Just in: Meizu Pro 6 Plus hands-on

The Meizu Pro 6 was less from the flagship phone I expected. It was an ill-focused combination of high-end features with second-rate hardware, and despite the force touch gimmickry, the Pro 6 couldn't achieve its Pro 5 predecessor coolness.

Eventually, Meizu understood it made some bad decisions down the road and tried to make up for those with the Pro 6s and Pro 6 Plus. Although the Pro 6s shrank the size, and returned to the Super AMOLED screen, it continued to stick to the controversial MediaTek chipset.

The Meizu Pro 6 Plus on the other hand got everything right - there is a big and glamorous Super AMOLED screen with Quad HD resolution. The fan-favorite Exynos chip is back, borrowed straight from the latest Galaxy S7 series, and the camera has undergone the much-demanded upgrade of bigger pixels and optical stabilization.

The new Pro 6 Plus looks a lot like its Pro 6 sibling - it's an all-metal smartphone featuring the new refined antenna bands adopted even by the new iPhone 7 generation, but pioneered first indeed by the Pro 6.

The first and most noticeable improvement is the screen - now Meizu has embedded a Samsung-made 5.7" Super AMOLED unit of QuadHD resolution and you can tell it right away. The AMOLEDs are the most striking screens on the market and that lava wallpaper can take your breath away.

The screen is still a 3D Press-enabled and I really hope Meizu has developed some more uses for the technology because the implementation I saw on the Pro 6 was very limited.

Even though the mTouch home key looks the same, it employs one new functionality this time around. In addition to the touch and press duties you can use for navigation through the interface, there is now Live Fingerprint scanning (any orientation recognition) and an integrated heart-rate sensor. I don't know how Meizu has fitted all of these into a single key, but I find it darn impressive.

One of my biggest criticism of the Pro 6 was the Helio X25 chip, which has a feeble GPU and a power-hungry processor, both leading to performance bottlenecks and extensive battery drain. With the return of the flagship Exynos chipset the performance should now be five-star.

Meizu is also wooing back its fans with a prominent camera upgrade. Indeed, the camera got a bump, but it was totally worth it because there is now a bigger sensor, a 6-piece high-quality lens, and 4-axis optical image stabilization. The ring flash is here to stay as is the hybrid phase-detect/laser-assisted autofocus.

And last, but not least, Meizu has listened carefully and didn't forget to increase the battery capacity. The Pro 6 Plus comes with a beefy 3,400 mAh battery, about 35% bigger than the Pro 6's. It supports fast battery charging and should allow for some top-notch endurance thanks to the new more efficient chipset.

Our Meizu Pro 6 Plus came running Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow and Flyme 5.2.7.0 international ROM. You bet our review is already in the works, so do check back some time next week for it.