial beauty - DOS. camera, blur - front camera

Video shooting is limited [email protected] Moreover, for the Helio P25, 4K recording at 24fps is declared. Meizu deliberately did not turn on this mode on the Pro 7, as the result would be inferior to the smoothness of Full HD (judging by other models on the P25, where 4K is active). Nevertheless, the smartphone captures sound quality, the detail for 1080 is not bad. You can shoot slow motion videos (480p, 4x slow motion) and time lapses (15x to 240x speed).

Performance and benchmarks

A lot of controversy was caused by the hardware of Meizu Pro 7. People wondered why the company installed a mid-range chipset in a smartphone from the flagship line. However, MediaTek is positioning Helio P25 as a "premium solution for thin smartphones", that is, it is still a top processor in the understanding of the Chinese parties. The eight-core processor includes four "slow" Cortex-A53 cores (up to 1.6 GHz) and four "fast" Cortex-A53 cores (up to 2.6 GHz). Responsible for the graphics is the Mali-T880MP2 video accelerator with a frequency of up to 1 GHz. It comes with 4 GB of LPDDR4X RAM and 64 GB of eMMC5.1 internal memory (52.6 GB free). There is no microSD slot. The more powerful version of the compact Pro 7, which features the Helio X30 chipset and 128GB of UFS 2.1 storage, is not available outside of China.

Performance mode

Meizu has had several performance modes in smartphones for a long time. We tested the Pro 7 under heavy load in the maximum performance mode and in the balance between performance and autonomy, and did not notice any difference in speed. Therefore, you can bet any or play it safe (if you are a gambling addict) and enable the maximum performance mode, there will be no problems. According to Meizu, Flyme OS 6 introduces the One Mind intelligent system, which studies the user's habits and suggests optimization solutions based on the analyzed data. The system allegedly can reduce the launch time of the most frequently used applications, finds unclaimed processes running in the background to make the entire smartphone more efficient. I don't know which of these is true, but the Pro 7 really works smartly in everyday life.

Balance mode between performance and autonomy

What about performance in real games? The lack of speed is felt only in the most demanding titles, for example, World of Tanks - 60 fps rarely happens there, although there are no wild lags. And it's better not to include Injustice 2. But with maximum graphics, we played Unkilled, Dead Trigger 2, Asphalt Extreme, Modern Strike Online, Last Day on Earth and Air Attack 2 without any problems. ... It is a pity that many users, before the appearance of real tests and reviews, had time to label the Pro 7 with the Helio P25 as a “phone not for games”. For fun, look at the gaming test of Meizu Pro 7 Plus on Helio X30:

Unlike the Helio X30, which is made using the latest 10nm process technology, the Helio P25 is made using the older 16nm FinFET + technology. Despite this, the Meizu Pro 7 cannot be blamed for the fact that it runs out of battery quickly (figures in the next paragraph), or that it gets very hot. Yes, there is heating, but it never reached such a level for me that it became unpleasant to hold the case.

For autonomy in Meizu Pro 7, a battery with a standard capacity of 3000 mAh is responsible for the current times. When playing a video with maximum brightness and all the included wireless modules, the discharge from one hundred to zero took fourteen hours. For an hour in Asphalt Extreme, the smartphone lost 19% of its charge, that is, it will last for five hours of playing. During normal use, the smartphone lives for one and a half to two days with 4-7 hours of the screen, and it can be discharged in one day only with a very heavy load. We never succeeded in doing this. Colleagues also speak very positively about the autonomy of the Pro 7. Whatever one may say, the combination of the SuperAMOLED screen and the MediaTek Helio P25 processor turned out to be successful. Meizu Pro 7 turned out to be a compact, long-lasting flagship, which copes well with games.

conclusions

After two years of self-copying and stagnation, Meizu decided on an unexpected experiment by installing an additional screen in the flagship smartphone. This idea caused a lot of controversy, but I personally liked it. First, it makes the device stand out from the crowd. Secondly, it offers a range of interesting handy features. Another experiment was the use of the MediaTek Helio P25 chipset. In terms of gaming capabilities, it did not turn out to be top-end, but it did not disappoint either, and also had a positive effect on the autonomy of the device.

Otherwise, we have Meizu in the best traditions: a calm pleasant design, an excellent fingerprint scanner, decent autonomy and functional Flyme OS firmware. The cost of Meizu Pro 7 in Russia is 35,640 rubles. You can get more information on the official website of Meizu in Russia.

Meizu has just announced a couple of new flagship smartphones in the Pro line. The devices will go on sale early next month. Apart from the different displays, the Meizu Pro 7 and Pro 7 Plus have a number of other differences. In this comparison, we will break down these gadgets to understand the difference between them.

If you are a fan of the brand or are simply interested in new products on the smartphone market, then it will be interesting for you to read to our conclusions.

Specifications Meizu Pro 7 and Pro 7 Plus:

• Operating system: Android 7.0 Nougat with Flyme 6 shell.
• Screen: 5.2-inch Super AMOLED with FHD resolution in Pro 7 and 5.7-inch Super AMOLED with QHD-resolution in Plus version, 2.5D glass (optional 1.9-inch AMOLED screen with 240 x 536 pixels ).
• Cameras: 12-megapixel main with f / 2.0 aperture, 6 lenses and dual flash, 16-megapixel front with f / 2.0 aperture and 5 lenses.
• Chipset: 8-core MediaTek Helio P25 @ 1.9 GHz or 10-core Helio X30 @ 2.2 GHz for the Meizu Pro 7 and MediaTek Helio X30 with a clock speed of 2.6 GHz for the Pro 7 Plus.
• Video adapter: Mali-T880MP2 | PowerVR 7XTP-MT4.
• Memory: 4GB LPDDR4X RAM in Pro 7 and 4/6 GB LPDDR4X RAM in Pro 7 Plus, 64GB (eMMC 5.1) / 128GB (UFS 2.1) | 64/128 GB (UFS 2.1) of internal memory, respectively.
• Communication: Wi-Fi 802.11n / 802.11ac | 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.2 LE, two Nano SIM cards.
• Battery: 3000mAh with mCharge 3.0 fast charging (Pro 7) and 3500mAh with mCharge 4.0 fast charging (Pro 7 Plus).
• Other: mTouch 2.1 fingerprint scanner, USB Type-C 3.1, GPS, GLONASS, Cirrus Logic CS43130 audio chip.
• Dimensions and weight: 147.62 x 70.72 x 7.3 mm for the 7 and 157.34 x 77.24 x 7.3 mm for the 7 Plus, 163 grams and 170 grams, respectively.

Screen differences

Meizu Pro 7 has a 5.2-inch sAMOLED display with 423 ppi FHD pixel density, while Pro 7 Plus boasts a 5.7-inch QHD AMOLED panel with 518 dpi pixel density. Thus, on a more compact model the picture will not be so clear, although the contrast ratio is the same on both devices 10,000: 1. The maximum brightness on the 7-ke is 350 nits, and on the 7 Plus it is 430 nits.

As for the secondary screen, these flagships have 1.9-inch touchpads that can work when the phone is in standby mode. In this regard, both devices are completely identical to each other.

Filling

There are two versions of the Meizu Pro 7 and Pro 7 Plus smartphones. The 5.2-inch model was released in two modifications, which essentially differ in processors and internal memory. The version with a 5.7-inch display appeared on store shelves only with a different amount of ROM on board. The new Pro 7 can be purchased with the MediaTek Helio P25 chipset and 64GB of internal storage in the base configuration and the MediaTek Helio X30 with twice the ROM.

In addition, the starter model Pro 7, which is powered by the Helio P25 processor, is equipped with Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n, while the more expensive one boasts Wi-Fi 802.11ac. Meizu Pro 7 Plus received a fast Wi-Fi 802.11ac wireless module. All versions, without exception, have Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, GLONASS and USB Type-C 3.1 on board.

The younger model is equipped with a 3000 mAh non-removable battery with mCharge 3.0 fast charging, while the older model is equipped with a 3500 mAh battery with fourth generation mCharge fast charging. It remains to be seen how quickly batteries charge with these technologies.

For your information, in the case of the 5.2-inch Pro 7, the user gets a dual-core GPU Mali-T880MP2, and the Pro 7 Plus is equipped with a quad-core PowerVR 7XTP-MT4 accelerator.

conclusions

Unfortunately, neither the Meizu Pro 7 nor the Pro 7 Plus are waterproof. Inside both smartphones is the relatively old Bluetooth 4.2, not 5.0 like many flagships from other brands.

Meizu's new flagships even lack an NFC module, which is required for mobile payment systems to work. Moreover, there is no microSD card slot either. The disadvantages also include the use of the old eMMC 5.1 memory, which the base 5.2-inch phone has acquired.

I am glad that these devices have a USB Type-C port on board, support for two Nano-type SIM cards, a state-of-the-art fingerprint scanner and a Cirrus Logic CS43130 audio chip. The familiar audio jack is in place. From this we can conclude that the sound on the Pro 7 flagship series will be excellent.

Last summer, Meizu introduced the Pro 7 and Pro 7 Plus smartphones, which began to be sold in Russia only at the end of the year. Both new items noticeably differ not only from other devices of the company, but also from all models existing on the market, which is due to the presence of an additional display on the back of the case in both devices. Among themselves, the new Meizu smartphones also differ noticeably, even if we do not count the size: in terms of the main parameters of the hardware filling. While the younger model is based on the 8-core Mediatek Helio P25 processor, the Pro 7 Plus version received the most powerful MediaTek solution as a platform, the 10-core Mediatek Helio X30 10nm processor. Among other things, the older model has more RAM and a larger battery. Naturally, we chose the most technically advanced of the two solutions as the object for testing, and today we present to your attention a full review of the new top-end smartphone Meizu Pro 7 Plus.

Main characteristics of Meizu Pro 7 Plus (model M793H)

• SoC MediaTek Helio X30, 10 cores Cortex-A35 / Cortex-A53 / Cortex-A73 @ 1.9 / 2.2 / 2.6 GHz
• GPU IMG PowerVR 7XTP (MT4) @ 800 MHz
• Operating system Android 7.0, Flyme 6.1
• Super AMOLED 5.7 ″ touch display, 2560 × 1440, 518 ppi
• Second display AMOLED 1.9 ″, 240 × 536, 307 ppi
• Random access memory (RAM) 6 GB, internal memory 64/128 GB
• Nano-SIM support (2 pcs.)
• Inserting memory cards is not supported
• GSM networks (850/900/1800 MHz)
• WCDMA / HSPA + (850/900/2100), CDMA: BC0, TD-SCDMA: B34 / B39
• LTE networks FDD (1, 3, 5, 7), TD (38, 41)
• Wi-Fi 802.11a / b / g / n / ac (2.4 and 5 GHz)
• Bluetooth 4.2 BLE
• USB Type-C 3.1, USB OTG
• GPS, A-GPS, Glonass, BDS
• Main camera Sony IMX386 12 + 12 MP, f / 2.0, autofocus, 4K video
• Front camera 16 MP, f / 2.0, fixed focus
• Proximity and lighting sensors, magnetometer, accelerometer, gyroscope, step detector
• The fingerprint scanner
• DAC Cirrus Logic CS43130
• Battery 3500 mAh
• Dimensions 157 x 77 x 7.3 mm
• Weight 174 g

Contents of delivery

The Meizu Pro 7 Plus comes in expensively designed packaging. The inner carton is made up of several smaller boxes, all enclosed in a hard case made of thick plastic. The packaging looks unusual and fresh, it surprises at the first acquaintance with the product, which, in fact, is required of it.

The kit consists of a powerful charger with an output current of 2 A and a voltage of 5/9/12 V. The kit also includes a USB cable, a card extraction tool and a not very practical protective case made of translucent hard plastic, which is easily scratched and cracked.

Appearance and usability

Meizu Pro 7 Plus received a calm and at the same time stylish, laconic design. Its only noticeable difference from most modern mobile devices is the less rounded corners, which makes the already huge body look even more bulky, looks like a mini-tablet in the hands.

But the rear part of the case looks even more unusual: here a miniature second display is cut into the all-metal trough, covered with a protective glass on top. The display, by the way, is also touch-sensitive (like the main one) and reacts to gestures.

The second screen can be used not only to receive banal notifications about calls, SMS and other events, but also to display contextual information. For example, when listening to music, the player buttons are displayed on this screen and playback can be controlled without using the main display. When using the main camera, you can look into this small screen like in a mirror, taking selfies with the rear camera. Finally, if unnecessary, the additional screen can be simply turned off.

There are no complaints about the assembly and the quality of materials, but due to the smooth shiny lacquered surfaces, the case turned out to be quite easily soiled and slippery. Although the metal surfaces of the back wall and sidewalls look like they were treated with coarse sandpaper, in fact they are varnished, the surface is smooth and slippery like glass. In addition, the smartphone is too large, even for those who are already accustomed to large-sized modern mobile devices with large displays.

The glass covering the unusual rear screen also covers the dual camera and the rather bright LED flash, consisting of multi-colored LEDs.

There is an LED event indicator on the front panel, but, as usual for Meizu smartphones, it does not display the battery charge status, but comes into play only when unread messages or missed calls appear. For Meizu Pro 7 Plus, this is not so relevant, since here everything is reported in detail by a small rear display - a kind of analogue of the "Always On" function of modern OLED screens. However, of course, it is convenient that no matter how you put this phone down, you will not miss the notification.

At the bottom under the screen, there is only one button installed as standard for Meizu, moreover, it is pressed. It has an embedded mTouch fingerprint scanner platform (360 degrees of scanning, reading in 0.15 s). If you are not comfortable using Meizu's control scheme, which implies performing different functions by single, double and long pressing the center key, you can always resort to using the on-screen button panel.

The power and volume keys are located on the right side, and there are certain complaints about them: for some reason they were deeply drowned in a specially cut box, so that the buttons practically do not protrude beyond the surface of the side edge. You can, of course, press them, but blindly feeling is much more difficult than usual, and it is not easy to see them in profile.

On the opposite side (for some reason, from the very edge, and not along the longitudinal axis; it looks ugly) there is a slot for installing cards. The slot is double, it can accept a pair of SIM-cards of the Nano-SIM format, but is not designed for microSD memory cards.

The upper end is practically empty, here you can find only the hole of the second, auxiliary microphone for the noise reduction system.

The bottom end contains the USB Type-C connector, the main loudspeaker, and a 3.5 mm audio output for headphones.

The Meizu Pro 7 Plus is available in three different colors: black, gold and silver. A limited edition version of "Black Space" has also been released. The younger version of Meizu Pro 7 also has a red version, but Meizu Pro 7 Plus is not available in this color.

Screen

The Meizu Pro 7 Plus model is equipped with a main Super AMOLED display with 2.5D protective glass with sloping edges. The dimensions of the screen are approximately 71 × 126 mm with a diagonal of 5.7 inches. The resolution is high, 2560 × 1440, so the dot density is about 518 ppi. The width of the frame around the screen on the sides is 3 mm, the indents at the top and bottom are 16 mm high.

The brightness of the display can be manually adjusted or automatic settings based on the operation of the ambient light sensor can be used. Multi-touch tests diagnose support for 10 simultaneous touches.

The size of the additional screen located on the back side of the case is 20 × 45 mm, diagonal - 1.9 inches. The resolution of this screen is 240 × 536, the density of dots is about 307 ppi, that is, the graininess of the image is out of the question. It is also made with AMOLED technology.

A detailed examination using measuring instruments was carried out by the editor of the "Monitors" and "Projectors and TV" sections Alexey Kudryavtsev... Here is his expert opinion on the screen of the test sample.

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface, resistant to scratches. Judging by the reflection of objects, the anti-glare properties of the screen are no worse than those of the Google Nexus 7 (2013) (hereinafter simply Nexus 7). For clarity, here is a photo in which a white surface is reflected in the turned off screens (on the left - Nexus 7, on the right - Meizu Pro 7 Plus, then they can be distinguished by their size):

The screen of the Meizu Pro 7 Plus is the same dark (the brightness in the photos is 119 for both) and does not have a pronounced shade. The doubling of reflected objects in the Meizu Pro 7 Plus screen is very weak, which indicates that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen. Due to the smaller number of boundaries (such as glass / air) with very different refractive indices, screens without an air gap look better in conditions of intense ambient light, but their repair in case of cracked outer glass is much more expensive, since the entire screen has to be changed. On the outer surface of the Meizu Pro 7 Plus screen there is a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating (effective, better than that of the Nexus 7), so fingerprints are removed much more easily, and appear at a slower rate than in the case of ordinary glass.

When the white field was displayed in full screen and with manual brightness control, its maximum value was 415 cd / m². You also need to take into account the fact that in this case the smaller the white area on the screen, the lighter it is, that is, the actual maximum brightness of the white areas will almost always be higher than the specified value. For example, when displaying a black field on one half of the screen (and white on the other), the brightness of white reaches 520 cd / m². As a result, readability in the daytime in the sun should be at a good level. The minimum brightness value is 4 cd / m², that is, the reduced brightness level allows you to use the device without any problems even in complete darkness. Automatic brightness control works according to the light sensor (it is located to the right of the front camera peephole). This function depends on the position of the brightness adjustment slider. If it is 100%, then in complete darkness, the auto-brightness function reduces the brightness to 70 cd / m2 (bright), in an office illuminated with artificial light (about 550 lux) it sets to 280 cd / m2 (normal), in a very bright environment (corresponds to outdoor lighting on a clear day, but without direct sunlight - 20,000 lux or slightly more), the brightness rises to 415 cd / m² (to the maximum, which is necessary). If the slider is about 50%, then the values ​​are as follows: 4, 190 and 415 cd / m² (the first value is too low), and if the slider is at 0%, then 4, 75 and 415 cd / m² (the first and second values ​​are too low). The result didn't quite suit us, so we set the slider to about 60% and got the following values: 10, 215 and 415 cd / m² (normal). It turns out that the automatic brightness control function works adequately and allows the user to customize his work for individual requirements.

At any brightness level, there is significant modulation with a frequency of about 60 or 240 Hz. The figure below shows the dependence of brightness (vertical axis) on time (horizontal axis) for several values ​​of brightness adjustment:

It can be seen that at maximum and average brightness, the modulation amplitude is not very large, as a result, there is no visible flicker. However, with a strong decrease in brightness, modulation appears with a large relative amplitude, its presence can already be seen in the test for the presence of a stroboscopic effect or simply with rapid eye movement. Depending on individual sensitivity, such flickering can cause increased fatigue.

This screen uses a Super AMOLED matrix - an active matrix on organic light-emitting diodes. A full-color image is created using subpixels of three colors - red (R), green (G) and blue (B), but there are half the red and blue subpixels, which can be referred to as RGBG. This is confirmed by a fragment of a micrograph:

For comparison, you can see the gallery of photomicrographs of screens used in mobile technology.

In the fragment above, you can count 4 green subpixels, 2 red (4 halves) and 2 blue (1 whole and 4 quarters), while repeating these fragments, you can lay out the entire screen without gaps and overlaps. For such matrices, Samsung has introduced the name PenTile RGBG. The manufacturer calculates the screen resolution for green subpixels, for the other two it will be two times lower. The location and shape of the subpixels in this variant is close to the case of the Samsung Galaxy S4 screen and some other newer Samsung devices (and not only) with AMOLED screens. This version of PenTile RGBG is better than the old one with red squares, blue rectangles and green subpixel stripes. Nevertheless, some uneven contrast borders and other artifacts are still present. However, due to the very high resolution, they only have a minimal effect on image quality.

At the same time, we will give a fragment of a micrograph of the rear screen:

In this case, the number of subpixels of three colors is already equal.

Let's go back to the main screen. It features excellent viewing angles. True, when deviated even at small angles, the white color alternately acquires a light blue-green and pinkish tint, but the black color remains simply black at any angle. It is so black that the contrast setting is not applicable in this case. For comparison, here are the photos on which the Meizu Pro 7 Plus screens (profile Adaptive) and the second comparison participant displayed the same images, while the brightness of the screens was initially set to about 200 cd / m2, and the color balance on the camera was forcibly switched to 6500 K.

White box:

Note the good uniformity of brightness and color tone of the white field.

And the test picture:

The colors are too saturated, and the color balance of the screens is clearly different. Recall that the photograph can not serve as a reliable source of information about the quality of color reproduction and is provided for a conditional visual illustration only. In particular, the pronounced reddish tint of white and gray fields present in the photographs of the Meizu Pro 7 Plus screen is visually absent when viewed from a perpendicular view, which is confirmed by hardware tests using a spectrophotometer. The reason is that the spectral sensitivity of the camera sensor does not exactly match this characteristic of human vision.

The photo above was taken after selecting a profile Adaptive in the screen settings - apparently, this profile is selected by default. There are four profiles in total:

They differ in color balance and color gamut. We will immediately express the opinion that you need to choose a second profile once and for all, Standard Mode, it is in it with the saturation of colors that everything is more or less in order:

Now at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen. White box:

The brightness at an angle on both screens decreased noticeably (to avoid strong darkening, the shutter speed was increased compared to previous photos), but in the case of the Meizu Pro 7 Plus, the drop in brightness is much less pronounced. As a result, with formally the same brightness, the Meizu Pro 7 Plus screen visually looks much brighter (in comparison with LCD screens), since you often have to look at the screen of a mobile device at least from a slight angle.

And the test picture:

It can be seen that the colors have not changed much on both screens and the brightness of the Meizu Pro 7 Plus smartphone is noticeably higher at an angle. The switching of the state of the matrix elements is performed almost instantly, but at the turn-on front there may be a step with a width of about 17 ms (which corresponds to a screen refresh rate of 60 Hz). For example, this is how the dependence of brightness on time looks like when switching from black to white and vice versa:

In some conditions, the presence of such a step can lead to trails that follow moving objects. However, dynamic scenes in films on OLED screens are distinguished by high definition and even some "jerky" movements.

The gamma curve plotted using 32 points with equal intervals in terms of the numerical value of the shade of gray showed that there was no significant blockage either in the highlights or in the shadows. The exponent of the approximating power function is 2.38, which is slightly higher than the standard value of 2.2, while the real gamma curve almost does not deviate from the power dependence:

Recall that in the case of OLED screens, the brightness of image fragments dynamically changes in accordance with the nature of the displayed image - it decreases for generally light images. As a result, the obtained dependence of brightness on the hue (gamma curve), most likely, does not correspond a little to the gamma curve of a static image, since the measurements were carried out with sequential output of shades of gray on almost the entire screen.

Color gamut in case of profile Full color mode very wide, in green area out of DCI-P3 coverage:

In profile Adaptive mode coverage is slightly narrower, it is almost equal to DCI-P3:

When choosing a profile Photo the coverage is compressed to the borders of Adobe RGB:

When choosing a profile Standard Mode coverage is compressed to sRGB borders:

Without correction, the spectra of the components are very well separated:

In case of a profile Standard Mode with maximum correction, the color components are already noticeably mixed with each other:

Note that on screens with a wide color gamut (without appropriate correction), the colors of ordinary images optimized for sRGB devices look unnaturally saturated. Hence the recommendation: in most cases, watching movies, photos and everything natural is better when choosing a profile. Standard Mode, and only if the photo was taken on the Adobe RGB setting, it makes sense to switch the profile to Photo... Likewise, the profile Adaptive mode Suitable for watching video footage with DCI-P3 digital cinematography coverage.

By default, the color temperature of the white and gray fields is high, about 7500 K, but in the screen settings there is a slider for adjusting the color temperature:

The adjustment step is about 200 K, and in the position, as in the picture above, the balance becomes better - the color temperature is closer to 6500 K, while this parameter does not change very much in a significant part of the gray scale, which improves the visual perception of color balance. The deviation from the blackbody spectrum (ΔE) remains below 10 units, which is considered a good indicator for a consumer device:

(In most cases, the darkest areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since the color balance there does not really matter, and the error in measuring color characteristics at low brightness is large.)

Let's summarize. The screen has a sufficiently high maximum brightness and has excellent anti-glare properties, so the device can be used outdoors without any problems, even on a sunny summer day. In complete darkness, the brightness can be lowered to a comfortable value. It is permissible to use the mode with automatic brightness adjustment, which works adequately. The advantages of the screen include an effective oleophobic coating, as well as a color gamut close to sRGB (when choosing the right profile) and a good color balance. At the same time, let's recall the general advantages of OLED screens: true black color (if nothing is reflected in the screen), noticeably less than that of LCDs, the drop in image brightness when viewed from an angle. The disadvantages include modulation of the screen brightness. Users who are particularly sensitive to flicker may experience increased fatigue due to this. However, the overall quality of the screen is good.

Cameras

The front camera of Meizu Pro 7 Plus uses a 16MP sensor and a five-element lens with an f / 2.0 aperture, without its own flash and autofocus. The enhancement effects ArcSoft and Face After Effect can be applied to the pictures, smoothing the texture of the skin, etc. The quality of the shooting is acceptable.

The main camera uses two modules with a resolution of 12 and 12 megapixels. One module is color (Sony IMX386 sensor), the other is monochrome. The main six-element lens has an f / 2.0 aperture.

As usual, there are automatic and professional shooting modes in the settings. In manual mode, you can change the shutter speed, sensitivity (up to ISO 1600), metering method, focusing options, white balance. There is also a scale for exposure compensation and settings for saturation and contrast. But the native ability to save images in RAW is absent here. It is logical that in the presence of a monochrome module, the camera also has a separate b / w shooting mode. The now familiar "wide aperture" mode with background blur is also implemented. It turns out, in principle, not bad.

Another unusual feature is the ability to take selfies using the main camera: the small rear screen works as a viewfinder. Thus, the quality of the front camera (which, among other things, does not have its own flash) is not particularly important here for selfies.

The camera can shoot video in 4K and 1080p, but there is no 60 fps mode. The stabilization function is there, but it does not work with 4K resolution. In general, the camera copes well with 4K video, but without stabilization, handheld shooting on the go is useless. In good light, sharpness is normal, detail is also, there are no complaints about color rendition and white balance. Autofocus, however, is constantly being rebuilt, and sometimes for no reason, it spoils the shooting. The soundtrack is of very high quality, the noise reduction system does not introduce any distorting noise, it copes with its duties adequately.

• Movie # 1 (75 MB, 3840 × [email protected] fps, H.265, AAC)
• Movie # 2 (105 MB, 3840 × [email protected] fps, H.265, AAC)
• Movie # 3 (95 MB, 3840 × [email protected] fps, H.265, AAC)
• Movie # 4 (30 MB, 1920 × [email protected] fps, H.264, AAC)

The camera can be called good, but nothing more. She copes well with the main plots, however, on general shots, you can find areas of confusion, especially at the edges, and with a lack of lighting, artifacts of software processing begin to appear. The images are generally slightly blurry, and this effect is immediately apparent. One gets the impression that the program has not been slightly finalized. However, the camera copes well with most subjects and is quite suitable for documentary shooting.

Telephone part and communications

The integrated LTE WorldMode Cat.10 modem in MediaTek Helio X30 supports 4G LTE Category 10 networks, which theoretically should provide a maximum download speed of up to 450 Mbps and transmission up to 150 Mbps.

The smartphone supports two of the three LTE FDD frequency bands used in Russia - Band 3 and 7, but does not support the 800 MHz band (Band 20), which better than others meets the requirements of networks for sparsely populated areas. Within the city limits of the Moscow region, the device behaves confidently, the quality of signal reception in wireless networks raises no objections.

The smartphone also supports both Wi-Fi bands (2.4 and 5 GHz) and Bluetooth version 4.2, but the NFC module is absent here, and in the age of the ubiquitous spread of contactless payment technologies, this is already unforgivable. The USB Type-C connector supports connecting external devices in USB OTG mode. The data transfer speed between a computer (when connected to USB 3.1 Type-C ports) and a smartphone via a cable is about 30 MB / s.

The navigation module works with GPS (with A-GPS), and with the domestic Glonass, and with the Chinese Beidou. The first satellites during a cold start are detected quickly, within the first minute. The device has a magnetic compass required for navigation programs.

The phone application supports Smart Dial, that is, when dialing a phone number, a search is immediately carried out by the first letters in contacts. The methods of sorting and displaying contacts are standard for the Android interface, sorting of contacts is possible by surname or first name, the same is with the display of the caller's contact. There is a standard possibility of recording telephone conversations from the line.

There are no complaints about the conversational dynamics, the sound is loud, clear, rich and pleasant to the ear, the voice of the familiar interlocutor is well legible and recognizable, there are no distorting noises. An additional microphone is used for the operation of the noise reduction system, which copes with its duties adequately. The vibrating alert is quite tangible, there are no complaints about it.

The platform supports active waiting for both SIM cards in 3G / 4G at the same time. That is, the SIM card can be actively waiting in the 3G / 4G network, and not only in 2G, even if another card is assigned for data transmission in 4G.

The choice between two SIM-cards for making a call and sending SMS is traditionally for Meizu devices carried out only at the moment of connection, it cannot be done in advance in the menu, only a card for data transfer can be set in the settings. The smartphone provides work with two SIM-cards according to the Dual SIM Dual Standby standard.

Software and multimedia

The software platform in Meizu Pro 7 Plus uses Android OS version 7.0 with the ability to update over the air (OTA). On top of it is installed its own proprietary Flyme shell version 6.1.

In mid-November, Meizu officially announced that it had passed the Google certification procedure and its new smartphones will come with Google Mobile Services pre-installed. Naturally, we are talking about devices manufactured for the international market, and not for the domestic market in China. Among the certified models are our heroes Meizu Pro 7 and Pro 7 Plus, so now the icon with the signature Play Store proudly flaunts on the first screen. A year ago, even in smartphones officially purchased through Mymeizu.ru, this application store had to be installed manually through the specially added Hot Apps application. Now it is gone.

Otherwise, regular users of Meizu mobile technology will not find anything new here. The shell is as cleaned as possible, without swelling from countless sections and subsections, which is usual for Chinese firmware, concise, fast, visually attractive. Naturally, you can change the theme, customize the button bar to your liking, use gestures, but you can do without all this. By the way, the smartphone is preinstalled with an alternative keyboard TouchPal of the latest version 2017, which has a lot of visual skins and additional features.

The Cirrus Logic CS43130 DAC is responsible for the sound quality in the headphones. Meizu's sound is always good, and the new flagship sounds great. Immediately noticeable is the superiority of its bright, rich, thick and bass, powerful sound over other modern flagships. For example, no matter how much LG describes the charms of the sound system in its V30 +, the Meizu Pro 7 Plus still sounds more interesting in general. By the way, the same applies to the main loudspeaker: there are no pair of stereo speakers, but the smartphone still sounds very impressive.

To play music, a familiar standard audio player with an equalizer (5-band) with presets is used. The voice recorder demonstrates a very high sensitivity, an additional microphone with a noise canceling function eliminates ambient noise, but there is no FM radio in the smartphone.

Performance

The Meizu Pro 7 Plus hardware platform is built on the MediaTek Helio X30 SoC (MT6799 Deca Core). The configuration of this chip includes 10 processor cores in three clusters. The main one consists of two Cortex-A73 cores with a frequency of up to 2.6 GHz, the second received four Cortex-A53 cores with a frequency of up to 2.2 GHz, and the youngest one has four Cortex-A35 cores with a frequency of up to 1.9 GHz. The GPU is PowerVR 7XTP-MP4 at 800 MHz. It is the first 10-nanometer SoC to be manufactured with 10-core technology. The amount of RAM is 6 GB, the built-in flash memory can be 64 or 128 GB. Remaining free is about 3.1 GB of RAM and just over 50 GB of 64 GB of storage. Memory cards are not supported.

MediaTek unveiled its new flagship SoC Helio X30 last spring during MWC 2017. MediaTek says the new Helio X30 SoC has 35% more performance and 50% less power compared to last season's Helio X20. ... The solution is capable of decoding 10-bit 4K2K video with HDR10 support. Helio X30 contains two 14-bit image processors, which allows it to work with dual cameras up to 16 megapixel each. The single-chip system supports up to 8GB of LPDDR4x RAM up to 1866MHz and UFS 2.1 flash interface.

As for the real results of testing, they, unfortunately, showed that the new flagship solution of MediaTek lags behind the top modern solutions of other manufacturers in all respects, such as Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, HiSilicon Kirin 970 and Samsung Exynos 8895. In principle, the new product is not was able to overtake even the outdated Snapdragon 821 in tests, and about the irrepressible power consumption, with which everything is also not as smooth as described by the creators from MediaTek, the autonomy tests will tell below.

Of course, in real-life scenarios, the SoC confidently copes with any task, including demanding games.

Benchmarking AnTuTu and GeekBench:

All the results obtained by us when testing the smartphone in the most recent versions of popular benchmarks, we have summarized in tables for convenience. Several other devices from various segments are usually added to the table, also tested on similar latest versions of benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the obtained dry numbers). Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison, it is impossible to present the results from different versions of benchmarks, therefore, many worthy and relevant models remain "behind the scenes" - due to the fact that they once passed the "obstacle course" on previous versions of test programs.

	Meizu Pro 7 Plus (MediaTek Helio X30)	LG V30 + (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835)	Xiaomi Mi Mix (Qualcomm Snapdragon 821)	Samsung Galaxy Note 8 (Samsung Exynos 8895 Octa)	Huawei Mate 10 Pro (HiSilicon Kirin 970)
AnTuTu (v6.x) (more is better)	114927	175633	122656	174712	177720
GeekBench (v4.x) (more is better)	1415/5417	1925/6347	1896/4154	1360/6605	1894/6737

Testing the graphics subsystem in game tests 3DMark, GFXBenchmark and Bonsai Benchmark:

When testing in 3DMark for the highest performing smartphones, it is now possible to run the application in Unlimited mode, where the rendering resolution is fixed at 720p and VSync is disabled (which can cause the speed to rise above 60 fps).

	Meizu Pro 7 Plus (MediaTek Helio X30)	LG V30 + (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835)	Xiaomi Mi Mix (Qualcomm Snapdragon 821)	Samsung Galaxy Note 8 (Samsung Exynos 8895 Octa)	Huawei Mate 10 Pro (HiSilicon Kirin 970)
3DMark Sling Shot Ex ES 3.1 (more is better)	1826	2932	1873	2637	2901
3DMark Sling Shot Ex Vulkan (more is better)	1217	2613	—	—	2426
(Onscreen, fps)	14	—	23	23	31
GFXBenchmark Manhattan ES 3.1 (1080p Offscreen, fps)	22	—	23	42	31
GFXBenchmark T-Rex (Onscreen, fps)	52	—	56	60	59
GFXBenchmark T-Rex (1080p Offscreen, fps)	78	—	66	123	79

Browser cross-platform tests:

As for benchmarks for evaluating the speed of the javascript engine, you should always make allowances for the fact that the results in them significantly depend on the browser in which they are launched, so that the comparison can be truly correct only on the same OS and browsers, and this possibility is available when testing not always. In the case of Android OS, we always try to use Google Chrome.

	Meizu Pro 7 Plus (MediaTek Helio X30)	LG V30 + (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835)	Xiaomi Mi Mix (Qualcomm Snapdragon 821)	Samsung Galaxy Note 8 (Samsung Exynos 8895 Octa)	Huawei Mate 10 Pro (HiSilicon Kirin 970)
Mozilla kraken (ms, less is better)	5106	2787	2700	3106	3855
Google octane 2 (more is better)	8341	11815	8953	10070	9820
SunSpider (ms, less is better)	1017	713	582	631	693

AndroBench memory speed test results:

Thermal imagery

Below is a thermal image back surface obtained after 10 minutes of battery test in the GFXBenchmark program:

Heating is higher in the center and closer to the right edge, which, apparently, corresponds to the location of the SoC chip, but in general, the entire rear surface of the smartphone is very hot. According to the heat chamber, the maximum heating was 41 degrees (at an ambient temperature of 24 degrees), this is the average heating in this test for modern smartphones.

Video playback

To test the "omnivorous" video playback (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, such as subtitles), we used the most common formats that make up the bulk of the content available on the Web. Note that it is important for mobile devices to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is often impossible to process modern versions using processor cores alone. Also, do not expect a mobile device to decode everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it. All results are tabulated.

Further video playback testing was done by Alexey Kudryavtsev.

Apparently, this unit does not support DisplayPort Alt Mode for USB Type-C - image and sound output to an external device when connected to the USB port. We tested the work in this mode together with (the company). Therefore, we had to confine ourselves to testing the output of video files on the screen of the device itself. To do this, we used a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see "Testing techniques for video playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices)"). Screenshots with a shutter speed of 1 s helped to determine the nature of the frame output of video files with various parameters: the resolution varied (1280 by 720 (720p), 1920 by 1080 (1080p) and 3840 by 2160 (4K) pixels) and the frame rate (24, 25, 30, 50 and 60 fps). In our tests we used the MX Player video player in the "Hardware" mode. The test results are tabulated: no

OK No 720 / 24p Great No

Note: If both columns Uniformity and Skips green ratings are set, this means that, most likely, when watching movies, artifacts caused by uneven alternation and skipping of frames will either not be visible at all, or their number and visibility will not affect the viewing comfort. Red marks indicate possible problems with the playback of the respective files.

According to the criterion for outputting frames, the quality of video files playback on the screen of the device itself is good, since in most cases frames (or groups of frames) can be displayed with more or less uniform intervals of intervals and without frame drops. When playing video files with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 (1080p) and in the case of landscape orientation, the image of the video file itself is displayed inscribed within the boundaries of the screen. At the same time, the clarity of the picture is high, but not ideal, since there is no escape from interpolation to the screen resolution. However, for the sake of experiment, you can switch to one-to-one pixel mode, there will be no interpolation, but PenTile features will appear: the vertical world through the pixel will be in a grid, and the horizontal one will be slightly greenish. The latter is true only for the test world; on real frames, the described artifacts are absent. The brightness range displayed on the screen corresponds to the actual range, except that in the shadows somewhere a couple of shades merge with black, but all the gradations are displayed in the highlights.

Battery life

The non-removable battery installed in the Meizu Pro 7 Plus has a capacity of 3500 mAh. This is quite a large volume by the standards of today, but, as is often the case with top-end MediaTek chips, even such a battery was not enough not only to set battery life records, but also to demonstrate the average level. Against the background of other modern flagships using other top platforms, Meizu, which decided on an alliance with MediaTek, miscalculated: the smartphone demonstrates rather low indicators in terms of autonomy in all tests without exception. This is not a completely disastrous level, but competing flagship solutions in this parameter look much better.

Testing has traditionally been conducted at typical power consumption levels without using power saving features.

	Battery capacity	Reading mode	Video mode	3D Game Mode
Meizu Pro 7 Plus	3500 mAh	14h 10m	10h 00m	3h 20m
LG V30 +	3300 mAh	17h 00m	14h 00m	7h 30m
Xiaomi Mi Mix	4400 mAh	19h 00m	13h 00m	9h 00m
Samsung Galaxy Note 8	3300 mAh	15h 00m	12h 00m	4h 20m
Huawei Mate 10 Pro	4000 mAh	18h 20m	12h 50m	5h 15m

Continuous reading in the Moon + Reader program (with a standard, light theme) at the minimum comfortable brightness level (the brightness was set to 100 cd / m2) with auto-scrolling lasted only 14 hours until the battery was fully discharged, and with continuous viewing of high quality video (720p) with the same brightness level via a home Wi-Fi network, the device operates for no more than 10 hours. In 3D games mode, the smartphone can work up to 3.5 hours.

The smartphone supports fast charging, which charges the device from zero to 50% in 30 minutes. The device was charged completely from the complete power adapter for only 1.5 hours with a current of 1.5 A at a voltage of 9 V. The smartphone does not support wireless charging.

Outcome

The smartphone has long been presented in Russian retail, and initially it cost quite a flagship, which contrasted with the usual affordable smartphones of this manufacturer. But for the New Year holidays, Meizu made a luxurious gift to all fans of the brand, reducing the price by 10 thousand rubles at once. Thus, the younger version (with 64 GB of flash memory) Meizu Pro 7 Plus officially fell in price from 45 to 35 thousand rubles, and the older version (128 GB) Meizu Pro 7 Plus - from 50 to 40 thousand.

In general, Meizu has released a decent device with a good screen and excellent sound, but in many respects the Meizu Pro 7 Plus is inferior to the modern flagships Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus, Apple iPhone 8 Plus and Huawei Mate 10 Pro. Firstly, in terms of the quality of the cameras, the device does not reach the top level, which is confirmed by the results of the popular DxOMark test, where Meizu Pro 7 Plus is another flagship. Secondly, a very dubious choice was made in favor of the gluttonous and not so productive MediaTek Helio X30 platform, which could not outperform any of the modern flagship SoCs in the tests. As a result, the smartphone is not a record holder in terms of speed, and the level of autonomy is low at best. Add to this a rather limited set of communication options, which does not include support for NFC and LTE FDD Band 20. At the same time, the smartphone is definitely interesting for its additional rear screen with fairly wide functionality, which allows you to take high-quality selfies with the main dual camera.

Pro 7 Plus, it is in this matte black design.

If we evaluate the design of the smartphone and its packaging, it becomes clear that Meizu really wants to get away from the image of cheap smartphones somewhere in the area of ​​the premium segment. I'm not sure if this is a good idea for the company as a whole, because premium means raised price tags, and we already see that prices for Meizu have gone up, but ... But at least the Pro 7 Plus packaging does not look like competitive models, and it is interesting to twist it in hands. The outer case is made of hard plastic, which contains boxes of black cardboard. The smartphone is inserted into one of the boxes, like a cartridge in an old game console.

What's in the box

The package bundle of the device, as for a flagship smartphone, is rather poor. There is a powerful charger, a decent case for the back cover and ... well, that's it. Although, for the Meizu Pro 7 Plus, they could, at least, put also good headphones.

A VIP card with a unique number was also found in the box with the Meizu Pro 7 Plus, but, unfortunately, it is not yet clear why it is needed and what advantages it will give to the owners of the devices. Offhand, the idea is interesting, especially if you remember that Meizu opens fan clubs around the world and holds fan parties. Maybe the company will really be generous with some real bonuses for its VIPs. Or maybe he won't be generous - even the regional offices of Meizu do not yet have accurate information on the cards.

As in hand

Of course, the Meizu Pro 7 Plus is poorly suited for one-handed operation. Such dimensions. But the Meizu designers at least made their "shovel" non-slip and more or less grip due to the sloping sides and narrow frames on the sides of the display. Well, plus to this, the notification curtain in the Flyme shell can be pulled out with a swipe anywhere, no need to reach up with your finger.

I don't want to talk about the location of the connectors and buttons for a long time, everything is standard. But you can praise for the preserved 3.5 mm audio jack and scold for one speaker. For the flagship, they could be generous on stereo.

Well, the universal Meizu button is still very helpful. If it were a smartphone from another manufacturer with three buttons, such a "shovel" would have to be constantly twisted in your hands. But since everything is tied to one button, both "Back" and "Home", Meizu Pro 7 Plus is well at least somehow ergonomic and easy to operate.

Let's take off the "fingers"

It's quite difficult to get used to the work of the fingerprint scanner after other smartphones. And I'm not talking about read speed, I'm talking about convenience. To unlock the screen, you need to press the hardware button and hold your finger for a little so that the sensor has time to read the fingerprint. At the same time, if you hold your finger a little longer than necessary, the phone will call the voice assistant.

Screen

I liked the large 5.7-inch Super AMOLED screen with a resolution of 2560x1440 pixels. The maximum brightness could be higher, and the minimum a little lower, but the colors are normal and by default the color rendition is close to neutral with a slight bias towards warm colors.

The color rendition can be adjusted either by choosing one of four presets, or by tweaking the slider to suit your tastes. There is also a "Night mode" with a schedule so that in the dark your eyes do not get tired of reading endless feeds of social networks.

Overall, the Meizu Pro 7 Plus has a good flagship screen. Moderately bright, with normal color rendering. However, there are questions about the display resolution. Well, honestly: why? A 2K screen outside of virtual reality is of little use. And since Meizu doesn't have its own helmet or VR content store yet, I doubt anyone will buy the Meizu Pro 7 Plus for their Chinese VR glasses for $ 15. So why all this pixel art? Meizu could easily put a Full HD screen, as in just the Pro 7, and cut a little bit of hype on the excellent results in synthetic performance tests. Well, the battery would have held longer ...

Second screen

Having told why the second screen of Meizu Pro 7 Plus is needed, we did not dwell in detail on how it works in order to wait for the final smartphone with the final firmware. Wait. Alas, the screen still works imperfectly, sometimes not responding to the touch of your fingers. I even deduced a pattern: if the camera does not wake up from one vertical swipe, as instructed, make two very fast swipes in a row. Then the camera will definitely start.

Again, the very idea of ​​the second screen seems to me to be very successful. And the point now is not even in the "selfie" on the main camera and not in the pedometer. Meizu gave us all a working tool that will still show itself, if it does not turn out to be a one-off topic, like... And now this somehow revives the market, which, it would seem, is already forever buried under the shaft of faceless smartphones. There would be more such boring decisions!

How does it work

We have already said everything about the MediaTek Helio X30 processor in the first video. This is a really top-end processor that can handle any tasks and heats up moderately under load. Heating the battery up to 50 degrees and the case up to 40 degrees is nothing when compared with previous top-end MediaTek processors. And for the market as a whole, this is a very good indicator.

Games, applications - MediaTek Helio X30 pulls everything, and an ordinary user will not notice the difference with any Snapdragon 835 at all. Moreover, in the case of the Meizu Pro 7 Plus, there is simply no sufficient RAM and permanent memory and there are no bottlenecks.More sophisticated users, of course, blame the graphics accelerator (in vain), and the results in synthetics of Helio X30 are not top-notch, but this does not affect real scenarios of using smartphones.

But with the younger model, everything is not so good. I don't understand how to be the owners of the youngest Pro 7, for which the MediaTek Helio P25 processor is responsible, especially if the thought is spinning in my head that the recently introducedgot a chip from Qualcomm. I'm sure Meizu just became prisoners of Mediatek in this situation, but what will the fans say to this? This is the main question. In general, the younger Meizu Pro 7 Plus is the case when saving a couple of rubles for the buyer is a very bad idea. If you decide to take this smartphone, take it with the Helio X30 on board.

Although with the Helio X30, not everything is "Thank God" either. As we mentioned in the first video, this hardware platform does not support LTE Band 20, so high-speed Internet will fall off in many regions.

Than thinks

The smartphone runs on the new version of the Flyme 6.0 operating system, and we have already devoted a separate video to it. In short: this is an interesting shell with original control ergonomics.

The Meizu Pro 7 Plus that came to us worked on the Chinese firmware, where Google services are absent, as a class, and they cannot be installed even from Chinese app stores. The situation was saved by w3bsit3-dns.com, from where I downloaded the Google Play APK file and then installed everything I needed. If you don't want to bother like that, you have a direct road to the officials. Well, or to competitors - this is already a matter of personal choice.

How does it play

With the quality of music playback, Meizu's flagships have always been very good, and Meizu Pro 7 / Pro 7 Plus is no exception. Both versions of the smartphone are equipped with a professional dedicated audio chip Cirrus Logic CS43130 with a built-in headphone amplifier. As a result, Meizu Pro 7 Plus plays music perfectly, giving out powerful and juicy sound. The detailing is also excellent - all vocal nuances and background sounds are perfectly audible. Therefore, it is extremely important to take good on-ear headphones with your smartphone.

One speaker, average volume and average quality. No, mids and partly highs are transmitted perfectly and the volume margin is not bad. But ultra-low frequencies were not predictable, and there could be more midbass. Still, the flagship. Musical, after all. Still PREMIUM !!! 111

And, of course, the bottom end is not the best place for a single speaker. During games, I constantly covered it with my hand.

How much holds

A top processor, a large 2K screen, an audio chip with an amplifier - these are all very expensive components for the battery. However, the built-in 3,500 mAh battery holds up very well. And here again we need to praise the Helio X30 platform, in which power consumption is well optimized. With the screen brightness set to 60%, the smartphone lost only 10% of its charge in half an hour of playing tanks.

At the same time, 9% was spent on OnePlus 5 in the same half hour with the same settings. An excellent result for the Media Library, especially considering the fact that the Meizu Pro 7 Plus has a higher resolution! In real life scenarios, the Meizu Pro 7 Plus holds a little less charge than the OnePlus 5. You can expect about a day of battery life under mixed load, or even a little more.

Also, fast charging mCharge 4.0 pleases, which fully replenishes the charge in an hour, and in the first fifteen minutes it gives + 35% to the battery.

Here are the exact numbers for fast charging:

15 minutes - 35%

30 minutes - 69%

45 minutes - 90%

60 minutes - 95%

Full charge time: 1 hour, 6 minutes

Camera

The main camera received two Sony IMX386 modules with ƒ / 2.0 optics and a dual flash. She focuses quickly, all the necessary "fashion" trends like shooting 4K video and portrait mode are respected. Overall, the Meizu Pro 7 Plus's camera shoots at an excellent flagship level. Of course, there are some peculiarities here. For example, the background in portrait mode is blurred too aggressively - although it is effective, it is very far from the "real" optical bokeh.

But just looking at photos is not interesting. Let's better compare the shots from the Meizu Pro 7 Plus with one of the best Android smartphones of this year OnePlus 5. The results are interesting and ambiguous. In landscape shots, you can see how Meizu tints the photos and uplifts the contrast. At the same time, in terms of detail, Meizu is somewhat inferior to the OnePlus 5, which gives out more often clear pictures with natural colors.

Shot with Meizu Pro 7 Plus:

Shot with OnePlus 5:

Shot with Meizu Pro 7 Plus:

Shot with OnePlus 5:

But in portrait shots, the skin tone and texture are better conveyed by the Meizu Pro 7 Plus. It is a pity that the background at the same time Meizu blurs well, very much.

Meizu Pro 7 Plus:

Shot with OnePlus 5:

These and other photos and videos can be downloaded in original quality at this link.

Shooting video

We continue to compare the Meizu Pro 7 Plus with the OnePlus 5. Here are two videos recorded on the same day, one after the other. Pay attention to the work of the noise control device near the fountain and the stabilization of the frame when walking - according to these parameters, OnePlus 5 coped much better.

Front camera

As soon as we said in the video that “selfies” in Pro 7 can be taken on the main camera and, therefore, the front camera is no longer needed, as subscribers immediately criticized us to smithereens. It's even surprising that so many people still use video calling, even with our super-quality mobile Internet. However, the front camera of the Meizu Pro 7 Plus is really good. With autofocus, 16-megapixel matrix and ƒ / 2.0 lens. So she pulls both video calls and photos easily. But it's better to turn off all these fashionable skin improvement algorithms right away - they blur the skin too unnaturally.

Competitors

In my opinion, the most obvious alternative to Meizu Pro 7 is OnePlus 5. Yes, it has a smaller screen and worse sound in headphones, but the price is lower and the processor is much more interesting. We will do a separate material on the long-term experience of using the OnePlus 5, but now we can say that childhood illnesses, this smartphone has outgrown, and for its money it remains an extremely tasty offer.

Technical specifications

Network :

4G FDD-LTE: B1 / B3 / B5 / B7

4G TDD-LTE: B38 / B39 / B40 / B41

3G WCDMA: B1 / B2 / B5 / B8

3G CDMA: BC0

3G TD-SCDMA: B34 / B39

2G GSM: B2 / B3 / B8 / B5

Display: 5.7 inches, 2560 x 1440, Super AMOLED;
Second display: 1.9 inches, 240 × 536, AMOLED;

Platform: Helio X30 processor, (ten cores, 2.6 GHz, 10 nm) IMG PowerVR 7XTP graphics;
RAM: 6 GB LPDDR4X;

DAC: Cirrus Logic CS43130;

Memory: 64/128 GB (UFS 2.1);

OS: Android 7.0 Nougat shell Flyme 6;
2 nanoSIM cards;
Main camera : Two 12 megapixel Sony IMX386 sensors with f / 2.0 optics, dual flash;

Front-camera: 16 MP, ƒ / 2.0;
Battery : 3500 mAh, non-removable
Fingerprint scanner;
Dimensions (edit) : 157.34 x 77.24 x 7.3 mm

Weight: 170 grams.

Dignity

• Interesting design
• Large, bright screen with excellent color reproduction
• Powerful hardware
• Convenient operating system Flyme OS
• Audiophile headphone music quality
• Supports fast charging technology
• High quality photos

Disadvantages

• High price
• No stereo speakers
• No optical stabilization in video

Summary

In short, Meizu has a flagship. Iron drags, the operating system is stable, the camera is quite flagship level. The sound from the headphones is amazing. And, most importantly, it is not boring. The cool second screen gives us interesting new scenarios and brings the smartphone design to life.

But there is also a problem. Price. Given the abundance of smartphones on the market, it will be difficult for Meizu to explain why it is necessary to buy the Pro 7 Plus, and also overpay about 50 euros for it. I'm afraid many will not make such sacrifices and will simply buy the same OnePlus 5.

So we are waiting for discounts on Meizu Pro 7 Plus.

Where to buy

Many asked how it happened that in Ukraine Meizu Pro 7 and Meizu Pro 7 Plus are sold cheaper than on Aliexpress. I found out: this is an initiative of Ukrainian officials. They actually sell these smartphones on pre-orders for less than the recommended price, and when sales open, the Ukrainian price will be raised to the Chinese one.

And wherever you buy this smartphone, or any other, you can return a percentage of the purchase using Cashback -