Meizu 15, 15 Plus, and 15 Lite hands-on review

Introduction

Meizu has been on the map since 2003 and for its 15-year anniversary it announced three new phones from its completely new series - Meizu 15, Meizu 15 Plus and Meizu 15 Lite. We were at the launch and saw the whole show and even got to tinker with the devices.

All three phones come without today's smartphone fads that all other manufacturers seem to follow - a tall 18:9 screen or a cutout on top of the display for the selfie camera. Meizu decided to go against the flow and introduced three devices that have some overlapping specs but are placed in different price segments to cover a wider target.

Meizu 15 Plus specs

• Body: Stainless steel aluminum composite frame with coating
• Display: 5.95-inch AMOLED, 1440x2560px
• OS: Android 7.1.2 Nougat with Flyme OS 7 on top
• Chipset: Samsung Exynos 8895 Octa, 4x2.3 GHz & 4x1.7 GHz CPU, Mediatek Helio P60, 4x2.0 GHz Cortex-A73 & 4x2.0 GHz Cortex-A53, octa-core CPU, Mali-G71 MP20 GPU, 6GB RAM
• Storage: 64/128GB internal with microSD hybrid (SIM2) expansion slot
• Rear Camera: Dual: 12 MP (f/1.8, 1.55 µm) + 20 MP, phase detection autofocus, quad-LED dual-tone ring flash
• Front Camera: 20MP
• Connectivity: Dual SIM, Dual 4G VoLTE, Bluetooth 4.2, dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac/b/g/n, A-GPS/GLONASS
• Battery: 3,500mAh non-removable, mCharge 24W
• Misc: Fingerprint reader (front-mounted)

Meizu 15 specs

• Body: Stainless steel aluminum composite frame with coating
• Display: 5.46-inch AMOLED, 1080x1920px
• OS: Android 7.1.2 Nougat with Flyme OS 7 on top
• Chipset: Qualcomm SDM660 Snapdragon 660, (4x2.2 GHz Kryo 260 & 4x1.8 GHz Kryo 260 octa-core CPU, Adreno 512 GPU, 4GB RAM
• Storage: 64/128GB internal with microSD hybrid (SIM2) expansion slot
• Rear Camera: Dual: 12 MP (f/1.8, 1.55 µm) + 20 MP, phase detection autofocus, quad-LED dual-tone ring flash
• Front Camera: 20MP
• Connectivity: Dual SIM, Dual 4G VoLTE, Bluetooth 4.2, dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac/b/g/n, A-GPS/GLONASS
• Battery: 3,000mAh non-removable, mCharge 24W
• Misc: Fingerprint reader (front-mounted)

Meizu 15 Lite specs

• Body: Stainless steel aluminum composite frame
• Display: 5.46-inch LCD, 1080x1920px
• OS: Android 7.1.2 Nougat with Flyme OS 7 on top
• Chipset: Qualcomm MSM8953-Pro Snapdragon 626, Octa-core 2.2 GHz Cortex-A53 CPU, Adreno 506 GPU, 4GB RAM
• Storage: 64GB internal with microSD hybrid (SIM2) expansion slot
• Rear Camera: 20 MP (f/1.9, 1.4 µm) , phase detection autofocus, ten-LED dual-tone ring flash
• Front Camera: 12MP
• Battery: 3,000mAh non-removable, mCharge 18W
• Misc: Fingerprint reader (front-mounted)

The Meizu 15 Plus has a more powerful chipset than the Meizu 15 that brings better display resolution and EIS for video shooting. Since it is a bigger phone in size, the battery brings more mAh power as well. In this exact case size does matter, and the Plus-sized device would appeal to fans of bigger phones.

The lite buddy of the Meizu 15 might have a chipset that is aiming for efficiency, instead of power, but it comes in the same 5.46" package. Although it is not OLED, at first assessment it looks equally bright and colors are almost as vibrant. But with a new UI bringing plenty of features and a flagship body footprint, the power-efficient Meizu 15 Lite is a device to get enthusiastic about.

Keep reading on the next pages where we look further into the new anniversary phones and how they performed in our initial run.