Chinese device maker Meizu has a habit of releasing high-quality smartphones for low prices. The latest example is the company’s new Meizu M1 Note. It’s a smartphone with a 5.5 inch full HD display, an octa-core processor, and a starting price of CNÂ¥999.

That’s about $160.

The phone also happens to nearly identical to Apple’s iPhone 5c. It’s just bigger.

m1 note_02

Meizu’s phone is powered by a MediaTek MT6752 ARM Cortex-A53 octa-core processor with Mali-T760 graphics and 2GB of RAM. It’s available with 16GB to 32GB of storage. Unlike some of the company’s other phones, this model has no microSD card slot.

It features a 3140mAh battery, and features a 13MP rear camera and 5MP front-facing camera.

The Meizu M1 Note supports 802.11n dual-band WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, and LTE, WCDMA, and GSM networks.

It runs Google Android 4.4, but like Meizu’s other phones, the M1 Note has the Flyme skin which includes a custom user interface and suite of apps.

The M1 Note is the first member of Meizu’s new budget brand, called Meilan (which means Blue Charm). It should be available for purchase in China by the end of December. International models with support for LTE networks outside of China are expected to launch in early 2015.

via Engadget

 

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13 replies on “Meizu launches the $160 M1 Note smartphone in China”

  1. who cares ,,its for China,,yet again,,how about phones for lets say,,,the USA

    1. Actually there a niche for us who want to use a smart phone in the USA but don’t need to use/pay for 3g/4g but only wifi. These phone make possible because IMEI is not registered with At&t. Or so I just found out!!

  2. How the hell can they afford to sell this at $160. Even at $250, it’s a bargain.

    1. 1080p is the new 720p and the SoC’s perf is rather nice too for the price. There are even better deals announced like the Juayu S3 and Orgtec Wa. TCL also has a device at those specs with the same price or less, the Meme Da 3N and Coolpad has a limited version (for now) of the F2 with similar specs and price. This is just the start. If Meizu and TCL did it, all the big China names will.
      Soon Meizu is launching a similar device with smaller screen and even lower price.
      At the same time 720p devices are moving bellow 100$.
      Ofc devices are sold at cost or close to cost, then as parts get cheaper they make a bit more money or drop the price but that’s what real competition and price wars are. The good news is that the China guys are going global and we’ll all benefit from it.

      1. It’s not about the LCD, they didn’t cheap out of the camera either, or battery size. Too bad on lack of USA LTE band.

        1. Actually the screen is a rather costly part and the res and size matters a lot for the users. Screen and SoC define a phone for most users and then everything else refines that definition.
          For the cams they actually did cheap out. China phones went 13MP and 5MP early this year in the 120-200$ range and the cams are cheaper than you think. Meizu on the MX4 and MX4 Pro has the 21 MP Sony cam, using that would have meant they did not cheap out. Omnivision has 21 MP and 24 MP sensors about to hit the market so we’ll see lots of phones with a lot more than 13MP soon. The trend now is 8MP front and soon ,as the sensors are widely available, the back cams will go 20MP+. In a few months 8MP and 20MP+ will be the standard for midrange China phones just like 13 and 5 MP was this year.
          The battery is very cheap ,some 5$ plus/minus 1$ depending on size, nobody actually cuts battery size to save costs, if they do it they do it to make the device thinner.
          CES is in 2 weeks, the Chinese new year in less than 2 months so we should see a lot more new devices launched soon, some better than this one.

  3. Very impressive for the price, would buy if it comes to USA&CANADA with software support terrific phone with dual sim makes it a very good travel phone.

  4. Their other devices don’t have microSD either. Also to note that it has no wifi ac and seems it doesn’t shoot 4k video.
    in Geekbench it seems to have some problems with encryption but hard to say what’s going on there.

    1. “In Geekbench it seems to have some problems with encryption but hard to say what’s going on there.”

      “Chinese” and “encryption” are the only two words required in order to get the joke here. It’s not especially funny, but it is true none the less. It’s also the main reason I don’t buy Chinese phones. I simply don’t trust them to not come pre-doctored/hacked in some way.

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