Chinese manufacturer Meizu has unveiled its latest flagship device, the MX4. It's a high-end, 5.36-inch phone that spares no expense in some components, but seems to go a little down market in others. The 4th-generation MX4 will be available later this month in China starting at 1800 Yuan (about $290) for the 16GB version, with the 32GB and 64GB versions going for 2000 and 2400 Yuan, respectively. eBay and other official import shops are pre-selling the 16GB model for $449.99.

It would be hard to deny that the MX4 is inspired by a certain i-Product, but then, Meizu has never been shy about their Apple aspirations. The Gorilla Glass 3 screen has a single capacitive home button beneath its very slim bezels, and the one-piece aluminum rear comes in white, grey, or (sigh) gold. For a relatively large phone, both the Z-height (8.9mm) and the screen bezels (2.6mm) are also quite thin. Even so, the body hides a 3100mAh battery, which Meizu is quick to point out comes from Sony, and bottom-firing speakers with a 100% volume increase over the MX3.

The battery isn't the only thing that comes from Sony. Meizu is also using the Exmor RS 20.7 megapixel camera sensor previously seen on top-of-the-line Xperia phones. This gives the MX4 access to 4K video recording, high-speed 100FPS video, and ISO values up to 1600. The front camera is a little weak by comparison at only 2MP. The MX4 also uses a Sharp IPS-LCD for the 1080p 5.36-inch screen, some of which will be permanently covered by virtual nav buttons, giving a "real" resolution of 1920x1152. Meizu claims that the screen covers an impressive 85% of the color gamut with a 1100:1 contrast ratio, and a has super-bright rating of 500 nits.

Underneath the phone will use an eight-core MediaTek processor running at a top speed of 2.2Ghz on the "big" cores. The GPU is a quad-core G6200 model from PowerVR. None of the major players in the US market use MediaTek chips for anything but budget models, so it will be interesting to see if the MX4 can keep up with the competition. 2GB of RAM certainly won't hurt in that regard. The phone has access to five network technologies: standard GSM, TD and FDD LTE, and the SWCDMA/WCDMA standards popular in China.

Meizu is loading the M4 with its semi-proprietary Flyme OS (which still sounds like some kind of a throat condition) based on Android 4.4. Again, the inspiration from the latest version of iOS is pretty undeniable, though you can occasionally see bits of Holo peeking through the interface.

Meizu is selling the MX4 as a pre-order on its own website, eBay, ComeBuy, and GearBest, and yes, Americans can import the phone without issue.

Source: Meizu

September 2nd, 2014 - Premium Chinese smartphone maker, Meizu, today launched their latest flagship smartphone. The Meizu MX4 is the result of months of continuous research and development with our product partners, JDI, Sharp, Sony and Mediatek. CEO of Meizu, Bai Yongxiang proudly announced the MX4 to the media and expectant fans at a launch early today in Beijing.

Bigger, and lighter than ever

After strenuous R&D, Meizu have decided to abandon the use of stainless steel in the MX4 and instead adopt advanced 6061 T6 aluminium alloy resulting in a light, durable phone with enhanced texture and added colour options.

The Meizu MX4 gets an expanded screen size of 5.36-inch, however the smart design of the handset means the overall size has only increased slightly in width and length and is actually the thinnest MX series phone to date! The MX4 measures 75.2mm wide, 3.3mm wider than the MX3, 144mm long, 1mm longer than the previous phone, with a depth of only 7.9mm, 0.2mm thinner than ever before. This larger and smarter design also boasts 2.6mm narrow bezel edges and an astonishing body to screen ratio of 79%. All this in a package that weighs only 147g!

Smart specifications

Meizu continue to dedicate their focus on producing high quality, premium phones that offer quality features, not useless gimmicks. Working closely with Sharp and JDI, the MX4 receives a full HD 5.36-inch display with 3 key improvements. Brightness now reaches an incredible 500nit, contrast ratio is 1100:1, and colour gamut has been increased by 85%. Your photos, videos and favourite websites have never looked so good.

A Smart octacore Mediatek MTK6595 processor boasts energy saving ARM Cortex A7 and advanced Cortex A17 cores at 2.2 GHz for smooth and powerful performance. The latest SoC incorporates Core-Pilot technology to vastly improve performance by 75% and battery life by up to 30%, seamlessly switching between cores on the fly. Plus the powerful PowerVR G6200 MP4 GPU can throw around pixels fast enough for you to enjoy the latest in advanced mobile gaming.

Fastest Data

The Meizu MX4 is compatible with 5 network types across 13 different frequency bands, The MX4 can make use of the latest TD-SCDMA and FDD-LTE 4G Networks reaching download speeds of up to 100 Mbps and uploads of 20Mbps, almost 4 times that of previous generation devices.

802.11ac Wi-Fi protocol brings blistering internet speeds of 433 Mbps to the MX4! Almost three times the speed of 802.11n. Dual band 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz WiFi makes up the rest of the wireless package delivering a flawless Wi-Fi experience.

More power, longer battery life

Super-long standby duration frees you from battery worries. A 3100 mAh battery from Sony and Samsung, along with CorePilot and the advanced energy-saving CPU means an improvement of 13%, even with 4G LTE connected. Watch videos, Tweet, update Facebook and play all day with the MX4.

Clear Professional Photos

The MX4 comes with Sony’s top CMOS IMX 220 which has an incredible 20.7 mega-pixels. Number of pixels isn’t everything though, so we are excited to announce that pixel quality is 250% higher when compared to previously used sensors. The extra-large 1/2.3-inch ILDC level CMOS chip increases useful sensitivity by 90% with an increase in pixel size to 1.2μm. As a result, photos are captured with perfect saturation and clear details even when tightly cropped. All this is topped off with a Loop Focus engine for focus speeds of just 0.3 seconds. With a camera set up like the MX4’s, you no longer need to worry you might miss the perfect photo opportunity.

Ultimate protection

To better protect the Corning Gorilla Glass 3 screen of the MX4, we have selected to use our unique boding process to attach the screen to the CNC machined alloy body. A 0.32mm layer of adhesive fixes the screen to the body but also acts as an absorbent layer to spread shocks. If dropped the tapered body of the MX4 will spread forces around the body while the bonding will act as an absorbing buffer. Meizu have applied for a patent for this new bonding method.

Flyme 4.0

Designed to make a large screen smartphones easier to use. Flyme has evolved to Flyme 4.0 and taken influence from the oriental aesthetics of Wabi-Sabi for a more colourful and brilliant experience. The new UI redefines function with a redesigned Smartbar navigation area and all new features.

The Meizu MX4 is available in a range of memory size options through Meizumart, where we

are now accepting pre-orders: www.meizumart.com/presale