Meizu MX3 review: Eastern connection

Controls

The front of the Meizu MX3 features a 2MP front-facing camera, proximity and ambient light sensor and the tiny earpiece. Under the screen there's the capacitive Home button only.

Meizu MX3 at the front

The right side of the Meizu MX3 features no controls, while the left hosts the single piece volume rocker.

The sides of the phone

The power button is placed on the top right side, which is not the most comfortable position - with the Home key handling both lock and unlock this is nothing to fret over. The only other thing at the top is the 3.5 mm headphone jack.

The bottom is where the main microphone is next to the microUSB port for charging and data transfers.

Top and bottom

At the back of the Meizu MX3, we find the 8 MP camera lens, the noise-reducing microphone and the single LED flash. There's a Meizu logo on the back and finally a small opening at the bottom for the loudspeaker grille.

On the back of the MX3

Removing the back button, fiddly as it is, reveals the smallish in appearance 2,400 mAh battery. The battery cannot be removed or replaced.

Under the hood

15:9 FullHD display

The display on the Meizu MX is a 15:9 LCD with the resolution of 1080 x 1800 resulting in crystal clear 412ppi on the 5.1" diagonal.

Colors look great and sharpness is no issue. The viewing angles are also quite good, with the relatively high reflectivity the single noteworthy issue.

The Meizu MX3 display

We took a picture of the display matrix under a microscope - the screen has an RGB matrix with the red, green and blue subpixels aligned in a typical fashion.

Meizu MX3 display matrix under a microscope

The screen on the Meizu MX3 showed good contrast and decent brightness levels throughout. It's nowhere near the top screens in business, like the HTC One or LG G2, but still looks quite pleasant and is sufficiently bright.

Moving on to our sunlight legibility test, you can see how contrast suffers from the screen being exposed to strong light. The MX3 is very far from the likes of the Apple iPhone 5 or Samsung Galaxy Note 3, clearly not the best screen to work with in the sun.

Sunlight contrast ratio

• Nokia 808 PureView
  4.698
• Apple iPhone 5
  3.997
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  3.997
• Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III
  3.419
• Nokia Lumia 925
  3.402
• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  3.352
• Samsung Omnia W
  3.301
• Samsung Galaxy S
  3.155
• Samsung Galaxy S4 mini
  3.127
• Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom
  3.118
• Nokia N9
  3.069
• Samsung Galaxy Note
  2.970
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2.950
• HTC One S
  2.901
• Samsung Galaxy S II
  2.832
• Samsung Galaxy S II Plus
  2.801
• Huawei Ascend P1
  2.655
• Sony Xperia ZR
  2.672
• Nokia Lumia 900
  2.562
• HTC One Max
  2.537
• Nokia Lumia 720
  2.512
• HTC One
  2.504
• Sony Xperia Z
  2.462
• Samsung Galaxy S III mini
  2.422
• Motorola RAZR i
  2.366
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2.307
• Apple iPhone 4S
  2.269
• HTC Desire 600 dual sim
  2.262
• HTC One X
  2.158
• Nokia N8
  2.144
• Oppo Find 5
  2.088
• BlackBerry Z10
  2.051
• Apple iPhone 4
  2.016
• HTC One mini
  2.003
• LG G2
  1.976
• Sony Ericsson Xperia ray
  1.955
• Samsung Galaxy Camera
  1.938
• HTC Butterfly
  1.873
• Huawei Ascend P6
  1.865
• Sony Xperia V
  1.792
• Sony Xperia U
  1.758
• Meizu MX3
  1.754
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1.691
• HTC One V
  1.685
• BlackBerry Q5
  1.682
• LG Optimus Vu
  1.680
• LG Optimus GJ
  1.666
• HTC Desire V
  1.646
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  1.578
• Samsung Galaxy Core
  1.563
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1.552
• LG Optimus 3D
  1.542
• Nokia Asha 302
  1.537
• Sony Xperia M
  1.473
• Nokia Lumia 610
  1.432
• Gigabyte GSmart G1355
  1.361
• HTC Desire C
  1.300
• Nokia Asha 501
  1.270
• LG Optimus L7
  1.269
• LG Optimus L9
  1.227
• Meizu MX
  1.221
• Sony Xperia E dual
  1.203
• Samsung Galaxy Pocket
  1.180
• Sony Xperia tipo
  1.166
• Samsung Galaxy mini 2
  1.114

Battery life

The battery in the Meizu MX3 is a 2,400mAh Li-Po unit quoted at around 430 hours of stand-by in 2G and 393 hours in 3G. Official talk time figures specs are 12 and 14 hours respectively, with 40 hours of continuous music playback.

Our own tests revealed that the MX3's battery can't quite handle the ample screen and capable chipsets the way some of its high-end rivals do. The talk time endurance was good, and so were the web browsing times, but video playback disappoints. There's also very high stand-by power draw, which results in an overall unimpressive score of 36h.

Meizu MX3 battery life test scorecard

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