Meizu Blue Charm (m1) Metal unveiled: brings exquisite aluminum design and fingerprint scanner to budget phones

Apart from that important disclaimer, the Meizu Blue Charm Note is a true beast clad in an iron armor: its metal body is practically unprecedented at this price point and so is a fingerprint scanner. These are the two key features that make the new Meizu phablet stand its ground against its biggest competitor in China: the recently launched Xiaomi Redmi Note 2, a phone with the same, powerful Helio X10, but lacking the metal build and fingerprint security.

First, let's take a closer look at the dimension of the Blue Charm Note and what's under the hood.

Platform: New Flyme 5.0 skin on top of Android

Dimensions: 150.7 x 75.3 x 8.2mm

Weight: 162g

Screen: 5.5-inch LTPS LCD with 1080 x 1920-pixel resolution 

SoC: MediaTek Helio X10 (8x Cortex A53 @ 2.0GHz)

RAM: 2GB LPDDR3

Cameras: 13-megapixel rear cam with f/2.2 lens, 5MP front with f/2.0 lens

Internal storage: 16GB/32GB (with microSD expandable storage)

Battery: 3140mAh

The Meizu Blue Charm Metal comes in 5 color versions: a white, grey, blue, gold, and pink ones. Take a look at the beautiful official lifestyle images showing the phone in its best light below.

The Meizu Blue Charm Metal also acts as the launch pad for Meizu's new version of its Flyme custom Android skin. It has graduated to version 5.0, and comes with some profound changes: first, the look has evolved with modernized icons and improved style, but we're also seeing some great new apps. Meizu brings a new e-reading app and 'lifekit' that is the company's official entry into health and fitness. There is also support for cashless payments with the new fingerprint scanner, a feature that seems exclusive to China at the moment.

The Helio X10 is certainly the star of the show: MediaTek's best chip to date appears in $600 phones like the HTC One M9+ and that's why it's especially impressive to see it in a phone that costs less than $200. It's a fast chip, featuring eight Cortex A53 cores running at up to 2.0GHz, and humming along with 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM.

We haven't seen camera samples, but judging from the 13-megapixel sensor of the camera, chances are that it produces the same good-looking images that we're used to seeing from Meizu in its m2 note.

The Meizu Blue Charm Metal goes on pre-order right away today, but do keep in mind that this is a phone that will officially be sold only in China initially (of course, you can import the Chinese version via third-party re-sellers for a slight premium). 

The official release date is set for November 2nd when the phone will go officially on sale at the Meizu store and China's Lynx Mall, with a second edition with additional 4G bands expected to go on sale in December.

Prices for the Meizu Blue Charm Metal are set as follows: