The Meizu M6s does a lot of things right for just $150

Meizu had an underwhelming 2017, as the company recorded a slight year-on-year decline in shipment numbers. The former China giants may be set to make amends for it though, as the M6 Note was positively-received a few months ago, likely because it was the first Meizu smartphone to be powered by a Snapdragon SoC. Thankfully, the company is bent on building on that success with the release of a new budget device, the M6s.

The M6s is an unassuming device for the most part, but it shines in performance, as it’s powered by the new Exynos 7872. It is, in fact, the first device to run on that SoC. For some perspective, the Exynos 7872 offers performance on par with the Snapdragon 630, an SoC that powered 2017 mid-rangers like the Moto X4 and Nokia 7. The fact that it’s priced below half of those devices is a welcome bonus.

The device, Meizu’s first 18:9 offering, boasts of a quite impressive design. It sports an 5.7-inch 18:9 display, albeit just a HD+ one, as the Exynos 7872 does not support a FHD+ resolution. The device comes in two variants, one with 32 GB of storage, and the other with 64 GB. Both feature 4 GB of LPDDR3 RAM. Perhaps the largest miss is the absence of dual rear cameras, as the device sports a single 16 MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture, and an 8 MP selfie shooter.

Most interesting is the placement of the device’s fingerprint sensor. Meizu devices are known for their mBack buttons below the display, a button that triples up as both a fingerprint sensor and two navigation buttons. The M6s ditches that, however, as it relegates the fingerprint sensor to the right side of the device, just under the power button. The volume rockers then find a cozy spot on the left side of the device. The mBack button is also replaced by a soft on-screen Super mBack button that acts like the regular mBack button. There’s an option for the regular nav button lineup, though.

The M6s gets its juice from a 3000 mAh battery that is fast-charged by Meizu’s proprietary 18W mCharge technology. On the software side, it runs on the Android Nougat-based Flyme 6.2 out of the box.

The base version with 32 GB will retail for about $150, while the 64 GB variant will sell for about $180. The device will be available in color options of Black, Blue, Silver, and Gold.