Meizu M6T First Impressions

Chinese phone brand Meizu announced its re-entry into the Indian market with the launch of three new smartphones — the Meizu M16th, the Meizu M6T, and the Meizu C9. The Meizu M6T, priced at Rs. 7,999, fits right into the sub-Rs. 10,000 price segment and faces stiff competition from the likes of the Xiaomi Redmi 6, Honor 7C, and Samsung Galaxy On7 Pro.

The Meizu M6T offers several features typical of phones in this segment, including dual rear cameras, an octa-core SoC, and a decently sized 3,300mAh battery. The phone will be sold in India on Amazon.in starting soon. With its minimalist design and decent internals, could the Meizu M6T be the game-changer for the Chinese phone manufacturer's second innings in India? We got to spend some amount of time with the Meizu M6T at its launch event in New Delhi, and here are our first impressions.

Meizu M6T design and specifications

The Meizu M6T looks like any other smartphone in the budget segment. It has a fairly standard 18:9 HD+ display up front, and a plastic back panel with two rear cameras. The design seems like a safe bet for the company's first smartphone launch in a long time. The Meizu M6T sports a 5.7-inch HD+ LCD panel with a resolution of 720x1440 pixels. In our brief time with it, the display appeared to be have decent brightness and contrast when observed under indoor lighting. There are no capacitive or physical buttons on the front, instead navigation is handled by onscreen keys. Above the screen are the 8-megapixel selfie camera, earpiece, and a couple of sensors.

The dual rear camera setup consists of a 13-megapixel primary sensor with an f/2.2 aperture, and a 2-megapixel secondary sensor for depth shots. Indoor shots turned out fine on the phone's screen, but we were unable to test the Meizu M6T's cameras outdoors. We will soon have a detailed analysis of this phone's cameras in our full review . There is a fingerprint sensor below the rear cameras, which was fairly accurate and speedy in our brief initial tests.

The left of the device sports a SIM tray, and on the right are the lock/ power and volume buttons. The Meizu M6T has a Micro-USB port and a speaker grille on the bottom, and a 3.5mm headphone jack on top.

The Meizu M6T's shell is made from polycarbonate and it feels smooth in the hand. This phone is fairly comfortable for one-handed usage, weighing in at 145 grams.

At its core, the Meizu M6T is powered by the dated MediaTek MT6750 SoC, which we have previously seen in the Nokia 3.1, LG Q7, and even this phone's own predecessor, the Meizu M6. We would have preferred a newer processor, such as the MediaTek Helio P22, which powers the Xiaomi Redmi 6 (Review).

We could not test performance extensively, and will reserve our final judgement — including benchmarks and real-world usage — until our upcoming review. The processor is matched with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, and no other variants have been launched in India.

The Meizu M6T is backed by a 3,300mAh battery under the hood. The company has confirmed that this smartphone does not support Meizu's proprietary mCharge fast charging technology, which is not a surprise at this price level. The M6T does have a battery saving mode that can be used to reduce background activity. We will test battery performance and much more in our full review of the Meizu M6T.

Meizu M6T software

The Meizu M6T runs Flyme OS on top of Android 8.0 Oreo, which is a disappointment considering that Android 9.0 Pie has been out for the past few months. Meizu India has not confirmed whether or not the Meizu M6T will receive an update in the future. Flyme OS is a heavily skinned version of Android and this phone comes with a few preloaded apps, plus UI design tweaks and customisations.

The phone lets you choose between on screen buttons and gesture-based navigation, which can be toggled in the Settings app. As per our initial impressions, the gestures did not feel smooth enough. You get some proprietary apps such as Themes, Security, Toolbox, and a custom app store. There are also custom music, messaging, email, and Web browser apps as part of Flyme OS.

The AI-powered face unlock feature on the Meizu M6T is much like what we've seen on other phones in the price bracket. It is quick to register faces and to unlock itself.

Stay tuned to Gadgets 360 for our extensive and detailed review of the Meizu M6T in which we will test the phone's design, performance, software, display, battery life, camera, and more.