The sub-₹10,000 segment of of smartphones is the most fought-after in India today. These budget devices now sport premium features such as fingerprint scan, 4K video and high-end cameras, while also delivering impressive long-term hardware performance. A bevy of players — Lenovo, Mi, Meizu, Micromax and Asus — lead the charge in this category. Meizu seems to be the latest Chinese heartthrob in town with its flagship M3 Note priced at ₹9,999.

Affordability is just one of the phone’s many virtues. The all-metal body, powered by the 6000 Series aluminum alloy des-ign, gives it a classy look and feel.

Lightweight at 163g — a tad heavier than the Meizu M2 Note — and easy to manoeuvre, the dual-SIM 4G/LTE phone delivers a decent, energy-efficient performance, much better than many of its peers, thanks to the MediaTek Helio P10 octa-core processor and the customised Flyme OS built on Android 5.1.

Display and battery The 5.5-inch full HD display — with 403 pixels per inch — looks warm, clear and well-saturated. The MiraVision 2.0 display is sharp and beautiful, giving a suitably unreal look to photos and wallpapers.

Flyme’s Assistive Touch is convenient and responds faster.

The operating system has some interesting and convenient features such as an app-lock, for which many other phones rely on annoying third-party applications. The phone comes with 16GB and 32GB storage capacities, and has a Dinorex T2X-1 glass front, which seems sturdy, but could need more ‘crash-testing’. The fingerprint scanner works fine, though at times it gets confused with home button functions.

The 4100 mAh non-removable battery is a useful upgrade from M2 Note’s 3100 mAh. It keeps the phone alive and kicking even after long hours of browsing and gaming, making the Meizu M3 Note, arguably, one of the most energy-efficient smartphones in the market today.

Camera and sound The phone’s 13-megapixel camera with a ƒ/2.2 aperture and a five-element lens produces printable photos.

Even though the 72-DPI photos look warm and deep on phone, on computer they appear just okay, like the photos from most budget phones.

The camera’s continuous shooting and panorama features are also up to the mark, while the two-tone flash does a great job. Both the front and back cameras are fast to open and respond to touch sensibly. The 5 MP front camera with ƒ/2.0 aperture and five-element lens is not wide enough, but the selfies come out smooth. The selfie panel has some cool features users can fiddle with.

The speakers are not all that impressive, though not sub-par. Music and films play well, but there is a lot of room for improvement here. The call audio quality is great but the speakers deliver only faint voices if, say, you take a call inside a market.

Gaming The Meizu M3Note is not exactly a gamer’s delight. It plays heavy games with ease, and without getting heated up, and yet it’s not cut out for gaming. The colours don’t support high-graphics video content and poor audio makes the gaming experience sub-par. The sensors — hall sensor, gravity sensor, gyroscope, etc. — react well, but even here there is enough space for enhancement.

That said, budget users generally don’t expect such cutting-edge features from devices of this segment. What they would like, instead, is the FM radio, which is strangely absent in the Meizu M3 Note. Despite these hiccups, the M3 Note is a cost-effective, energy-efficient gadget that fits your bill.

Brand: Meizu M3 Note

Price: ₹9,999

Good: Metal body, Premium looks, Long battery life, Camera, Display

Not-so-good: No FM

Speakers, Poor gaming experience

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