The Meizu PRO 6 Review

Meizu is hard at work carving out a niche for itself in its increasingly competitive home market. One of the smaller Chinese OEMs based on sales volume, it considers design and build quality as core strengths. Because of this attention to detail, and perhaps a ploy to increase perceived quality, Meizu’s phones generally carry a small price premium relative to its competitors.

Last year the company modified its branding to better differentiate its high-end PRO series from the mainstream MX series of phones. While a good idea, Meizu’s current product lineup still has no clear hierarchy. It currently offers three different phones in three different sizes that overlap in several key areas. The PRO 6 is Meizu’s current flagship, and while it holds a few advantages over the previous generation PRO 5, which Meizu still sells, it also regresses in some ways. Then there’s the recently announced MX6 whose hardware and design is again similar to the PRO 6, but comes with a lower price.

Meizu historically sources SoCs from either MediaTek or Samsung. The PRO 5 comes with the Exynos 7420, the same SoC Samsung used in its Galaxy S6 family, but the newer PRO 6 uses MediaTek’s deca-core Helio X25, a frequency-bumped, Meizu-exclusive version of the Helio X20. The Helio X20/X25 are notable for being the first SoCs to use tri-cluster CPU configuration, with two ARM Cortex-A72 CPUs to handle bursts of heavy activity, four lower-power Cortex-A53 CPUs to handle less intense, general workloads, and four more A53 CPUs at a lower frequency for very light loads and background tasks.

The problem is that the performance of the more expensive PRO 6 should be about the same as the mainstream MX6; its A72 cores peak at 2.5GHz versus 2.3GHz for the MX6, giving the PRO 6 only a theoretical 9% advantage—not enough to notice in everyday use—and the difference in frequency between the A53 cores is even smaller. The higher frequency A72 cores in both the PRO 6 and MX6 should give them a noticeable advantage over the PRO 5’s four A57 cores in single-threaded workloads—between 10% to 20% based on frequency plus the gains from architectural improvements—but this depends on how Meizu prioritizes the A72 cores. If the PRO 6 places more emphasis on reducing power consumption by placing more threads on the middle-tier A53 cluster instead of migrating them to the higher performance A72 cluster, then the PRO 6 could perform worse than the older PRO 5.

Meizu PRO Series
	Meizu PRO 6	Meizu PRO 5
SoC	MediaTek Helio X25 (MT6797T) 2x Cortex-A72 @ 2.5GHz 4x Cortex-A53 @ 2.0GHz 4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.5GHz Mali-T880MP4 @ 850MHz	Samsung Exynos 7420 4x Cortex-A57 @ 2.1GHz 4x Cortex-A53 @ 1.5GHz Mali-T760MP8 @ 772MHz
RAM	4GB LPDDR3-1866	3GB / 4GB LPDDR4-3104
NAND	32GB / 64GB (eMMC 5.1)	32GB / 64GB (UFS 2.0) + microSD
Display	5.2-inch 1920×1080 SAMOLED	5.7-inch 1920×1080 SAMOLED
Dimensions	147.7 x 70.8 x 7.25 mm 160 grams	156.7 x 78.0 x 7.5 mm 168 grams
Modem	MediaTek (Integrated) 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 6) FDD-LTE / TD-LTE / TD-SCDMA / WCDMA / CDMA (China only) / GSM	Samsung Shannon 333 2G / 3G / 4G LTE (Category 6) FDD-LTE / TD-LTE / TD-SCDMA / WCDMA / GSM
SIM Size	2x NanoSIM (dual standby)	2x NanoSIM (dual standby)
Front Camera	5MP, 1/4″ OmniVision OV5695, 1.4μm, f/2.0	5MP, 1/5″ OmniVision OV5670, 1.12μm, f/2.0
Rear Camera	21.16MP, 1/2.4” Sony IMX230 Exmor RS, 1.12µm pixels, f/2.2, PDAF + Laser AF, HDR, dual-tone LED flash	21.16MP, 1/2.4” Sony IMX230 Exmor RS, 1.12µm pixels, f/2.2, PDAF + Laser AF, HDR, dual-tone LED flash
Battery	2560 mAh (9.73 Wh) non-replaceable	3050 mAh (11.59 Wh) non-replaceable
Connectivity	802.11b/g/n/ac, BT 4.1 LE, NFC, GPS/GNSS, USB 3.1 Type-C	802.11b/g/n/ac, BT 4.1 LE, NFC, GPS/GNSS, USB 2.0 Type-C
Launch OS	Android 6.0 with Meizu FlymeOS 5.2	Android 5.1 with Meizu FlymeOS 5.1
Launch Price (No Contract)	¥2499 / ¥2799 $ 377 / $ 422 USD	¥2799 / ¥3099 $ 422 / $ 467 USD

It’s natural to expect newer, higher-cost phones to have better gaming performance, but again this is not necessarily the case with Meizu’s current lineup. The MediaTek SoCs in both the PRO 6 and MX6 use the same ARM Mali-T880MP4 GPU, giving no clear performance advantage to the flagship PRO 6. Also, we’ve already seen the Mali-T760MP8 GPU in the older PRO 5 outperform the PRO 6’s GPU (the Huawei Mate 8 has the same GPU as the PRO 6).

The RAM and NAND specifications show a similar pattern. The cheaper MX6 comes with the same 4GB LPDDR3 RAM as the flagship PRO 6, while the PRO 5 comes with either 3GB or 4GB of faster LPDDR4 RAM. Both the PRO 6 and PRO 5 come in two different versions with either 32GB or 64GB of internal storage, but like the 32GB-only MX6, the PRO 6 uses eMMC 5.1 NAND instead of UFS 2.0 like the older PRO 5. And while the PRO 5 supports microSD cards for storage expansion, Meizu removed this capability from the PRO 6.

All three phones include a touch-based, capacitive fingerprint sensor using Meizu’s mTouch 2.1 technology; however, Meizu is using a different supplier for the PRO 6, sourcing its fingerprint sensor from GOODiX instead of Fingerprint Cards like it did for the PRO 5. Despite the change, the PRO 6’s sensor works just as well as the PRO 5’s, quickly unlocking the phone regardless of finger position or orientation. It handles mild changes in dampness and temperature as well as other capacitive sensors, but large changes in either render your finger unreadable.

The PRO 6 uses the same rear camera setup as the PRO 5: a 21MP Sony IMX230 Exmor RS sensor with a 6-element, f/2.2 aperture lens and a hybrid autofocus system combining laser, phase detection (PDAF), and traditional contrast detection methods. The PRO 5 generally captures nice looking images with this hardware. It will be interesting to see if Meizu improved its HDR processing for the PRO 6, a weak point for the PRO 5, and if there’s any change in image or video processing performance with the switch to the MediaTek SoC.

The PRO 6 is Meizu’s second-smallest phone with a 5.2-inch 1080p SAMOLED display. This is a big change from the PRO 5, which lands firmly in phablet territory with its 5.7-inch 1080p SAMOLED screen. The MX6, MX5, and M3 note all use 5.5-inch panels. Because of overlapping hardware specifications and similar designs, size and price end up being the most obvious differentiators among Meizu’s phones.

Even though the PRO 6 seems no better, or even worse, than the PRO 5 in some ways, it does add a couple new features. First, it supports USB 3.1 over its Type-C connector, although this feature is turned off by default. To get faster file transfers you’ll need to dive into the settings app and enable this feature, at which point you’re greeted with a warning about possible interference and compatibility issues. Indeed, after enabling USB 3.1, I was no longer able to transfer files with the Windows VM on my laptop, although everything still worked smoothly when connecting the PRO 6 to my Windows desktop.

The second new feature is 3D Press, Meizu’s version of Apple’s 3D Touch pressure-sensitive screen. Improving user interface navigation is a core focus of Meizu’s Flyme OS, and the new interactions 3D Press enables further this goal. We’ll discuss how well this works and whether or not it actually improves the user experience later in the review.

The Helio X25 SoC includes an integrated MediaTek baseband processor supporting Category 6 LTE speeds—up to 300 Mb/s down and 50 Mb/s up with 2×20 MHz carrier aggregation and 64-QAM on the downlink.

This is MediaTek’s first baseband processor with CDMA2000 support. The international version of the PRO 6 supports FDD-LTE/TD-LTE, TD-SCDMA, WCDMA, and GSM networks and 11 frequency bands, while the Chinese model adds CDMA2000 and supports 18 frequency bands. Despite repeated inquiries, I was unable to get specific frequencies from Meizu. The PRO 6 does not support North American LTE frequencies, though, limiting it to HSPA+ operation.

The card tray accepts two NanoSIM cards for Dual SIM Dual Standby (DSDS) operation, which means both SIMs are active for receiving calls or messages, but only one SIM can make a connection at a time

A dual-band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) Wi-Fi radio is also packed inside the Helio X25 SoC. It supports up to 802.11ac with a single spatial stream; however, the PRO 6 is unable to connect to my ASUS router using the 5GHz band. Switching to 802.11n over 2.4GHz works fine except it takes an unusually long time to make the initial connection after turning the radio on.

Over the next several pages, we’ll take a closer look at the PRO 6 and see just how well its hardware and software perform.

One thing Meizu admires is design consistency: All of its phones use the same materials, construction, and style. The PRO 6 continues this legacy, with an all-aluminum, sandblasted chassis whose rounded edges and corners make it comfortable, but a little slippery, to hold.

There are a few minor differences between it and Meizu’s previous generation of phones, which I’ll point out in a minute, but the biggest difference is size; Meizu has shrunk the screen of its flagship from 5.7-inches to only 5.2-inches. I would not call the PRO 6 a small phone, but it’s definitely not a phablet either, shaving 9mm and 7mm off the PRO 5’s height and width, respectively. The PRO 6 is essentially the same size as Huawei’s P9, another phone with a 5.2-inch display, and is about 5mm taller, a little more than 1mm wider, and 0.6mm thinner than Samsung’s Galaxy S7 (5.1-inch display) and Sony’s Xperia X (5.0-inch display). It seems the PRO 6’s purpose is less about replacing the PRO 5 and more about filling a size gap in Meizu’s lineup.

The front of the PRO 6 is still edge-to-edge Gorilla glass with a small radius that blends into a polished, chamfered edge on the aluminum chassis. There’s an almost nonexistent black border around the screen and the bezels, particularly on the sides, are reasonably small.

There’s a single, multi-purpose button below the screen. When pressed, it acts as a home button and makes a nice, solid click. Pressing and holding the button locks the screen. It also houses the touch-based fingerprint sensor and serves as a capacitive back button when not being used to unlock the phone or authorize purchases. The pill-shaped button is slightly recessed, which makes it easy to find without looking, and is surrounded by a polished gold or chrome accent depending on body color.

For the M3 note, Meizu focused on improving symmetry which applies to the PRO 6’s design as well. The rather small earpiece, centered above the display, is the same size as the PRO 5’s; however, the PRO 6’s narrower width makes it easier to align with the ear, making phone conversations easier to hear relative to the PRO 5. The ambient light/proximity sensor and front-facing camera are the same size and sit to the right and left of the earpiece, respectively. There’s also a white notification LED hidden below the bezel to the left of the camera. Whether an intentional design choice or an optical side-effect of the bezel, a glowing ring surrounds the LED when lit that looks neat and makes it easier to notice.

The only feature on the top edge is the PRO 6’s single noise-cancelling microphone. The USB Type-C port is centered on the bottom edge, with the primary microphone and 3.5mm headphone jack on one side and a mono speaker on the other. The circular openings for the speaker and microphone are the same size and finished with a polished chamfer that looks nice and eliminates sharp edges.

The left edge is home to a metal tray with slots for two NanoSIM cards. The single-piece volume rocker and power button sit within a nicely polished groove on the opposite side. Because the buttons share the same texture and there’s not much space between them, it’s easy to press volume down instead of power or vice versa. At least the buttons have a positive click when pressed and do not rattle when the phone shakes.

Around back we see a couple more subtle changes to Meizu’s established design. The rear camera’s protective lens is still circular and slightly raised, with a polished metal ring around its perimeter, but its diameter is smaller than the PRO 5’s. The flash module has also been redesigned: Instead of a vertical pill shape like its previous generation phones, Meizu’s PRO 6 uses a circular ring flash with five pairs of dual-color LEDs encircling a black center that matches the camera and contains the laser autofocus system. The ring flash is sunk just below the surface to protect the lens and the metal edge has a subtle, polished chamfer that ties in with the phone’s other highlights.

Integrating the antennas in the most al, attractive way is a big challenge for designers. In previous phones, Meizu placed its antennas under plastic end caps on the top and bottom of its phones and cleverly hid the seam between plastic and metal with a machined and polished slot. Even though Meizu did a decent job matching the plastic’s color and texture to the aluminum chassis, viewing the phone from different angles revealed an obvious color mismatch that betrayed the appearance of a sleek, all-metal phone.

With the PRO 6, Meizu replaces the end caps with injection molded plastic antenna lines that hug the upper and lower edges of the back. The plastic is dyed to blend in with the phone’s color, and even though they do not match exactly, the antenna lines are not as distracting as those on some other phones.

The PRO 6 comes in three different colors: gold with white front like our review unit, silver with white front, and a dark gray with black front. These colors when combined with the aluminum chassis, machining highlights, and symmetric design make the PRO 6 a very elegant phone. Its exceptional build quality rivals even the most-expensive phones and is a point of distinction among its peers.

The PRO 6, like its predecessor the PRO 5, uses an SAMOLED display made by Samsung, which means a diamond PenTile subpixel layout; however, this is less of a problem for the PRO 6’s smaller 5.2-inch (versus 5.7-inch) FHD (1920×1080) display. Text looks a bit sharper on the PRO 6’s display compared to the PRO 5, although its effective resolution is still lower than 5.5-inch 1080p LCD panels. Still, most people should not be bothered by the PRO 6’s PenTile layout.

The PRO 5’s display is definitely its weakest link. Besides the resolution deficit, it suffers from a cool white point and lacks a proper sRGB mode. Fortunately, the newer version of Meizu’s Flyme OS installed on the PRO 6 adds several display presets that are analogous to the ones Samsung includes with its Galaxy phones. The “Standard” preset is a proper sRGB mode, while “Colorful” and “Photo” take advantage of the OLED display’s wider gamut to display more saturated colors. Meizu still includes a color temperature slider for fine tuning the white point too.

To see how each of these modes perform, we’ll use an X-Rite i1Pro 2 spectrophotometer for color measurements and an i1Display Pro colorimeter for brightness and contrast measurements. SpectraCal’s CalMAN 5 software will crunch the data and generate graphs.

Most of the phones with AMOLED displays, including the PRO 6, reach a peak brightness of about 350 nits at 100% APL when using the manual brightness mode. Only the OnePlus 3 clears 400 nits, which is still significantly less than what LCDs are capable of. With an APL of 50%, the PRO 6 reaches 397 nits, which again is fairly typical. Brightness drops all the way down to just 3 nits at the slider’s minimum position.

The PRO 6 includes a boost feature for auto-brightness mode, which the PRO 5 lacks, that increases peak brightness to 436 nits at 100% APL and 512 nits at 50% APL in bright conditions. This is a welcome addition that improves outdoor visibility; however, the PRO 6’s boosted brightness falls short of other phones with this feature, including the Motorola Moto Z (504 nits) and Samsung’s Galaxy S7 (532 nits) and Galaxy Note5 (566 nits), all at 100% APL. It’s not clear if this is a hardware limitation or if Meizu is just being conservative.

Like all phones with AMOLED panels, which have the ability to completely turn off individual pixels, the PRO 6 has a black level equal to zero and a mathematically infinite contrast ratio.

            

SpectraCal CalMAN

The PRO 6 adopts a cool white point just like the PRO 5 and other phones aimed at the Asian market, with all three modes—Standard, Colorful, and Photo—falling right around 7,400 K. The excess blue output combined with slightly more red than green gives the PRO 6’s screen a purplish tint that’s most noticeable when viewing shades of gray and an all-white background.

The PRO 6’s grayscale accuracy suffers from this RGB imbalance, placing it next to the LG G5 in the chart above. Its average ΔE2000 error is also worse than the PRO 5’s and 2x to 3x higher than the sRGB modes of other flagship phones, with error levels remaining above the threshold value of 3, where error is noticeable but considered acceptable, over almost the full luminance range, finally peaking at a value around 11 at 100% luminance.

The PRO 6’s default grayscale performance is disappointing. It does have a slider control for adjusting the white point, however, that shifts its average color temperature to 8,268 K at the slider’s coldest setting, resulting in a similar average ΔE2000 error of 6.53, and to 6,229 K at the warmest setting, which drastically improves its average grayscale error to 1.82.

Adjusting the slider until the display closely matches the D65 white point target of 6,504 K improves grayscale performance dramatically (click the button labeled “Standard (Calibrated)” above). Its average grayscale ΔE2000 error drops to 2.15 and only exceeds a value of 3 above 90% luminance. There’s still a small deficit in the green primary, though, so white backgrounds still show a hint of purple.

SpectraCal CalMAN

                

The PRO 6’s Standard display mode does a good job covering the sRGB color space. Shades of red are a little undersaturated and the cool white point pulls shades of cyan towards blue at lower saturation levels. The largest ΔE2000 errors for all colors occur at saturation levels below 50%, but the average error of 3.32 is pretty good.

Red, green, and yellow shades show improvement when using the custom white point slider position in Standard mode. Blues are less saturated, however, and the cyan and magenta secondary colors show a larger hue shift, but the average ΔE2000 saturation error drops to only 2.57, with only cyan exhibiting significant errors above the target threshold of 3.

The Colorful mode displays the widest color gamut and the most richly saturated colors, with all three primaries generally falling 10% to 20% above the sRGB target boxes. Average ΔE2000 saturation error increases to 5.96 because of the wider gamut and different primary color targets. Error levels hover between 5 to 8 for most colors with 100% red peaking to more than 12, although this matters little if you just prefer more vivid colors which this mode delivers.

The Photo mode matches up pretty well with the Adobe RGB color space. Because only the green primary target extends beyond sRGB, the Photo mode ends up being a compromise between Standard and Colorful, producing highly saturated greens and cyans like the Colorful mode, but accurate reds and blues like the Standard mode. You can see how the PRO 6’s Photo mode performs relative to both sRGB and Adobe RGB above; however, adherence to Adobe RGB is moot because of Android’s lack of color management.

            

SpectraCal CalMAN

The PRO 6’s Standard sRGB mode fails to deliver the same color accuracy as other flagship phones. Its overly cool white point is partially to blame. Adjusting the white point slider to the “calibrated” position reduces average ΔE2000 error from 4.14 to a respectable 2.70, which is similar to the HTC 10.

Meizu is heading in the right direction by including multiple display modes that cater to varying tastes; however, the PRO 6’s display still falls short of other flagship phones. The default settings and calibration result in a cool white point that reduces color accuracy and gives the screen an obvious purple tint. Fortunately, Meizu also includes a slider for adjusting the white point, which corrects some but not all of the display’s deficiencies. When adjusted properly, the PRO 6’s display looks pretty good and is a definite improvement over the PRO 5, but we’d like to see Meizu put more effort into calibrating the RGB balance and improving screen brightness.

The Meizu PRO 6 uses the same Sony IMX230 Exmor RS sensor for its rear camera as the PRO 5 that captures up to 21MP images with a 4:3 aspect ratio. This is a backside-illuminated (BSI) CMOS sensor with a stacked design that moves the transistors from the photoactive layer onto one or more separate layers. It does not have deep trench isolation (DTI) technology, however.

There’s no optical image stabilization (OIS) for the rear camera, but it does use a sophisticated hybrid autofocus (AF) system. Like the PRO 5, it combines three different AF technologies with complementary strengths. In good lighting conditions, the PRO 6 can use phase detect autofocus (PDAF) for improved speed. In low-light or low-contrast conditions, it turns to its laser AF module located in the center of the ring flash. This time-of-flight ranging module is STMicroelectronics’ second-generation VL53L0 sensor that improves operational distance to 2 meters (~6.5 feet), about 4x further than the PRO 5’s effective 0.5 meter (~1.6 feet) range. If neither of these solutions prove effective, the PRO 6 falls back to traditional contrast-based AF.

Camera Architecture
	Meizu PRO 6	Meizu PRO 5
Front Camera: Resolution	5MP	5MP
Front Camera: Sensor	OmniVision OV5695 (1.4μm, 1/4″)	OmniVision OV5670 (1.12µm, 1/5″)
Front Camera: Focal Length	2.93mm (28mm equivalent)	2.64mm (27mm equivalent)
Front Camera: Aperture	f/2.0	f/2.0
Rear Camera: Resolution	21.16MP	21.16MP
Rear Camera: Sensor	Sony IMX230 Exmor RS (1.12µm, 1/2.4″)	Sony IMX230 Exmor RS (1.12µm, 1/2.4″)
Rear Camera: Focal Length	4.03mm (23mm equivalent)	4.73mm (27mm equivalent)
Rear Camera: Aperture	f/2.2	f/2.2

Meizu redesigned the PRO 6’s 6-element lens system to use a shorter 23mm (35mm equivalent) focal length so it could reduce the thickness of the chassis without creating a large camera bump. A shorter focal length increases field of view (how much of a scene fits into a frame) but decreases magnification (focal lengths less than about 50mm produce images that appear smaller than what’s seen with the naked eye). The PRO 6’s focal length is a bit shorter than usual; most rear cameras fall between 26mm (Galaxy S7) and 29mm (LG G5).

Unfortunately, combining the PRO 5’s f/2.2 aperture with a shorter focal length reduces the PRO 6’s aperture area, which means less light reaching the camera sensor. The PRO 6’s aperture area is 27% smaller than the PRO 5’s, a significant reduction that will impact low-light performance. For reference, the PRO 6 also has a smaller aperture area than the Samsung Galaxy S7 (46%), Huawei P9 (20%), and even the iPhone 6s (6%). This gives the PRO 6 the smallest aperture area of any flagship phone (and even most midrange phones) that I’m aware of—a clear case of form over .

A new lens system is not the only camera difference between the PRO 6 and the PRO 5: The PRO 6 uses a different ISP, which means different software post-processing. To see what impact these changes have on image quality, we’ll compare several photos taken with the PRO 6 to the same ones taken with the PRO 5. We’ll also throw in the Samsung Galaxy S7, which uses a 12MP Sony IMX260 Exmor RS sensor with OIS, and the Huawei P9, which uses dual 12MP sensors—one color and one black and white, as additional reference points. All of these phones capture images with a 4:3 aspect ratio, and all of the images were taken using the stock camera app’s Auto mode unless noted.

Daylight Photo Comparison 1

In this first daylight scene, I’d say the Meizu PRO 5 actually captures the best image: exposure is perfect, colors are nicely saturated, noise is low, and white balance is very close. The Galaxy S7 and Huawei P9 also get the exposure right, but the S7’s colors are oversaturated and the P9’s white balance is too warm, giving the sky a purple tint. The PRO 6’s image is pretty good too, just not as good as the PRO 5’s. Areas in shadow appear darker and the white clouds are clipped, making them appear overexposed; however, the PRO 6’s shutter speed is almost the same as the PRO 5’s. The difference is that the PRO 6 sets ISO 3x higher, reducing dynamic range.

The PRO 6’s image also shows more noise grain in the sky than the other phones and is definitely using different noise reduction processing than the PRO 5. It’s also using a more aggressive unsharp mask filter than the PRO 5 that makes the grass and bushes look less natural. Both the Galaxy S7 and Huawei P9 also apply heavy sharpening, as indicated by the white halos around the fence, but avoid applying artifacts to the grass and foliage.

These images also show the effect of the PRO 6’s shorter focal length. Even though all of the images were taken from the exact same spot, objects in the PRO 6’s image appear farther away and its camera captures a wider field of view.

Daylight Photo Comparison 2

The images in this second daylight scene show some variation in brightness and color temperature due to small differences in cloud cover, so we’ll focus on detail and post-processing. The PRO 6 captures a nicely detailed image with more texture on the sidewalk and the bricks on the building by combining a high-resolution sensor with less aggressive noise reduction. It does show more noise grain than the other phones again and shows some sharpening artifacts on the sidewalk, though. The Huawei P9 also captures a lot of detail here. Noise reduction processing wipes away some of the background texture from the Galaxy S7’s and PRO 5’s images.

Like most phones, the PRO 6 does not provide a live preview of the HDR effect. Its image capture performance is also slower than similarly priced phones. The PRO 6 takes roughly 1.0-1.5 seconds to capture a standard 21MP image and 2.5-3.0 seconds to capture HDR images at max resolution. For comparison, the PRO 5, which uses the Exynos 7420’s dual-channel ISP, takes up to 2 seconds per HDR shot, which might not sound like much of a difference, but it’s noticeable.

The good news is that the PRO 6’s HDR image quality is much better than the PRO 5’s. Where the PRO 5 just brightens the entire image, making the overexposed areas worse, the PRO 6 effectively brightens the darker areas while reducing the clipping in the brighter areas such as the clouds in the first image. If speed is not a priority, it’s probably a good idea to just leave HDR toggled on, because the PRO 6 consistently sets ISO higher than the PRO 5 and other phones to the detriment of dynamic range. In both of the pictures with HDR turned off, the PRO 6 struggles with shadow detail and clips bright highlights, a problem the PRO 5 does not have with the same camera sensor.

Color saturation also looks much better in the PRO 6’s HDR images, a vast improvement over the PRO 5’s heavily saturated, unnatural colors. There’s some odd ghosting in the tree branches in the first image, but it’s not too distracting and it does not show any noticeable purple fringing that can result from post-processing.

Evening Photo Comparison 1

The Galaxy S7 captures the best image of the movie theater. It sets exposure correctly, and its colors are accurate and nicely saturated. Using the lowest ISO setting of the group (250) helps it keep image noise low while still preserving the building’s texture. It’s image also shows the highest dynamic range of the group.

Even with an 1104 ISO, the highest of the group, the PRO 6 captures the darkest image. Color is similar to the PRO 5’s image: It’s just a little too purple, although, it’s not nearly as bad as the P9’s image. Using the least amount of noise reduction processing helps the PRO 6 preserve more of the building’s texture, at least relative to the PRO 5, but does give its image the most visible noise grain of the group.

The second set of images of the grassy field dimly lit by yellow sodium lamps just shows the performance gap between the Galaxy S7’s flagship-level camera, which specifically focuses on low-light performance by including features such as a large aperture lens, OIS, and larger pixels, and a midrange-level camera system like what’s included in the PRO 6 and PRO 5.

In good lighting, the PRO 6’s camera does pretty well. Exposure and white balance are usually correct, but its images do not have as much dynamic range as the PRO 5’s, leading to clipped highlights and darker shadows. The PRO 6’s post-processing tends to create sharpening artifacts in grass, foliage, and other busy patterns, and its light use of noise-reduction preserves detail at the expense of more visible noise grain, which is most visible in low-light shots. Its HDR mode works well, creating natural looking images that look far better than the PRO 5’s, although processing speed is a bit slow.

Meizu’s PRO 5 is notable for being the only non-Samsung phone to use the Exynos 7420, the first SoC to use Samsung’s 14nm FinFET process. Meizu’s decision to use the MediaTek Helio X25, the first SoC with ten CPU cores, makes the PRO 6 noteworthy too. The X25, which is just an X20 with higher peak frequencies, arranges its ten cores in a tri-cluster topology. An extension of ARM’s big.LITTLE strategy, the additional CPU cluster is supposed to improve efficiency in the same way that adding gears to an automobile’s transmission improves fuel economy by making the best use of the engine’s power curve. The lower-power cluster uses four ARM Cortex-A53 cores at up to 1.547GHz for light workloads and basic background tasks. The second cluster also uses four A53 cores but their higher 2.002GHz peak frequency provides better performance for general workloads. The third, high-performance cluster uses two A72 cores at up to 2.522GHz.

The Helio X25 should give the PRO 6 a performance boost over the PRO 5. The PRO 6 matches the PRO 5’s 1.5GHz A53 cluster and provides the option to reach up to 2.0GHz on the second A53 cluster. For more demanding workloads, the PRO 6’s A72 cores hold a 20% frequency advantage over the PRO 5’s 2.1GHz A57 cores. The A72’s architectural enhancements should help too.

System performance is affected by more than just CPU frequencies and architectural differences, however. Software configuration plays an important role in how workloads are distributed among all the CPU cores and at what frequencies they operate at. The PRO 6’s Helio X25 also uses LPDDR3 RAM giving it significantly less memory bandwidth than the PRO 5 and current generation flagship phones that use LPDDR4 RAM. Another factor to consider is the potential for thermal throttling. The Helio X25 uses TSMC’s 20nm planar process instead of the 14nm/16nm FinFET processes of newer SoCs.

Meizu’s Flyme OS also provides the following power modes: Saving, Balance, and Performance. The Saving mode prioritizes battery life over performance by shutting down the A72 cluster and only using up to six A53 cores, where two cores have a max frequency of 1.547GHz and the other four are capped at 1.82GHz. The Balance mode can use all ten cores if necessary with four A53s at up to 1.547GHz, the other four A53s capped at 1.885GHz, and the two A72s also capped at 1.885GHz. The Performance mode makes all ten cores available at their max frequencies.

We tested the PRO 6 using both the Balance and Performance modes to see what effect these have on battery life and performance and present the results in the charts on the next few pages.

PCMark’s real-world workloads, which lean heavily on Android API calls, evaluate overall system performance by exercising the CPU, GPU, RAM, and NAND storage. The behavior it evokes from the CPU governor is also similar to the apps we use everyday.

There’s essentially no difference between the PRO 6 and PRO 5 when looking at the overall score, which is a little disappointing, although the PRO 6 is on par with the HTC 10, LG G5, and Samsung Galaxy S7, so it’s hardly a poor result. The PRO 6’s Balance mode is 15% slower overall than the Performance mode, putting it at the same level as the Nexus 6P.

The PRO 6 does well in PCMark’s Web Browsing test, outperforming several current generation flagship phones. It fails to match the PRO 5’s exceptional score, however, and sits between the other two phones in this chart with Cortex-A72 CPU cores. Huawei’s P9 performs 21% better in this test even though the four A72 cores in its HiSilicon Kirin 955 SoC have the same max frequency as the PRO 6’s cores. The Snapdragon 650 SoC in Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 3 contains two A72 cores with a max frequency of 1.8GHz. Despite an almost 40% frequency advantage, the PRO 6 is only 11% faster than the Redmi Note 3 in this particular test.

The PRO 6 performs similar to the Galaxy S7 in the PCMark Writing test, but trails the other phones using the Snapdragon 820 SoC. Once again we see Huawei’s P9 and the older PRO 5 outperform the PRO 6, this time by 73% and 24%, respectively. This is a surprising result and shows that in both the browsing and writing test workloads, the PRO 6 is underutilizing its two A72 cores. Running the PRO 6 in Balance mode only reduces performance by about 13%.

The Photo Editing test performs photo processing on the GPU, although spotty driver support for Android’s RenderScript API handicaps the performance of some phones. I suspect this is why the PRO 5 does so poorly in this test, getting beat by the PRO 6 by 16% despite having a much better GPU. While it shows a small improvement relative to the PRO 5, the PRO 6 cannot match the performance of other flagship phones and even falls behind the much less expensive Redmi Note 3.

DiscoMark measures application launch times by monitoring the startActivity() method that signals the start of building the app’s UI elements. This provides a more accurate, repeatable method for quantifying a common task that directly impacts user experience. Unfortunately, the PRO 6 shows a serious regression when opening apps from internal storage, taking nearly twice as long as the speedy PRO 5. There’s essentially no difference in aggregate time between the PRO 6’s Performance and Balance modes, with both offering similar performance to Google’s Nexus phones. In my experience, devices that take longer than about 700ms to 800ms in this test begin to exhibit noticeable lag when opening apps. This is certainly true for the PRO 6, which feels just a little slower than the PRO 5 and other recent flagship phones. It’s not slow enough to be annoying, just slow enough to be noticeable.

The hot DiscoMark times denote how quickly a device can switch between already open apps loaded in RAM. Once again the PRO 6 is slower than the PRO 5, with no difference between the Performance and Balance modes; however, its aggregate times are similar to other flagships, and the small time differences are not something you would be able to perceive in everyday use.

While Meizu’s PRO 5 uses the same KLUBG4G1BD-E0B1 NAND, controller, and UFS 2.0 interface as Samsung’s Galaxy S6 phones, the PRO 6 uses a different storage solution with an eMMC 5.1 interface. This does not hurt sequential read performance too much relative to the PRO 5, but it fails to keep up with Samsung’s Galaxy phones. Sequential write speed is not in the same class as most other flagships, however; the PRO 5 is 75% faster, for example. Random read and write speeds are respectable, but once again the PRO 6 fails to match the PRO 5’s performance.

The PRO 6 performs extremely poorly in the browser-based JavaScript tests. Compared to the PRO 5 and the the Redmi Note 3’s two, lower-clocked A72 cores, the PRO 6 is about 2.5x slower in Kraken, 1.9x slower in JetStream, and 1.5x slower in WebXPRT 2015. There’s also less than a 10% difference between the PRO 6’s Performance and Balance modes. These results are not limited to just Google’s Chrome browser either. Meizu’s stock browser performs almost the same as Chrome, with results within ±9%.

Clearly something is wrong here, and the PRO 6’s deca-core CPU is the most likely culprit. Using the Linux kernel’s CPUFreq statistics with a sample period of about 200ms, we’re able to track the cumulative time each core spends at a given frequency with a reasonable degree of accuracy. While we were unable to peer into the PRO 6’s CPU run queue and determine exactly how many threads were scheduled on each core, the frequency measurements should still give us a good idea of what’s happening because the CPU governor generally is not going to keep a core online at a high frequency for very long if it does not have any work to do.

While running the Kraken and JetStream benchmarks using the PRO 6’s Performance mode, only two A53 cores running at 2.0GHz are online and doing work, which explains the poor results in these tests; however, the PRO 6 actually performs reasonably well in PCMark’s Web Browsing test. Using this same method reveals the PRO 6 generally prefers using two A53 cores at 2.0GHz for this workload too, but there are several stretches where it keeps two A53 cores from the first cluster at 1.5GHz, all four A53’s in the second cluster at 2.0GHz, and both A72 cores at 2.5GHz. Again this does not mean it’s actually using all six cores simultaneously, but this behavior clearly leads to better performance in this test.

The PRO 6 also underperforms in the PCMark Writing test. This workload is a bit more bursty, making core activity patterns harder to track, but the PRO 6 generally prefers keeping only one or two A53 cores active during this workload, with brief 2-3 second periods where it keeps six cores active at their max frequencies just like in the PCMark Web Browsing test. To see the effects of a more intense workload, I ran Basemark OS II’s multi-core CPU benchmark. While all ten CPU cores were online very briefly, the PRO 6 quickly settled into a stable state where it kept two A53 cores active at 1.5GHz and all four A53’s in the second cluster at 2.0GHz.

Unfortunately, Meizu’s use of the Helio X25 and its deca-core CPU does not translate into a better user experience. The UI at least remains responsive, whether flipping through home screens or cards in the recent apps menu. And despite the poor JavaScript performance, browser scrolling is also smooth with very few dropped frames. However, the PRO 6 is consistently slower than the PRO 5 when opening apps and running various workloads. Its performance generally lags behind other current flagship phones too, primarily because its higher-performing A72 cores remain offline most of the time. Yes, in MediaTek’s tri-cluster design the role of the A72 cluster is to only service short bursts of activity, but we’ve shown several cases where the A72s should be used to improve performance and are not.

The PRO 6’s Helio X25 SoC comes with ARM’s Mali-T880MP4 GPU running at up to 850MHz. This is a significant downgrade from the PRO 5’s Mali-T760MP8, at least for peak performance. The biggest architectural difference between the two generations is the number of ALU pipelines per GPU core: The T880 includes 3 instead of 2 like the older T760, which gives it a theoretical 50% increase in performance; however, the PRO 6 includes only half as many GPU cores as the PRO 5. The HiSilicon Kirin 950 and Kirin 955 in Huawei’s Mate 8 and P9, respectively, also use a Mali-T880MP4 GPU, but with a slightly higher 900MHz max frequency, giving them 108 GFLOPS of peak theoretical FP32 throughput. This is a mere 6% more than the PRO 6’s 102 GFLOPS, which will hardly be noticeable when playing games. The PRO 5 supports up to 124 GFLOPS, giving it a more noticeable 21% advantage in ALU performance.

Of course there are many other things to consider beyond ALUs. Because each Mali GPU core contains a single texture unit, along with supporting hardware for triangle setup, rasterization, tiling, etc., the PRO 5, with twice as many cores, could show an even larger advantage over the PRO 6 in workloads that are not limited by shader performance.

The PRO 6’s Performance and Balance modes do not affect GPU frequency and produce essentially the same scores in our GPU performance tests. So to reduce chart clutter, we’re only showing the Performance mode results.

The OpenGL ES 2.0-based T-Rex game simulation combines complex geometry with fewer pixel shading effects than our newer tests and shows just how much better the the PRO 5 is at processing geometry. Twice as many GPU cores brings twice the texturing and ROP performance too, which translates into about a 75% advantage over the PRO 6. The phones with Snapdragon 820 inside outperform the PRO 6 by almost a factor of 3 in the offscreen test.

Thanks to its 1080p display, the PRO 5 pulls even with the Snapdragon 820 phones, whose GPUs are all driving 1440p resolutions, in the onscreen test; however, the PRO 6 is still lags behind, with performance similar to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 and its Adreno 510 GPU.

GFXBench Car Chase is a game simulation that uses OpenGL ES 3.1 plus Android Extension Pack (AEP) features such as hardware tessellation. The PRO 5’s graphics driver does not support this last feature, so there’s one less device for comparison. All five Snapdragon 820 phones sit atop both the onscreen and offscreen charts, performing 3x faster than the PRO 6. Even the Huawei P9, which has the same GPU as the PRO 6, performs 23% better.

Digging a little deeper reveals that the P9 is using a newer graphics driver than the PRO 6, whose outdated driver was released back on August 21, 2015. This is the second Meizu phone we’ve tested that suffers from reduced performance and ality due to outdated graphics drivers, and is definitely something the company needs to pay more attention to in the future.

3DMark Sling Shot Extreme runs two different OpenGL ES 3.1 game simulations that stress the GPU and memory subsystems. Despite rendering offscreen at a higher 1440p resolution, there are not any big changes in finishing order. The phones using Snapdragon 820 are still about 3x faster than the PRO 6 in the graphics test, while the PRO 5 performs 43% faster than its younger sibling. The only real surprise is that the PRO 6 performs the same as the Redmi Note 3 and Huawei P9 in the graphics test.

We find the PRO 6 near the bottom of the charts again in Basemark ES 3.1, which makes heavy use of lighting effects with alpha blending and compute shaders for rendering the water. With twice as many ROPs and higher ALU throughput, the PRO 5 performs 44% better than the PRO 6. The P9 performs 16% better than the PRO 6 and extends its advantage to 30% when rendering onscreen even though both phones have 1080p displays. The PRO 6 does perform 16% better than the Redmi Note 3, but the gap shrinks to only 7% when rendering onscreen. We see this discrepancy between offscreen and onscreen performance in GFXBench T-Rex and Car Chase too, which is likely attributable to the PRO 6’s older graphics driver, because the P9 does not have this problem.

Even though the Redmi Note 3 and its Adreno 510 GPU cannot match the peak performance of the latest flagship phones, it’s capable of maintaining playable frame rates above 30fps, with the occasional hiccup, in a number of real games, including “Brothers in Arms 3,” a third-person shooter released at the end of 2014, and “CSR Racing 2,” a popular game based on OpenGL ES 3.0. Considering that the PRO 6 delivers similar performance to the Redmi Note 3 in our GPU tests, it’s reasonable to expect a decent gaming experience from the PRO 6 too.

Unlike our game simulation tests above, however, which focus primarily on GPU performance and memory bandwidth with minimal CPU activity, real games rely on the CPU for running physics, AI, sound, and other algorithms that contribute to the overall gaming experience. To see how the PRO 6 handles real game code, I decided to play several of the same titles I used to evaluate the Redmi Note 3. Starting with “Sonic Dash,” the PRO 6 keeps frame rates between 30-40fps with only an occasional stutter. The PRO 6 also maintains a consistent 30fps when playing the scripted sequences in “Brothers in Arms 3” and “CSR Racing 2;” however, frame rate drops to only 22-27fps during actual gameplay, noticeably less than the 30+fps the Redmi Note 3 is capable of.

Because the drop in frame rate only occurs during gameplay where the CPU is involved, we can examine the core residency times like we did in the previous section to see if CPU utilization is to blame. Indeed, playing the same level in BIA3 shows a distinct difference between the two phones. The PRO 6 only keeps the low-power A53 cluster running at 1.5GHz almost the whole time, and never once powers on the A72 cluster. On the Redmi Note 3, core frequency frequently bounces between idle and 1.3GHz on the A53 cluster, while the A72 cluster spends most of its time at the max frequency of 1.8GHz. Without monitoring the CPU’s run queue, we cannot say how many threads are actually in play and what cores they’re running on, but it’s safe to say the Redmi Note 3 is using its A72 cluster to boost performance.

Thanks to Andrei’s investigation of CPU core utilization on Android, we know that “Modern Combat 5” uses four threads and that the Samsung Galaxy S6 places three threads on the Exynos 7420’s A53 cluster and one heavy thread on the A57 cluster. The Redmi Note 3 seems to follow a similar strategy in this game, with the A53 cluster spending most of its time running near max frequency and the A72 cluster averaging 1.4GHz. The PRO 6, in contrast, primarily uses its mid-tier A53 cluster at its max of 2GHz and keeps its A72 cores offline. This seems to be good enough for MC5, though, because the PRO 6 maintains 30+fps during gameplay.

Based on these data, the Meizu PRO 6 is suitable for casual gaming, but it’s not a good choice for running more intense, 3D games, which is unsatisfactory for a flagship device. Just like we saw in our system performance tests, the PRO 6 fails to utilize the Helio X25’s A72 CPU cores effectively, if at all, and an outdated graphics driver does nothing to aid gaming performance either.

Our battery life tests cover a few common workloads and make it possible to compare the runtime potential of one phone to another. To make the tests accurate and repeatable, we control as many variables as possible, including minimizing background tasks and calibrating each display to 200 nits at 100% APL.

Our web browsing tests engage the CPU by pausing and then scrolling through each page after it’s loaded, and while the wireless radios consume some power too, display power draw continues to be the limiting factor in this workload.

The Meizu PRO 6 has a small battery. The average battery size for phones with 5.1-inch to 5.2-inch displays is about 3000mAh or 11.5Wh, which is 18% more than the PRO 6’s 2560mAh (9.73Wh) cell. It’s no surprise then to see it land at the bottom of the chart in our Wi-Fi browsing test, lasting just over 6 hours, a full 1 hour less than the PRO 5.

Web Browsing Battery Life 2016 (WiFi): Average Platform Power (APP)
Phone	Display	APP (W)
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3	5.5-inch 1080p IPS LCD	1.28
Galaxy S7 (E8890)	5.1-inch 1440p SAMOLED	1.38
Huawei P9	5.2-inch 1080p IPS LCD	1.40
Meizu PRO 6	5.2-inch 1080p SAMOLED	1.61
Meizu PRO 5	5.7-inch 1080p SAMOLED	1.63
Xiaomi Mi5 Pro	5.15-inch 1080p IPS LCD	1.72

Comparing average platform power (APP) numbers, a rough estimate of each phone’s average power consumption based on total runtime and battery capacity rather than an explicitly measured quantity, we see that both the Huawei P9 and Galaxy S7 (Exynos 8890), with similar size displays, consume about 13% less power than the PRO 6. It’s also interesting to see how close the APP is for the PRO 5 and PRO 6 when using their Performance modes (the PRO 5 drops to 1.54W in Balance mode) given the PRO 5’s larger display.

The PRO 6 loses 1 hour of runtime when switching to the cellular radio, with APP increasing 18% to 1.9W. Because the PRO 6, PRO 5, and Redmi Note 3 do not support US LTE frequency bands, they were forced to use WCDMA/HSPA+ instead, making direct comparisons to the other phones a bit more difficult; however, of these three phones the PRO 6 has the highest APP, followed by the PRO 5 and Redmi Note 3 both at 1.8W.

The PRO 6 and its small battery falls just shy of 6 hours using its Performance mode, hardly an impressive result when the Redmi Note 3 lasts twice as long and delivers nearly the same overall performance. The Huawei P9 outlasts the PRO 6 by almost an hour and delivers much better performance too. It’s a similar story with the Xiaomi Mi5: faster than the PRO 6 with almost 1.5 hours more battery life. The PRO 6 lasts 12% longer when using the Balance mode, basically putting it on par with the Nexus 6P.

The PRO 6 lasts 3.5 hours in the GFXBench Manhattan 3.1 battery life test, which predicts runtime while playing games, an average result that’s diluted by poor performance. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, for example, lasts 1.4 hours longer and performs 50% faster at the end of the test. The Xiaomi Mi5 Pro lasts 33 minutes longer and is 2.5x faster. The PRO 6 does manage to outlast the Huawei P9, which has a larger battery and the same GPU, but it’s also 16% slower.

The GFXBench Manhattan 3.1 performance stability graph shows the PRO 6 can only maintain peak gaming performance for 15 minutes before it’s forced to reduce GPU frequency to avoid overheating. Frame rate reaches a relatively stable 7fps average after 30 minutes of gameplay. Thermal throttling reduces performance by 33% by the end of the test, a disappointing result for the Helio X25 SoC. The Huawei Mate 8, whose Kirin 950 SoC also uses a Mali-T880MP4 GPU, only drops 11% due to throttling, although it does have a larger frame to help dissipate heat.

The tables below quantify overall platform power efficiency while running 3D workloads. This should give us some additional insight into the PRO 6’s throttling behavior and battery life. The performance and power figures are averaged over the duration of each test, which last for approximately 1 minute. Before running the tests, we minimize background tasks, turn off all wireless radios, and calibrate the screens to 200 nits. Because of the short duration of the tests, these numbers represent the performance and power before any thermal throttling occurs.

GFXBench Manhattan 3.1 Offscreen Power Efficiency (System Load Power)
	Mfc. Process	FPS	Avg. Power (W)	Perf/W Efficiency
Galaxy S7 (Snapdragon 820)	14LPP	30.98	4.52	6.85 fps/W
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Snapdragon 650)	28HPm	9.93	2.92	3.40 fps/W
Meizu PRO 5 (Exynos 7420)	14LPE	14.45	4.32	3.34 fps/W
Meizu PRO 6 (Helio X25)	20Soc	9.42	2.92	3.23 fps/W
Galaxy S6 (Exynos 7420)	14LPE	16.62	5.32	3.12 fps/W
Huawei P9 (Kirin 955)	16FF+	10.59	3.71	2.85 fps/W

The PRO 6 and its Helio X25 SoC use less power than the other phones in this comparison when running GFXBench Manhattan 3.1, despite using TSMC’s 20nm planar process. In the previous section we saw how the Mali-T760MP8 GPU in the Exynos 7420 delivers much better performance than the newer Mali-T880MP4 used in the Helio X25 and Kirin 955; however, this extra performance also requires more power, giving the PRO 5 and Galaxy S6 about the same efficiency as the PRO 6. It’s possible the T880’s architectural improvements partially offset the Exynos 7420’s process advantage here.

Another interesting point is that both the PRO 6 and Redmi Note 3 have the same average power consumption and nearly the same efficiency, but the PRO 6 experiences thermal throttling after looping through this test for 15 minutes while the Redmi Note 3 never throttles. Both phones get pretty warm, but the Redmi Note 3’s larger, thicker chassis and higher thermal mass seem to give it the edge in heat dissipation.

GFXBench T-Rex Offscreen Power Efficiency (System Load Power)
	Mfc. Process	FPS	Avg. Power (W)	Perf/W Efficiency
Galaxy S7 (Snapdragon 820)	14LPP	90.59	4.71	19.23 fps/W
Galaxy S7 (Exynos 8890)	14LPP	87.00	4.70	18.51 fps/W
Xiaomi Mi5 Pro (Snapdragon 820)	14LPP	91.00	5.03	18.20 fps/W
Apple iPhone 6s Plus (A9) [OpenGL]	16FF+	79.40	4.91	16.14 fps/W
Xiaomi Mi Note Pro (Snapdragon 810 v2.1)	20Soc	57.60	4.40	13.11 fps/W
Meizu PRO 5 (Exynos 7420)	14LPE	55.67	4.68	11.90 fps/W
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Snapdragon 650)	28HPm	34.43	3.01	11.44 fps/W
Galaxy S6 (Exynos 7420)	14LPE	58.07	5.48	10.60 fps/W
Huawei P9 (Kirin 955)	16FF+	40.42	4.41	9.17 fps/W
Meizu PRO 6 (Helio X25)	20Soc	32.46	3.56	9.12 fps/W

All of the phones see an increase in average power consumption when running GFXBench T-Rex. The Redmi Note 3 and its Adreno 510 GPU have the lowest power consumption of the group at 3W, placing it in the same ballpark as the PRO 5 and Galaxy S6 for efficiency. The Snapdragon 820’s Adreno 530 GPU in the Galaxy S7 is the clear efficiency leader of the group, showing a 47% improvement over the Snapdragon 810 v2.1 in the Xiaomi Mi Note Pro we previously tested. The PRO 6’s efficiency is the worst of the group when running T-Rex, although its average power consumption remains reasonable.

One of the points to take away from these two tables is that while an SoC’s manufacturing process plays a significant role in its power efficiency, it’s not the only factor to consider. Design decisions relating to CPU/GPU architecture and processor implementation details relating to trade offs between power and frequency or performance and area also play critical roles.

The PRO 6 includes Meizu’s mCharge 3.0 fast charging technology. This system incorporates Texas Instruments’ MaxCharge components, including the BQ25892 battery charger IC that implements battery temperature monitoring and overvoltage/overcurrent protections. The charger that comes with the PRO 6 is rated for 5V, 9V, or 12V operation at 2A for a theoretical maximum of 24W at the wall. I actually measured a peak of about 21W at the wall and 14W at the battery.

The PRO 6 charges at 14W for about 25 minutes before gradually reducing input power. At this rate, the PRO 6’s battery charges to 25% in 11 minutes and 50% in 22 minutes. It’s fully charged in 1.5 hours, the same as the Galaxy S7. It’s also the same time as the PRO 5, which has a 19% larger battery. The PRO 5 matches the PRO 6’s charge time by using a higher peak voltage of 17.4W. Because the PRO 5 uses a similar charging system, it appears Meizu is being a bit conservative with the PRO 6, calibrating the charging system to hit 1.5 hours rather than stressing the battery further to minimize charge time.

Like many phones with fast charging, the PRO 6 reduces input power when charging the phone with the screen turned on, dropping down to 12W at the wall, which translates to 7.3W at the battery.

The PRO 5 is a smartphone for music lovers. Its unique dual-path audio system delivers excellent performance by using high-quality components. The traditional headphone output circuit uses a Wolfson WM8998 audio codec IC with a 24-bit DAC and a dynamic range of 122dB. Meizu’s “Hi-Fi Sound 2.0” audio path includes an ESS Technology es9018k2m SABRE32 24-bit DAC, with a dynamic range of 127dB and low noise operation, a dual-channel Texas Instruments OPA1612 op-amp, and high-current transistors from NXP.

Given Meizu’s previous focus on audio quality with the PRO 5 and the MX4 Pro before it, one would assume the PRO 6 would carry on this legacy; unfortunately, the PRO 6’s audio solution is more pedestrian—a definite downgrade from the PRO 5. Its CS43L36 audio codec IC belongs to Cirrus Logic’s low-power family and includes a Class-H headphone amplifier. Cirrus Logic’s other low-power ICs have less dynamic range and higher noise than the Wolfson DAC in the PRO 5; however, I could not find any official documentation for this part, and based on what I heard during my listening tests, this does not seem to be the case for the PRO 6’s DAC.

The PRO 6’s headphone amplifier is reasonably powerful, easily pushing low-impedance headphones to very high volume levels. Its sound quality is also impressive with no significant deficiencies. No, it cannot match the clarity and soundstage of the PRO 5’s “Hi-Fi Sound 2.0” audio path, but the PRO 6’s Cirrus Logic audio codec actually sounds cleaner than the Wolfson codec in the PRO 5’s traditional audio path. As another reference point, the PRO 6 matches the sound quality of the iPhone 6s, which also uses a Cirrus Logic audio codec.

The PRO 6, like the PRO 5, has a single external, downward-firing speaker powered by an NXP class-D audio amplifier. The output specifications for the PRO 6’s TFA9911UK amplifier are the same as the PRO 5’s TFA9890: 3.6W (RMS) into 8Ω (1.0% THD+N) or 7.2W peak into 8Ω. It also has an internal boost converter that raises supply voltage to 9.5V to improve headroom during transient peaks and speaker protection processing that monitors temperature and excursion to maximize sound output while reducing clipping and distortion.

Given the similarity in specs, it’s no surprise to hear the PRO 6 match the PRO 5’s volume, which is better than average. The speaker protection processing works very well; it keeps the speaker distortion free even at max volume, effectively capping the speaker’s output to what it can handle for a given song. Unlike similar solutions, however, there’s no perceptible changes in volume level as it moves through the song, avoiding the annoying warble that occurs if volume levels are adjusted to aggressively or abruptly.

I’m not sure if the PRO 6 actually has a different speaker, but it does sound better than the PRO 5. It does not sound as tinny and there’s definitely more low-end output—not bass punch but just a more full-bodied sound. The PRO 6 also does not overemphasize midrange frequencies like the PRO 5, giving it a more balanced sound that does not make vocals too prominent. These differences persist even after making EQ adjustments, so the sound of the PRO 6’s external speaker is an improvement over the fairly poor-sounding PRO 5, and it’s above average overall.

While we’ve seen video quality and features improve over the past several generations in at least some flagship phones, video recording has not received the same level of attention from all OEMs and especially in phones at lower price points. Hardware and software licensing costs are partially to blame as recording high-resolution video stresses CPU, DSP, ISP, and memory performance, eats up storage space, and requires sophisticated software algorithms to improve audio and video quality.

The PRO 5 captures decent looking video overall, but its 1080p video suffers from a lower than average encoding bit rate. All of its video modes other than 4K also use the H.264 Baseline profile, which is missing some features that can improve video quality. The PRO 5’s audio is also encoded at a fairly low 96 Kb/s at 16 KHz.

Meizu PRO 6: Rear Camera Video Modes
Video Mode	Video	Audio
UHD 4K	3840×2160, 43 Mb/s, H.265 Main	128 Kb/s, 48 KHz AAC
FHD 1080p	1920×1080, 17 Mb/s, H.264 High	128 Kb/s, 48 KHz AAC
HD 720p	1280×720, 9 Mb/s, H.264 High	128 Kb/s, 48 KHz AAC
VGA 480p	640×480, 5 Mb/s, H.264 High	128 Kb/s, 48 KHz AAC
Slo-mo	1280×720, 120fps, 8 Mb/s, H.264 High	–
Meizu PRO 6: Front Camera Video Modes
Video Mode	Video	Audio
FHD 1080p	1920×1080, 17 Mb/s, H.264 High	128 Kb/s, 48 KHz AAC
HD 720p	1280×720, 9 Mb/s, H.264 High	128 Kb/s, 48 KHz AAC
VGA 480p	640×480, 5 Mb/s, H.264 High	128 Kb/s, 48 KHz AAC

Fortunately, the PRO 6 uses higher-quality encoding parameters for both video and audio. All H.264 video modes now use High profile encoding, and audio is encoded at a more sensible 128 Kb/s, 48 KHz stereo AAC.

The PRO 6, like the PRO 5, records 2160p30 (4K) video using the H.265 codec, otherwise known as High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), one of the few devices to do so. This is significant because H.265 offers better video quality at the same compression ratio as H.264 or twice the compression of H.264 at a similar quality level. Storage space is the limiting factor when recording 4K, because the PRO 6 does not impose a time limit.

Increasing bit rate to 17 Mb/s, the same bit rate used by the Galaxy S7 and LG G5, and moving to the H.264 High profile dramatically improves the PRO 6’s 1080p video quality relative to the PRO 5. Video taken outdoors in good lighting shows sharp detail and low noise. Noise levels increase in lower-light conditions, but it’s not excessive and video quality is still pretty good. Whether shooting indoors or out, the PRO 6 does a good job setting white balance and exposure, and there’s no macroblocking during quick pans.

The PRO 6’s camera quickly adjusts exposure when moving between light and dark scenes, which is shown in the video sample above; however, the change is not perfectly smooth, occurring in discrete steps that can be a bit distracting. Videos can get a little shaky because there’s no optical (OIS) or electronic (EIS) image stabilization. And while the hybrid AF system works well most of the time, it does search for focus lock more than it should, randomly losing and reacquiring focus. The microphone does seem to pick up audio well.

The PRO 6’s 720p30 video also looks good, very similar to the 1080p mode but with slightly less detail. It also captures 720p slow-motion video at 120fps without the dropped frames and upscaling tricks some other phones employ. The smooth video does show more noise grain than the regular speed video modes, but this is an unavoidable consequence of the higher shutter speed. The camera’s discrete exposure adjustments and focus hunting are even more noticeable in slow motion, however, and the phone imposes a 60-second recording limit, which is odd considering there’s no restriction on 4K video.

The PRO 6 is not the best phone for capturing video, but overall it does a pretty good job. It’s lacking a few features found in other flagship phones, though. There’s no 1080p60 mode, no HDR video support, and no image stabilization.

Rarely do we see a new phone that is not better than its predecessor. Often improvements are small, and occasionally a feature gets removed, but generally phones move in a positive direction. Meizu’s PRO 6 ends up going nowhere: It takes a few steps forward, but also takes a few steps backward.

Meizu already has a reputation for making nice-looking, well-built phones, and the PRO 6 is its best design yet. The phone’s rounded corners and edges make it comfortable to hold, and its symmetrical design and polished machining features, such as the chamfers on edges and cutouts, show great attention to detail. It feels solid with no unsightly gaps or blemishes—the PRO 6 is a physically premium phone.

The PRO 6’s display shows improvement over previous Meizu phones too. Just like Samsung’s Galaxy phones, the PRO 6 now offers three different display modes: a proper sRGB mode for people who value color accuracy and two wide-gamut modes for people who prefer more vibrant looking colors. The default white point is still too cool, which hurts both grayscale and color accuracy and gives the display a purple tint, but the PRO 6 includes a slider control for fine-tuning the color temperature that mostly alleviates this issue. Another nice addition is a boost feature for auto-brightness mode that increases brightness for better viewability in sunlight. The PRO 6 still does not get as bright as Samsung’s phones, though.

There are two major areas where the PRO 6 regresses, however: performance and battery life. The MediaTek Helio X25 SoC and its deca-core CPU does nothing to improve the phone’s user experience. The PRO 6 is slower than the PRO 5 and other flagship phones in nearly every test. While the difference is not huge, it’s noticeably slower at opening apps and running common workloads such as web browsing. It does at least manage to keep UI navigation and browser scrolling smooth.

The reason for the PRO 6’s disappointing performance is primarily because it does not fully utilize the Helio X25’s two higher-performing Cortex-A72 CPU cores, effectively limiting itself to an octa-core A53 design. I monitored core availability and frequency while running a variety of workloads and rarely saw the A72s online for more than a second or two.

The PRO 6 is also unsuitable for playing modern 3D games. Even though the Mali-T880MP4 GPU cannot match the peak performance of higher-end configurations, it’s still fast enough to handle most games currently available; however, an outdated graphics driver coupled with the PRO 6’s refusal to use the A72 CPU cores conspire to reduce performance to unplayable levels in many games. Casual gaming is still an option, but a flagship phone should not suffer from performance restrictions.

The PRO 6’s smaller than average battery, an example of Meizu prioritizing form over , places it behind the Huawei P9, Samsung Galaxy S7, and Xiaomi Mi5 Pro—all phones with similar size screens—in our battery tests. A spare charger or battery pack will be necessary accessories for the PRO 6, because it struggles to make it through a whole day of moderate to heavy usage.

Flyme OS 5.2 User Interface Design (poor image quality due to gif format)

The PRO 6 ships with Flyme OS 5.2, Meizu’s custom skin that runs on top of Android 6.0. We took a detailed look at Flyme 5.1 in our Meizu M3 note review, and other than an update from Android 5.1 to 6.0, the newest version is largely the same. What I like most about Flyme are its navigation improvements like replacing Android’s trio of navigation buttons with a simple swipe gesture and a multi home button. There’s also the “SmartTouch” feature, a small, semi-transparent joystick/button that can be assigned various shortcuts such as pulling down the notification shade, locking the screen, or switching between open apps. The button can be placed anywhere on the screen which makes it a useful feature for one-handed use.

This focus on streamlining navigation ties in nicely with the PRO 6’s signature new hardware/software feature: a pressure sensitive screen with haptic feedback that Meizu calls 3D Press. Just like Apple’s 3D Touch technology in the iPhone 6s, the PRO 6 allows you to press an icon on the home screen to open a shortcut menu or press on a hyperlink, email, or text message to see a preview of what it links to. Swiping up opens a menu with additional options or you can press a little harder to open the content fullscreen. The technology works as advertised, but because there’s no native API support in Android for these types of interactions, 3D Press only works with Meizu’s apps, greatly reducing its usefulness. Because most of the apps I use are from Google and third-parties, which do not support 3D Press, I found myself forgetting the PRO 6 even has this capability.

Meizu’s 3D Press In Action: Icon shortcuts (left/right) and URL preview (right)
(poor image quality due to gif format)

Since we’re talking software, now is a good time to discuss updates. Meizu releases fairly regular updates for Flyme OS, but is very slow at releasing Android updates for existing devices, assuming they get an update at all. For example, Meizu released Flyme 5.2, its first OS based on Android 6, only at the end of May, and 3 months later there’s still no international ROM update for its older devices. Meizu also does not release security updates. In Flyme 5.2, there’s no entry in the settings app that even lists the Android security patch level—never a good sign. Taking a look at the system files shows that the PRO 6 is stuck on the 2/1/2016 patch that is almost 7 months out of date!

The PRO 6 is not a clear upgrade over the PRO 5 nor does it separate itself far enough from the less expensive Meizu MX6. Its only real advantage over Meizu’s other phones is a smaller, easier to handle size, and its few strengths are not enough to elevate it above its peers either. The PRO 6’s merely passable performance, poor battery life, and lack of timely software updates ruin an otherwise good phone.