Hands On: Meizu Pro 5 - A New Beginning

The Meizu Pro 5 is the first device under the Chinese company’s new Pro lineup. Launched alongside Meizu’s new logo, it marks the beginning of something new for the company. In comparison to previous devices from Meizu, the Pro 5 is its most premium smartphone to date. As the first non-Samsung device to be powered by the very capable Exynos 7420 processor, we took the device out for a little spin to see just how capable it is.

First, a quick run-down on the Pro 5’s specifications. It has a 5.7-inch 1080p Super AMOLED display, an Exynos 7420 processor paired with 3GB or 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM (for the 32GB and 64GB variants respectively), a microSD card slot which supports cards up to 128GB, a 3,050mAh battery with Meizu’s mCharge quick charging technology, as well as 21MP rear and 5MP front-facing shooters. Needless to say, these are very respectable specifications.

Looking at the overall design of the Pro 5, it actually looks remarkably similar to the Meizu MX5, right down to the slight camera bump as well. While it’s very easy to mistake one for the other, there are actually several subtle differences. Unlike the MX5, the Pro 5 has a 2.5D curved glass protecting its display. The Pro 5 also has a ridge connecting the volume rocker and the power button.

In the camera department, the Pro 5’s 21MP rear camera is equipped with a Sony IMX 230 sensor, the very same one found on the honor 7. In good lighting, the Pro 5 can capture pretty good images. The shots are detailed, and colour accuracy is decent as well.

The same, however, cannot be said of the Pro 5’s camera performance in low-light conditions. During my testing, images shot in night time look more washed out than they really are in real life. This results in dull-looking images that look…sombre. However, I’d need to do a lot more night shooting with the Pro 5 to give it a fair chance.

As for performance, the Exynos 7420 chipset powering the Pro 5 definitely did not disappoint. There is little to no lag when browsing through the phone’s menus, and switching between various apps didn’t take long either, which is quite impressive. To see just how capable the Pro 5 is, I put it through its paces on AnTuTu. Needless to say, I was pretty surprised:

Now, while benchmark results can only tell so much (not to mention how manufacturers can manipulate the scores), these do give us an idea of how the Pro 5 compares to other flagship devices. To put this into perspective, even the Samsung Galaxy S6 duo – which were hailed as the most powerful Android devices in the first half of 2015 – only managed to get scores in the neighbourhood of 60,000 in our review.

Performance aside, using the Pro 5 for the first time was…quite a challenge. The thing is, there is only one button on the Pro 5, which is the home button. Other than that, there are no capacitive keys on either sides of it. It took me some time to realise that the home button actually doubles as the back key. Instead of pressing it, I just need to give it a quick tap to go back. As for the Recent Apps page, I only have swipe up from the bottom of the screen to summon it.

While these unconventional methods to navigate the Pro 5 will need some getting used to, there are several things that are familiar at first glance, such as the stunning Super AMOLED display. Every time I get the pleasure to review a smartphone equipped with this panel, I can’t get enough of the deep blacks that the display is so well-known for. Other than that, the fingerprint sensor placed on the home button of the Pro 5 is pretty quick to identify my fingerprint.

The Meizu Pro 5 is one powerful device. Other than the slightly underwhelming camera, almost every aspect of it is impressive; especially its performance. Once I get to spend more time with the device, the first thing I’d do is fire up some graphically demanding mobile games to see just how far I can push it.

Of course, that’s not the only aspect of the Pro 5 that I’d be looking into. Stay tuned for our full review of it.