Update | The new Meizu 16 and 16 Plus are the best flagships you'll never buy

Update: Meizu reached out to us and confirmed that the Meizu 16 and 16 Plus will be making their way over to Europe. The European/Global model will, of course, have LTE B20 support.

Original Article

After months of teasers and rumors, Meizu finally released its two new flagships last week in China. The Meizu 16 and 16 Plus are positioned as the company's two biggest devices for the year, directly succeeding the Meizu 15 devices that were released back in April.

The Meizu 16 and 16 Plus are identical in a number of departments, with only a select few specifications separating them. Both devices are powered by the Snapdragon 845, which may make them the first Meizu flagships to feature a current-gen flagship Qualcomm SoC—the company has usually preferred Samsung and MediaTek's offerings.

Both devices feature a 12 MP (f/1.8) + 20 MP (f/2.6) dual rear camera setup, the latter being a telephoto lens that enables 3x lossless zoom, while the former has Optical Image Stabilization. At the front of the devices resides a 20 MP selfie shooter with f/2.0 aperture.

The Meizu 16 and 16 Plus are both equipped with stereo speakers, an in-display fingerprint sensor, and a headphone jack.

On the flip side, the biggest difference between the device is their display size. While the Meizu 16 opts for a 6-inch display, the 16 Plus sports a larger 6.5-inch one. Both devices are AMOLED, FHD+, and notchless, thankfully, so there's nothing much to complain about. Another difference is the batteries the devices play host to. The Meizu 16 is powered by a 3010 mAh battery, which is on the petite side. The 16 Plus, on the other hand, is powered by a 3640 mAh unit. That also comes with the bonus of the 16 Plus weighing 30g more than the 16's 152g.

The base Meizu 16 features 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage. The most expensive variant, however, carries 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage. The Meizu 16 Plus, though, starts at 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, and goes up to 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. Prices for the 16 and 16 Plus start at US$400 and US$470 respectively.

Much like the Meizu 15 devices, Meizu has overdone itself with the new device duo. The specifications sheet is impressive and wouldn't look out of place on a more mainstream flagship device, and there's not much to complain about sans, perhaps, the lack of waterproofing and NFC. In the same vein, there are also no significant weaknesses—no notch, there's a headphone jack, the display is AMOLED, and the design is brilliant.

However, you simply will not be able to buy a Meizu 16. The devices are currently exclusive to the Chinese market and even if you chose to import one, you'd be faced with the daunting hurdle of inadequate LTE bands—even in Europe. The devices only have support for FDD-LTE band B1/B3/B4/B5/B8 which are awfully inadequate for usage in North America and Europe.

There's also the issue of Flyme OS and Meizu's policy on software development but that's a story for another day. 

In spite of all this, if you live in a country where you can make do with the Meizu 16's available network specifications, you'll have a hard time finding a better device, especially at the device's listed price point.