Battle of the cheap Chinese Androids

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richms

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#1513833 15-Mar-2016 16:18

That happened on my note as well. Lost all speaker volume till rebooted. Dont think you will avoid stupid things like that by sticking with the big brands.

I dont use voice calls enough to know if it is still an issue or not, as I only really do phonecalls when driving which is on bluetooth which was never effected.

Richard rich.ms

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D1023319

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#1522745 30-Mar-2016 12:35

Question for owners of Meizu m2 note.

by default - the slide leftward on the lock screen launches the camera.

can this be changed - say to home screen - rather than use upward slide from lock screen?

jamesplay

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#1546266 3-May-2016 19:47

I've had my Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Pro for about a month and it's an amazing phone.

I definitely recommend looking in to it if you're wanting to get a new phone.

If anyone has any questions about the phone I'll be happy to ask.

old3eyes

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#1546459 4-May-2016 08:53

NikT:

old3eyes:

Hi Nik. What's your impression of this phone for it's price??

Full disclosure: Meizu is my baby right now, big plans in the works. PB is the national distributor for 'em, so they're not parallel imports per se.

Starting last year with Smart ultra, there's been a really nice sweet spot at ~$300 for phones that have no major drawbacks. May not have all the bells & whistles like fingerprint scanners, stereo speakers, & waterproofing, but they nail the four things that most people care about - screen size, cameras, battery life, & price point. This year it remains to be seen whether the big boys will want to play in this $150-$300 space, and my educated gut feel is that they won't. Enter Meizu.

Few advantages to this range over most of the immediate competition, like ARMv8/64bit, Dual SIM with full NZ 3G support, bigger batteries, & 5GHz WiFi. I've kept up with Meizu's stuff on the sidelines for years, since I always thought Flyme was far and away the most attractive of the assorted usually-hideous Chinese OEM skins (MIUI is functionally fine, aesthetics are a matter of taste & it doesn't really tick my boxes). Flat, simple, straightforward.

The Meizu range scales nicely up from M2 all the way through to the fancy Pro 5, with essentially the same look, feel, & experience consistently across the whole lineup, just adding in better hardware features as you go up - I wish Samsung, for one, would do this. Build quality is surprisingly good as well, definitely a 5c vibe here rather than the slightly chintzy stuff you normally get in plastic rectangle land. They've resisted the urge to go super-budget.

Straight up it's cool that there are phones for $300 that I could happily use if anything happened to my flagships. I used Smart ultra for six months last year & it was great. Flyme adds a bunch of genuinely useful features like fine-grained permissions management, customisable wake-up/app-launching gestures, & the software build is super minimalist without even the usual slew of Google-branded bloatware like Play Movies/Games/Books et cetera. M2 Note in particular trucks on merrily for two days on 3100mAh, & the laminated IPS screens are really quite nice.

Only real learning curve is the three-function home button that works as back when tapped, home when pressed, & turns the screen off when held down, which pairs nicely when you turn on double tap or swipe to wake. Plus swipe up from the bottom of the screen to access the multitasking menu.

Fundamentally I'd never recommend crap kit - These are good. Should be an update to Flyme 4.5 in the works too, which adds the standard Lollipop multitasking menu among other things.

Any questions, let me know.

Hi Nik,

Where did you get to with this phone?? Are you going to run with it or wait until the next model the Note 3??

Regards,

Old3eyes

NikT

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#1546507 4-May-2016 10:26

old3eyes:

Hi Nik,

Where did you get to with this phone?? Are you going to run with it or wait until the next model the Note 3??

M2 Note has been doing great so far. Spark MMS was tested & confirmed working FYI.

M3 Note, now that's going to be veeeery interesting. Watch this space.

Product Manager @ PB Tech

Smartphones @ PB Tech | Headphones @ PB Tech

old3eyes

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#1546557 4-May-2016 12:14

NikT:

old3eyes:

Hi Nik,

Where did you get to with this phone?? Are you going to run with it or wait until the next model the Note 3??

M2 Note has been doing great so far. Spark MMS was tested & confirmed working FYI.

M3 Note, now that's going to be veeeery interesting. Watch this space.

Thanx. Will do..

Regards,

Old3eyes

richms

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#1553853 17-May-2016 05:38

I dropped my redmi note 2 and have a crack across the screen.

What's a good replacement phone or should I just order another of them since it's worked so well? $150us max really. Need dual sim.

Richard rich.ms

daggers

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#1595641 20-Jul-2016 14:05

jamesplay: I've had my Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Pro for about a month and it's an amazing phone. I definitely recommend looking in to it if you're wanting to get a new phone. If anyone has any questions about the phone I'll be happy to ask.

I've got this phone and it's loaded with malware straight out of the box. Anybody who buys this phone - check for malware before getting too involved with the phone.

semigeek

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#1595646 20-Jul-2016 14:15

This looks an interesting device for the price, which is cheap at US$99

Wonder if they will ever come here

http://www.androidcentral.com/zte-zmax-pro-hits-metro-pcs-just-99

old3eyes

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#1595651 20-Jul-2016 14:20

semigeek:

This looks an interesting device for the price, which is cheap at US$99

Wonder if they will ever come here

http://www.androidcentral.com/zte-zmax-pro-hits-metro-pcs-just-99

Don't know if it would be much use here if these specs are correct. Only NZ band is 3G 850.

http://www.gsmarena.com/zte_zmax_pro-8096.php

Regards,

Old3eyes

semigeek

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#1595659 20-Jul-2016 14:36

old3eyes:

semigeek:

This looks an interesting device for the price, which is cheap at US$99

Wonder if they will ever come here

http://www.androidcentral.com/zte-zmax-pro-hits-metro-pcs-just-99

Don't know if it would be much use here if these specs are correct. Only NZ band is 3G 850.

http://www.gsmarena.com/zte_zmax_pro-8096.php

Isn't that fine on Spark/Skinny though?

old3eyes

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#1595660 20-Jul-2016 14:37

semigeek:

old3eyes:

semigeek:

This looks an interesting device for the price, which is cheap at US$99

Wonder if they will ever come here

http://www.androidcentral.com/zte-zmax-pro-hits-metro-pcs-just-99

Don't know if it would be much use here if these specs are correct. Only NZ band is 3G 850.

http://www.gsmarena.com/zte_zmax_pro-8096.php

Isn't that fine on Spark/Skinny though?

Yes and skinny.. but not 2D or Voda and the LTE is US bands only

Regards,

Old3eyes

jonb

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#1642126 28-Sep-2016 22:05

Seems to be a better than average sale on at Gear Best this week. Just got a 64GB Xiaomi Mi4 (3g only) phone for US$150, and the Xiaomi Note 3 Pro is only US$144.

I'm not really up to date on current China phone prices but seem pretty good.

1eStar

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#1642182 28-Sep-2016 23:45

Xiaomi mi5s just announced. Possibly the cause of the price drop on older models.

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