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MagyarCheckMag | 3 notable Meizu smartphones including the Meizu Zero that are worth remembering
Meizu has announced that it has given up its phone business in favor of AI, joining the growing list of phone manufacturers including LG Mobile, Essential Inc., and Smartisan, that have called it quits in the last few years. Originally one of the leading brands in China in its early years, Meizu released its first smartphone in 2007. While many of the phones it launched during its seventeen years in business may have flown under the radar, there are some notable ones.
1. Meizu Pro 7 Plus
The Meizu Pro 7 Plus was Meizu’s flagship for 2017. It packed top-of-the-line features including a QHD Super AMOLED display, a MediaTek Helio X30 deca-core processor, and a 3,500 mAh battery with support for 24 W charging, which was super fast for a 2017 smartphone. However, a secondary display on the back made the Meizu Pro 7 Plus stand out from the other smartphones released that year. A feature Xiaomi copied in 2021 with the Mi 11 Ultra.
The Meizu Pro 7 Plus’s secondary display was a 2-inch AMOLED panel below the dual rear cameras. The screen could display a variety of info including the weather, time, date, steps taken, and battery percentage when charging. It also worked as a viewfinder for the camera, allowing you to take selfies with the rear cameras. Another neat feature was the ability to power down the phone but still use it as a music player with the media control buttons appearing on the rear display.
Alongside the Meizu Pro 7 Plus, Meizu also announced the Meizu Pro 7, a smaller and cheaper model, but which also had a second display on the back. Probably owing to how both phones were received, the feature didn't make it to next crop of Meizu smartphones.
2. Meizu Zero
In January 2019, Meizu showed off a phone with no buttons and ports. Called the Meizu Zero, and touted as the ‘world’s first holeless phone’. To achieve this, it made many changes such as replacing the physical volume and power buttons with capacitive buttons, using a piezoelectric transducer under the display as a speaker, supporting wireless charging only, and ditching a physical SIM card tray for eSIM support. The Meizu Zero wasn’t completely devoid of holes as it had microphone holes at the bottom.
Meizu announced the phone would be crowdfunded on Indiegogo, and set a target of $100,000; but it never reached its goal. Rather than admit the lack of interest in the product, Meizu’s founder, Jack Wong, said the crowdfunding campaign was a marketing stunt and that they had no intention to make the Meizu Zero commercially available.
3. Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition
While Android and iOS have dominated the smartphone space for years, it doesn’t mean there haven’t been other mobile operating systems, albeit unsuccessful ones. In 2015, Meizu announced the MX4 Ubuntu Edition, a special variant of the Android-powered Meizu MX4 which was unveiled in October 2014.
The Meizu MX4 Ubuntu Edition was announced in partnership with Canonical, the software company that developed Ubuntu which is a Linux distribution built on Debian. Meizu’s phone was one of the few smartphones running Ubuntu that you could purchase (you needed to get an invite) at that time. The others were the BQ Aquaris E4.5 and Aquaris E5 HD UE. The MX4 Ubuntu Edition packed the same hardware as the Android variant and was sold for €299.
Meizu's exit from the smartphone scene will definitely be felt, even though most of its recent smartphones have not gotten an international release such as the Meizu 21 which has a similar design to the Galaxy S24 Plus (curr. $999 on Amazon).
