The Meizu M9 (pronounced MAY- zoo M9) is a Chinese smartphone designed and promoted by the Meizu Technology Co., Ltd. which runs Android. It features a 1 GHz "Hummingbird" processor along
with 8–16 GB internal Flash memory,
a rear-facing 5-megapixel camera
and a 3.54-inch 960x640 capacitive
touchscreen display which its
resolution surpass the resolution of all previous Meizu M-series
smartphones.The phone also has
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and TV-out (HDMI
1.3) connectivity. The Samsung C110 processor enables the Meizu
M9 to play full HD video. There is also
an English version of the phone's
software. The M9 was launched on January 1,
2011, resulting in buyers lining up
overnight to enter the stores to purchase the device.[2] History The CEO of Meizu Technology Co., ltd,
Jack Wong, announced that the
Meizu M9 would be released in late
2010. Only 300 copies of the phone
were released on the first day of the
phone’s launch. It was only available in December 2010 if it was
pre-ordered in October. The price of
the Meizu M9 was set for 2380 Yuan (350 dollars). The phone was
originally slated for release in early
November. Because of several
delays, the phone’s release date was
delayed to late December. One of the
delays in the release of the phone was the company’s decision to
brand the phone with an ancient
Chinese character for a logo.
Another delay was caused by the
validation process of the phone by
the China Academy of Telecommunication Research. The
validation process took two months.
Another delay was caused by the
arrival of the IPhone 4 to China. Because Meizu Technology Co., ltd
wanted to compete with Apple, the company had to use the same retina
screen as the iPhone 4. Software Internal Hardware The Meizu M9 is very fast because of
its processor and supporting
hardware. It runs on a 1 GHz CPU,
Power VR 540 GPU and 512 MB of
RAM. The Meizu M9 is similar to the
iPhone 4 in a number of ways. They both have similar CPUs which are ARM Cortex A8-based. The
difference is that the Meizu M9 has
the Samsung S5PC1110 application
processor rather than the Apple A4
application processor. Even the
clock speed and phone internals are similar between the Meizu M9 and
the Apple iPhone 4. Display The Meizu M9 uses a 3.5 inch Sharp
AVS display with a 960x640
resolution. This offers a pixel density
of 326ppi, a substantial
improvement over most Android
phones and a pixel density identical to that of the Apple iPhone 4. Because of the improved pixel
density, text in zoomed-out views of
the web browser or other
applications can be read, and
graphics such as those of games
appear sharper. Android Operating System and
Meizu Software The Meizu M9 runs on Android 2.2, with an upgrade to 2.3 afterwards.
With Android 2.2, there is some lag but that is fixed with the new 2.3
update with performance updates.
The interface is designed by Eico.
Eico is a Chinese design firm that has
a good reputation because of its
good work with Google, ASUS and Creative. Eico have designed a unique user interface for the Meizu
M9. A lot of people that have HTC cell
phones have started importing the
Meizu M9 interface into their cell
phones because of its layout. The
Meizu also has its own apps that have been designed by Eic which
are designed to work well with the
interface. Usability Meizu M9 has three physical buttons
below the screen. The middle button
is the “HOME” button; the “BACK”
button is on the left and the “KEY”
button on the right. On the top of the
phone is the “LOCK SCREEN” key and on the left side is the “VOLUME” key.
Meizu M9 does not have a physical
button on the sides for taking
pictures which leaves the right side
of the phone without push buttons.
The Meizu M9 screen will appear with 3 icons on its lockscreen after
turning on the phone. There is a
“LOCK” icon in the middle which
opens the Home screen, a "PHONE"
icon on the left, and a "SMS" icon (for
text messages) on the right. These icons can be activated by dragging
them upwards. Phone Calls After dragging the phone icon up to
unlock the phone a dial pad will
appear; this gives the user both the
flexibility to dial and access contacts.
After dialing one can choose to put
the call on speaker, mute, hold, and record, check contacts list or end the
call by pressing the orange box at
the bottom. All this commands
appear on the screen during the
time of the phone call. Text To write a text message first press
the “TYPE TO COMPOSE” button and
the keyboard will appear. The main
difference with Meizu M9 from most
smartphones like iPhones is that the
keyboard does not rotate to landscape mode when the phone is
reoriented. Also it can easily switch
from Chinese to English and vice
versa simply by pushing the “EN”
and “CH” buttons respectively. Internet Browsing Upon pushing the “Home” button
on the middle of the screen, the user
is immediately connected to the
default homepage of the Meizu web
browser. The top left button on the
screen allows the opening of more than one internet page at the same
time. Also at the bottom of the page
there are three icons: on the left is
the “Refresh” icon on the middle
“Bookmark” button and on the right
is the “More Options” icon, which allows the user to download list, add
to desktop, select text etc. The
screen can scroll up, down, left, right
and also zoom in and out with just
the touch of the finger making it
easier to read. Criticism Functionality The Meizu M9 uses a 5MP front-
illuminated digital camera sensor which has poor low-light capability. The sound quality is known to be
quite cacophonic, especially when
the volume is increased to its
maximum. Critics have stated that
the storage ROM for the phone isn’t stable enough for full customer
reliability. Battery Life The battery life span of the Meizu M9
is comparable to that of most
modern smartphones. When fully
charged, it can last up to a day with
normal usage, and it can last up to
two days with minimal usage. There is speculation that the Android 2.3
update will improve the Meizu M9's
battery life. With the Android 2.3 beta firmware,
battery life can last up to two days
with normal usage and three days
with minimal usage. These durations
are expected to be higher for the
final firmware version. Marketability Unless one is in China, getting access
to the Meizu M9 can prove to be
quite an arduous task. The best way
to purchase one of these phones is
to get it from an online seller; the
downside to this is that a warranty is not available and the sellers may be
unreliable. The Meizu M9 was reported to have
already hit its total sales target for
2011 in the first quarter.
Consequently, the CEO Jack Wong
refused to reduce the price of the
phone. Its success could be as a result of low project target sales or
unexpected popularity of the
product. This phone is highly
popular in China, and is starting to
gain worldwide attention.