Meizu Pro 5 review: The Prodigy

Performance

Meizu Pro 5 packs an Exynos 7420 chipset developed in-house by Samsung and proved itself with the Galaxy S6 lineup to be one of the best performers on the market right now. It employs a 1.5 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU, a 2.1 GHz quad-core Cortex-A57 CPU, Mali-T760MP8 GPU, and 3 or 4 GB of RAM. Our review unit is of the 3GB variety as it has 32GB ROM.

The Pro 5, unlike the Galaxy S6 smartphones, relies on a lower resolution 1080p display, which should give it an edge in the onscreen graphics tests.

Update, Dec. 29: We received the international Meizu Pro 5 unit running on Android 5.1.1 Lollipop and Flyme 4 launcher. We repeated all of our performance benchmarks and we found the Pro 5 unit intended for international sales just as impressive as its China-bound sibling, outing virtually the same scores.

GeekBench 3 tests the multi-core performance and the Pro 5 passed it with flying colors. Indeed the Exynos 7420 octa-core processor is quite a beast.

GeekBench 3

Higher is better

• Meizu Pro 5
  5578
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  5158
• Meizu MX5
  5110
• OnePlus 2
  4429
• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  4413
• Sony Xperia Z5
  4017
• LG V10
  3607
• LG G Flex2
  3604
• Oppo R7 Plus
  3204

Next we ran the popular AnTuTu benchmark and once again the Meizu Pro 5 came on top of all devices we've tested so far.

AnTuTu 5

Higher is better

• Meizu Pro 5
  74655
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  68324
• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  58582
• LG V10
  52713
• Sony Xperia Z5
  50611
• Meizu MX5
  48915
• LG G Flex2
  47680
• OnePlus 2
  47207
• Oppo R7 Plus
  37750

The compound BaseMark OS II 2.0 also confirms the dominance of the Meizu Pro 5 among all the Android phones we've tested to date. The recently released iPhone 6s Plus is scoring more, but we guess the iOS under the hood optimizations are showing off here.

Basemark OS 2.0

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  2261
• Meizu Pro 5
  1837
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  1789
• LG G Flex2
  1726
• OnePlus 2
  1622
• Sony Xperia Z5
  1482
• LG V10
  1383
• Meizu MX5
  1252
• Oppo R7 Plus
  968

Oddly, the single-core and multi-core breakdowns show the Pro 5 is somewhat behind the Galaxy S6 edge+, which basically features the same processor.

Basemark OS 2.0 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  6498
• Meizu Pro 5
  5760
• LG G Flex2
  5597
• OnePlus 2
  5301
• LG V10
  4261
• Meizu MX5
  3262
• Oppo R7 Plus
  2707
• Sony Xperia Z5
  1239

Basemark OS 2.0 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  27511
• Meizu MX5
  22976
• Meizu Pro 5
  21416
• LG G Flex2
  18856
• LG V10
  17127
• OnePlus 2
  16798
• Oppo R7 Plus
  16784
• Sony Xperia Z5
  5733

GFXBench puts the Mali-T760MP8 GPU found in the phablet to the test. The handset posted flagship-worthy results throughout, even though it wasn't a match for the latest gen iPhone GPU (PowerVR GT7600).

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  39.5
• Meizu Pro 5
  25
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  25
• Sony Xperia Z5
  24
• OnePlus 2
  22
• LG G Flex2
  22
• LG V10
  15
• Meizu MX5
  10
• Oppo R7 Plus
  6

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z5
  18
• OnePlus 2
  16
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  15
• Meizu Pro 5
  14
• LG V10
  10
• Meizu MX5
  4.8

The onscreen performance is expectedly ahead of the Galaxy S6 edge+, since the resolution is 'merely' 1080p instead of Quad HD.

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  38.6
• Meizu Pro 5
  25
• Sony Xperia Z5
  25
• OnePlus 2
  22
• LG G Flex2
  22
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  15
• Meizu MX5
  9.5
• LG V10
  9.5
• Oppo R7 Plus
  6.3

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Sony Xperia Z5
  19
• OnePlus 2
  16
• Meizu Pro 5
  14
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  6.6
• LG V10
  5.7
• Meizu MX5
  4.7

Oddly, BaseMark X puts the Pro 5's GPU performance around the middle, while the BaseMark ES 3.1 based on the Open GL E3.1 shows promising results.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  26333
• Sony Xperia Z5
  23923
• OnePlus 2
  21937
• Meizu Pro 5
  20038
• LG G Flex2
  19360
• LG V10
  15161
• Meizu MX5
  10403
• Oppo R7 Plus
  5349

Basemark ES 3.1 / Metal

Higher is better

• Meizu Pro 5
  409
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  348
• LG V10
  297

We performed the following browser-centric benchmarks with the pre-installed Meizu browser. The phablet posted a great score on Mozilla's Kraken 1.1 (JavaScript), but mediocre results on the compound BrowserMark 2.1. You may want to try an alternative browser app.

Kraken 1.1

Lower is better

• Apple iPhone 6s Plus
  1731
• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  3767
• Meizu Pro 5
  3907
• LG G Flex2
  4621
• LG V10
  4666
• Sony Xperia Z5
  5635
• OnePlus 2
  6808
• Meizu MX5
  11414
• Oppo R7 Plus
  11908

BrowserMark 2.1

Higher is better

• Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+
  2591
• Sony Xperia Z5
  2303
• LG V10
  2119
• LG G Flex2
  2086
• OnePlus 2
  2055
• Meizu MX5
  1471
• Oppo R7 Plus
  1224
• Meizu Pro 5
  1070

The Meizu Pro 5 provides flagship-grade performance and we are happy the company opted for Samsung's top Exynos instead of the Snapdragon 810. Samsung did a great job designing its SoC and it helps the Pro 5 top most of the charts.

While the web browsing scores aren't as impressive, both the integrated default browser and Google Chrome will offer you a smooth and fast experience. As for the processor and graphics - there is nothing to worry about for the years to come.