The Meizu MX4 Pro Review
by Andrei Frumusanu on February 16, 2015 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Exynos
- Mobile
- Meizu
GPU Performance
The Exynos 5430's Mali T628MP6 at 600MHz should be a predictable test candidate now that we have scores from Note 4's Exynos 5433 and Huawei's Kirin 920 devices. The MX4 Pro should perform slightly worse than the 5433. Meizu maintains the ALU load percentage based scaling logic that I've covered in the Note 4 Exynos review, meaning that ALU heavy loads allow the GPU to scale up to 600MHz while more traditional loads will limit the GPU to 550MHz.
In the 3DMark Unlimited Graphics test we see how the Mali lands more or less where we expected it, worse than the Note 4 and better than the Huawei units. The physics score is still a strongly CPU-bound test and the weaker A7 cores of the 5430 are what is used during most 3D loads.
As we move on to BaseMark X, we're getting into more pure 3D loads that are not as affected by CPU speeds. Here we see the Mali T628MP6 outperform the Kirin 920 by much more than what we would expect from 50% more cores on the MP4 configuration. I've mentioned in the Note 4 review that Samsung has dedicated and added a lot of cache in the Mali's in the 543X Exynos SoCs, and this delta might very well be a result of the modified implementation. The MX4 Pro is on the heels of Adreno 330 devices.
The higher-than-QHD resolution of the MX4 Pro drags down the on-screen scores by a significant amount. There seems to be a bandwidth bottleneck here as the device doesn't manage to outperform the Kirin devices.
The Manhattan and T-Rex off-screen scores again put the Exynos 5430 at the level of the Adreno 330.
The onscreen scores again reverse the scores and put the Mali at a greater disadvantage. It seems while the Exynos 5430 is able to properly keep up at 1080p resolution, the performance degradation when switching to 1560p is quite large.
GPU Power
The Note 4 review started something that I hope to continue in the future whenever a device allows me to do a full power analysis. The MX4 Pro is luckily one of those devices, and I was able to measure some interesting figures that I'll be getting into more in the battery life section. For now, I present some isolated GPU power figures employing the same methodology that I've used for the Exynos 5433, meaning the system is limited to the little cores and the device's screen power is subtracted from the off-screen tests of GFXBench.
While the MX4 Pro and the Galaxy Alpha both employ the same SoC, the rather massive difference between the two comes from the fact that my Alpha test unit had the second-worst chip bin possible, having much higher voltages than what the MX4 Pro is running on its Exynos 5430. My Meizu unit has a median-tier bin, which is something that a larger amount of people should be able to enjoy. On average we see a 62.5mV voltage drop throughout all the GPU frequencies.
The end result is that the MX4 Pro roughly consumes a full 1W less than the Alpha. Shaving off 25% of power consumption just by having a different chip bin demonstrates how volatile device benchmarking can be, as the review units we receive can be very different to what another site tests, not to mention user devices. As I continue to collect more data I hope that we can do a full competitive analysis of the SoC market in the future.
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jjj - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
I have doubts that Xiaomi still aims to make great value products and the likely Redmi Note 2 might be 720p and SSD615 but we shall see. Xiaomi or not there are a few similar devices already anyway, some even cheaper ,the only big name for matching the m1 Note now being TCL.As for A53, it is a small core , from a cost perspective it's normal to be well priced. Perf wise it is nice, for us consumers.
getbacktosrinu - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
How come Anandtech is reviewing a Meizu, and is not reviewing phones from Sony, a much bigger brand and one of the bigger players in the international smartphone market?Why not look at the Xperia Z3 and the Z3 Compact and dig in to find out how Sony is extracting "2 - day battery life" purportedly?
jjj - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
To be fair Sony is barely in top 10 smartphone makers - Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Lenovo, LG, Xiaomi , Coolpad , BBK (OPPO and Vivo are ahead of them and Sony fights with ZTE and TCL for the last 2 spots in top 10 - and they might sell the phone division by this time next year. Plus those devices are not exactly fresh. Meizu could be one of the next tech giants and they would likely overtake Sony in units in 2016 if not this year.At least this device is a bit different than the standard 1080p, SD80x and so on.that gets rather boring and offers little surprises.TT Masterzz - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Shouldn't Lenovo be the third largest after they acquired Motorola and also I believe Xiaomi is fifth and LG is sixth. Although I am not sure about thatTT Masterzz - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Also if we go by your logic of units shipped then I believe there should be no reason for AT to review One Plus One right ?.jjj - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Well you kinda overextend what i was saying but there is no logic for AT to not review devices from major phone makers that it currently ignores. OPO in the end shipped little so yeah there isn't all that much of a reason to review it. However it did ship to lots of enthusiasts and AT was about PC enthusiasts not mainstream so from that perspective it makes more sense to review the OPO than S6 or the iphone.As for phone makers rankings, i wasn't trying to list them in Q4 order or 2014 order. Lenovo has bought Moto but they had only 2 months of Moto sales in 2014 and they are not growing all that fast. Huawei shipped some 75 million units in 2014 so they were 3rd for sure and at this point the most likely to be third in 2015 as they expand the Honor line to more markets.
Anyway, in 2015 Huawei , Lenovo and Xiaomi are likely to fight for the 3rd spot with Lenovo the least likely to get it and LG could drop a few spots but that depends on their strategy .Some China guys might get in trouble this year too , HTC and Sony might have to sell so maybe we see some mergers and the rankings change a bit.
TT Masterzz - Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - link
I agree on the latter part of your comment. The Chinese market seems to be approaching saturation and inevitably this would mean the death of certain small scale Chinese manufacturers who had till now been surviving on the enormous growth rate China had. Although I beg to differ that smartphones like S6 and iPhone 6/6+ are not used by enthusiasts. Even Sony smartphones are used by enthusiasts in my opinion. Plus if AT were to only review gadgets that appeal to tech savvy users then why ignore Xiaomi products. Xiaomi's "almost" zero marketing and online flash sales pretty much guarantees that only tech enthusiasts use their smartphones. Xiaomi's volume also is much higher than One Plus. I guess the best way to put it is that AT reviews devices at their whims and fancies. Cheers :)Gemuk - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
AT have always parroted the "we only review stuff that the manufacturer sends us" line which I just find lazy. What's so hard in actually buying the stuff, and then sell it after they're done? Heck they can even use their own forums to do so. Surely the increased revenue would be more than enough to cover the $50-100 expense?TT Masterzz - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
They don't need to do that also. For example for the Galaxy Note 4 review the device was provided by 28mobiles.com I believe. Why can't they borrow a Sony or Xiaomi unit from 28mobiles.com and drop by a sponsored line for them. I am sure 28mobiles.com would consider providing a device if they can get a name on a website like AT.piroroadkill - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Yeah, it's very, very odd. Z3 Compact is STILL the best phone on the market, in my opinion.