Vernee has made quite a few budget phones over the time and the Thor Plus is one of the latest models that has an enormous 6200mAh battery and all-metal design for about $130. Learn more in the full Vernee Thor Plus Review.

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VIDEO REVIEW

UNBOXING

The phone ships with all the usual stuff including a fast charger.

DESIGN and DISPLAY

The Vernee Thor Plus does not look fancy or anything, especially if we compare it with some budget full-screen phoenes. It sports a classic design with the bezels on each side. However, its main selling point is a huge 6200mAh battery that is crammed in an all-metal profile that is surprisingly thin measuring at just 7.9mm at its thinnest point.

Also, I just love the 5.5” AMOLED display. Even though it’s only 720p, it’s sharp and vibrant and it looks much better than the majority cheap 1080p panels.

As for the camera, we have a 13MP shooter.

Now a few features in a nutshell: a fingerprint scanner is fast and accurate, and it doubles as a home button. You can also choose between on screen and physical capacitive keys. There is also an 8MP selfie camera, LED notification light and a dedicated button that triggers an ultra-power saving mode that allows you to use the phone for days.

Finally, the loudspeaker quality is kind of mediocre, like on most of the budget phones. Also, it’s placed on the right side, so you will easily cover it up if you hold the phone in the landscape mode.

HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

The Vernee Thor Plus has pretty much standard budget phone specs that include octa-core MTK6753, 3GB of RAM and 32GBGB of expandable storage.

The chipset is mediocre but it’s all about optimization. On most of the budget phones, games like Asphalt 8 stutter or lag on the highest graphics, but the Vernee Thor Plus performs surprisingly well. Also, other 3D games I tested run just fine.

BENCHMARKS

USER INTERFACE

I usually love Vernee phones because they run on almost stock Android. The Thor Plus is no exception. The Android 7.0 based UI runs fast and fluid, there are no hiccups whatsoever. Besides all the usual stuff, there are some gesture and motion controls that work quite well.

CAMERAS

Image quality is kind of mediocre like on most of the budget phones. Although I took all the pictures on a cloudy day, I still expected pictures to be sharper and have more detail. On the other hand, it’s possible to take some good looking images for social media needs with both main and front-facing cameras.

1080p video looks quite ok for a budget phone but don’t expect any stellar results.

The selfie camera can shoot videos only in 480p resolution and the quality is quite bad.

Download full resolution camera samples

CONNECTIVITY

I found the call quality to be kind of mediocre. Also, sometimes it may take some time to get the GPS position but the navigation works quite well.

Also, the phone has only a few sensors and there is no gyroscope, meaning that the phone does not support VR headsets.

BATTERY LIFE

The battery life is one of the best you can get on any phone, especially if you use that ultra power saving mode.

You can literally use the phone for days without the need to recharge it. I was able to achieve a 5-day battery life on an average use and turning on that ultra power saving mode from time to time. I’m pretty sure that it’s possible to get even more out of this huge battery.

Finally, it takes about 1 hour and 40 mins to fully charge the battery with the supplied fast charger.

CONCLUSIONS

The Vernee Thor Plus does not have any exceptional looks but it excels in features other budget phones lack.

That gigantic 6200mAh battery performs very well, the display is one of the best in class, a metal construction of the phone feels nice and sturdy and I’m quite impressed with the overall performance.

A few weaknesses are common to most of the budget phones – mediocre camera and subpar loudspeaker.

Other than that, I was pleasantly surprised that the Vernee Thor Plus is a pretty good budget phone with some standout features that other phones lack, even though it’s not a perfect device.

The post Vernee Thor Plus Review – Surprisingly Awesome Budget Phone! appeared first on Gizmochina.

Meizu is a well-known Chinese manufacturer that loves saying that its phones are better than Xiaomi’s. The Meizu M5 Note is one of the company’s latest budget offerings that has a flagship-grade build quality, decent specs and a lot more. Learn more in our full review.

Thanks to lightinthebox.com for sending the Meizu M5 Note for a review.

VIDEO REVIEW

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ni24dAJsrw[/embedyt]

UNBOXING

In the box, you get all the usual stuff that includes some paperwork, SIM ejector pin, USB cable and a fast charger.

DESIGN and DISPLAY

What I absolutely love about the M5 Note is a flagship-grade build quality.

Just look at it, the phone is made entirely of metal, a silver aluminum finish does not attract fingerprints and smudges quickly and the phone feels nice in the hand. I am so excited because I prefer metal phones over the glass-made ones.

The M5 Note has a 5.5” 1080p display that is just gorgeous to look at. It is sharp and vibrant but the sunlight legibility is just average.

We have a 5MP selfie camera and a notification LED light on the top and on the bottom, there is just a home button that can be either physically pressed or just tapped if you want to use it as a back key. Also, the home button doubles as a fingerprint scanner, which is very accurate but you have to wake the phone up first in order to use it.

As far as optics go, there a 13MP shooter coupled with a dual LED flash.

I love that the buttons are tactile and they do not rattle once pressed.

The sound via the headset jack is great. No distortions and great overall quality for a budget phone. The loudspeaker is also good. In fact, it is one of the better ones in this price range.

HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

When it comes to hardware, things don’t sound that great. Well, the Meizu M5 Note definitely has enough power for most of the daily tasks since it has 3GB of RAM and optional 16/32 or 64GB of expandable storage but the Mediatek Helio P10 chip can’t handle the most intensive tasks like gaming.

If you play games like Asphalt 8 on the highest graphics, you should expect a lot of stutters and quite a few skipped frames. You can fix this issue only if you switch the graphics setting to medium. Other games like Nova 3 run fine.

BENCHMARKS

USER INTERFACE

I have always loved the Flyme Os because of the way it looks it works. Sure, it would be nice to see the latest version of Google’s OS but the Android 6.0-based user interface is fast, there is no stutter or lag no matter what you do with it.

Also, there are some cool features like gesture and motion controls and they work perfectly. I just love those basic gestures that allow you to use the phone in one hand quite easily. You can also customize the phone by changing themes, wallpapers and so on. Finally, my international review unit comes with most of the languages, google play installed and there is no chinese bloatware.

CAMERAS

I like Meizu’s camera app because it is fast and responsive. However, there are a few things the company didn’t fix for a long time, e.g. the shooting modes and settings menus work only in portrait mode for some reason. You can select from a few shooting modes that include a manual mode or slow motion in 720p video mode.

IMAGE QUALITY

Meizu M5 Note takes one of the best pictures you can get on any sub-$150 phone. You will usually get photos that have plenty of detail and sharpness, and the colours will look nice. The dynamic range and white balance may be off in some of the shots but the HDR mode does a decent job bringing the detail back to the shadows (at the expense of a bit unnatural looking picture).

The low-light shots have qutie a bit of noise and grain but this is usually a case with all budget phones.

The 1080p video looks okay. Not very impressive in general but pretty good for a budget phone.

The selfies look pretty good except for the fact that the colours look a bit washed out.

The 1080p selfie video looks good but again, the colors are washed out. Finally, the sound recording quality is really good for a cheap phone.

Download full resolution camera samples

CONNECTIVITY

When it comes to connectivity, the M5 Note remains solid. Call quality and signal reception are great, wifi and 4g speeds are good and the Bluetooth works fine. However, I found the GPS to be less accurate than flagship phones.

BATTERY LIFE

A 4000 mAh battery is one of my favourite features of the Meizu M5 note. Your results may vary but with my usage, I could constantly get over 5 hours of screen-on time with 2 SIM cards and quite a heavy usage of the phone.

If you need to recharge the battery, you can do it quickly in just over 1:30 h with the supplied fast charger.

CONCLUSIONS

The Meizu M5 Note is a very solid budget smartphone that delivers in a lot of ways. I absolutely love the design and build quality of it, the speed and feature set of the UI, the camera, and outstanding battery life.

My main complaints would be that the phone uses Helio P10 chip which is not designed for gamers. Also, the phone still runs on Android 6.0 and we still have a regular micro USB port for charging.

Other than that, Meizu M5 Note is a great offering for the price if you don’t mind those shortcomings.

The post Meizu M5 Note Review – Better Than Xiaomi? A Solid Budget Phone! appeared first on Gizmochina.