Meitu

Review by eFreeware

Meitu has been on phones since 2011, and what stands out now is how much it tries to cover in one place: stills, video, retouching and generative artwork under a single roof. It is an all-in-one editor, with a feature list that backs that up rather than narrowing to one trick.

That breadth is the reason to consider it. If you edit photos on your phone and want a handful of fast, guided tools instead of a folder full of separate apps, this is the kind of package that appeals. It is free to install and supported by ads and in-app purchases, which shapes how you use it.

Five tools doing the heavy lifting

The developer organizes the app around five headline edits. The first is an AI Flash Effect that produces vintage camera and retro filter looks. The second is an Object Remover, which deletes photobombers and blurs a background in a single tap. The third is a Photo Enhancer that repairs blur and restores clarity. The fourth is beauty retouching and face editing: smoothing skin, reshaping the body and adding glow. The fifth is AI Art, for avatars, collages and stickers.

Read together, those five describe a particular approach. The appeal is speed and a predictable result over fine manual control. I would expect the object remover and the enhancer to be the two that get opened most often, because they solve concrete problems: a stranger in the background, a soft shot that needs rescuing.

The flash effect is the more stylistic end of the set. Retro looks come and go, and a one-tap filter is only as good as the developer's taste, but it costs nothing to try a look and move on.

Retouching that now covers video

Beauty editing is the part of Meitu with the longest history, and the recent updates push it in two directions. On the video side, the app now supports beautify video, where you can set face, body and makeup effects for each clip using segmented beautification.

On the still-image side, the one-tap body retouch has gained Curves and Tighten effects, aimed at the waist and hips and at defining body lines. These are cosmetic adjustments in the literal sense, and the developer presents them as natural-looking. Whether that holds up depends on how heavy-handed you are with them; a light touch is usually the difference between a subtle change and an obvious one.

The combination is worth noting because it treats video and photos as the same job.

Where the free model and the focus show

Meitu is free to download, carries ads and offers in-app purchases. That combination is common in this category. The content rating is Teen.

The other trade-off is scope. Five headline tools with one-tap behavior is a deliberate design choice, and it points the app at quick, guided edits. It suits anyone who wants a single app covering many kinds of editing. That is not a flaw so much as the shape of the product: Meitu is built to get a good-looking result out of a phone photo or clip with as few decisions as possible.

The install base gives some sense of how that has landed. The app has passed 100 million installs and holds a 4.5 average across roughly 1.49 million ratings, which is a lot of people voting with their thumbs over a long period. It does not tell you whether the tools suit your own photos, but it does suggest the app has stayed in use rather than being tried once and forgotten.

Suited to quick edits on a phone

The clearest fit is someone who edits on a phone and wants results without a learning curve: a portrait that needs smoother skin, a group shot with an unwanted passerby, a soft photo that needs sharpening, a clip that needs the same treatment as the stills beside it. Meitu's five tools map onto those tasks directly.

It also suits people who enjoy the styling side of editing. Retro flash looks, avatars, collages and stickers are playful additions to a retouching app, and they give you something to do with a photo beyond correcting it. If your editing is mostly about fixing and polishing, those tools are a bonus rather than the reason to install.

Where the app is less of a fit is in work that needs precise, manual control. A photographer building a look across a set of images with exact color and tone decisions will want more granular tools.

A broad editor worth trying for casual work

Meitu is a sensible install if you want one app that handles retouching, object removal, enhancement and a bit of creative fun on photos and video. The five headline tools cover the most common phone-editing jobs, and the video beautification update extends that work to clips with per-segment control.

The caveats are the ones the model implies: ads and in-app purchases sit alongside the free download, and the one-tap approach trades precision for speed. If those sound acceptable, the app is easy to try and the breadth means you are unlikely to run out of things to do with it.

For anyone who edits casually, shares to social feeds and wants the process to take a minute rather than an evening, this is a reasonable place to start.

What's new in version 12.19.7

1.【Beautify Video】 Customize face, body, and makeup effects for every clip with segmented beautification! 2.【Beauty】 One-tap Body Retouch now includes “Curves” and “Tighten” effects to enhance your waist and hip curves and define your body lines.