Mlais: Mlais M52 Review

Mlais M52 Review: Killer hardware at a killer price
Now Mlais M52 Price drop to $128.99, 16% off Discount, Don't Lose this Chance!

Posted on April 10, 2015 by andi

A word to all would be Chinese phone makers, build your devices with killer hardware at a killer price and you will be on to a winner. That’s exactly what Mlais have done with the M52 and we’ve take a good long look.

When I first head that Mlais were back and aiming themselves squarely at the international market it barely registered. I mean there are hundreds of Chinese phone makers which have given up on the domestic market to concentrate on the rest of the world, what would Mlais do that would be so different?

Then they released the Mlais M52 and we all started to listen.

Mlais M52 Review: Unboxing

Mlais M52 Review: Specification

Mlais have been very clever and exceptionally lucky with the timing of the Mlais M52 launch. If Mlais had tried a device like this last year it just wouldn’t have worked, well it just wouldn’t have been possible not at $159.99 anyway!

A quick read through the specifications of the M52 reveals an octacore 64bit processor, 2GB RAM, 13 mega-pixel main camera, 8 mega-pixel front camera, dual SIM, SD card support, LTE, a large battery and 5.5-inch HD display! Yes, all of that for just $159.99!

The 64bit chip that is kicking around inside the M52 is one of our favourite chipsets to date, the Mediatek MT6752. We love this SoC for its 64bit construction, native LTE support, low-cost but mainly because this octacore chip blows the Qualcomm equivalent out of the ocean! It seriously is that good (plus these new 64bit chips have amazing GPS performance!).

With a 64bit processor on board the Mlais M52 should really be running Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box, it isn’t though but the update is on the way and scheduled for a release on the 15th April (just 5 days away). Still, with Kitkat as standard we were getting Antutu scores of well over 42,000 points and we have seen higher! What Lollipop will bring should be very special. And did I mention this phablet is only $159.99?

Mlais M52 Review: Design and construction

Mlais have been clever with the design of their phablet too. Instead of concentrating on uber thin bezels, fancy glass and alloy materials or way out design, they have kept it all familiar and simple. So familiar that the M52 looks a lot like a certain 5.5-inch Xiaomi phone.

If you look at current design trends for thinner and thinner bodies and narrower overall widths you could pick apart the M52 for being a little thicker and wider than other devices, but why would you when it feels so comfortable and well made?

The design doesn’t seem to cut any corners either, we still have capacitive buttons along the chin and yes they are backlit. There is a notification light at the top, and yes it is an RGB unit (so you can choose the colour you prefer).

Plastics have been chosen for the construction of the M52, but not cheap creaky plastic, but good quality material with smooth rounded edges. With so many phones heading towards glass and alloy it is easy to rule out plastic, but when done correctly you end up with a hard-wearing and solid phone (just look at the Meizu M1 Note and the iPhone 5C).

Taking a tour around the exterior of the M52 we find no odd joins or badly fitted components, and all the usual parts are where we expect to find them. The headphone jack and USB are in the top of the phone, power button on the right and volume rocker on the left.

On the rear we have a large speaker grill (although there is only a single speaker behind there), single LED flash and rear 13 mega-pixel main camera.

There are no SIM or SD card trays on the Mlais as the rear is removable so you can get at the replaceable battery, dual SIM trays and memory expansion bay. Even poking around on the inside of the M52 everything is neat and really well put together.

As you can see in the photos there are 3 colour options to choose from for the Mlais M52. I was sent the white, blue and pink (red?) covers and the blue has fared very well living in the bottom of my backpack for over a week while traveling (hence the delay in getting the review up, sorry!). I’m still unsure if production phones get all the covers, but if not I’m sure they will be very cheap to buy after market.

Mlais also provided me with a flip cover with viewing window to see the time, or control my music without having to get at the full screen.

Overall there is nothing to complain about in terms of design, construction or build. It’s a very well but together phone.

Mlais M52 Review: Screen

At 5.5-inches we have a lot of screen on tap, and it makes the M52 comparable (in screen real estate) to many of the current crop of 2015 phones. Usually when we get to above 5-inch we see manufacturers opting for higher resolution 1080 or even 2K panels on their phones, obviously this isn’t possible at a sub $200 price so we have a 720p HD panel here.

This is not a complaint at all! Even at 5.5-inch a 1280 x 720 panel is acceptable and only the very picky user will point out that they can see pixels when they are an inch away from the display. If you are going from a 1080 phone to this then yes you might see a difference in clarity but it will be hardly worth mentioning.

As for the screen on the Mlais M52, well it is a fine panel. It’s bright enough most of the time and the viewing angle are perfect for sharing photos and films with people around you. Only outdoors in very bight light do you notice a lack of contrast.

Touch sensitivity is perfect too, there are no issues with ghost touching or unrecognised taps. It all works as you expect it should.

Mlais M52 Review: Performance

As mentioned at the start of this review the M52 has an incredible processing package that allows it to perform everyday tasks without complaint. Even gaming and continuous benchmarks don’t run the phone down.

Plenty of customers who have bought the M52 are reporting Antutu scores of 44,000+ which isn’t far behind the Meizu MX4 which was announced as the Antutu champion for 2014 (based on an average of scores), yet the Mlais is a couple of $100s less tan the MX4. You could buy 2 Mlais M52 and still have money left for the price of an MX4!

Of course having just the pixels of a 720p display helps in some ways, with a screen looking as good as this I think Mlais made the right choice going for a lower res panel for a lower price and higher performance.

As usual we ran a full suite of benchmarks of the phone during our review. The results and screenshots of each are below:

Mlais M52 Benchmarks