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The Meizu Zero crowdfunding campaign has ended in failure

The Meizu Zero has failed to secure funding. (Source: NDTV Gadgets)
The Meizu Zero has failed to secure funding. (Source: NDTV Gadgets)
The Meizu Zero was a novel prospect for the smartphone world: a device with no ports or buttons whatsoever. Its maker had been assessing the demand for this idea via a campaign on Indiegogo. However, it has failed to achieve its goal of US$100,000, securing only about 45% of this figure.

A few months ago, Meizu introduced the concept of what it called the 'holeless phone'. This translated to the Zero, a phone with a completely regular shape unbroken by buttons or ports of any traditional kind. The OEM proposed to replace the data functions of a USB port with the connections afforded by a 60GHz wireless chip; its charging properties with fast wireless charging on a proprietary station; a SIM card with an in-built eSIM, and power/volume buttons with capacitive counterparts.

Meizu unveiled a prototype of this phone in January 2019, and decided to fund its production with a crowdfunding campaign. To this end, it aimed for a goal of US$100,000 on Indiegogo. The backers who contributed had the option to select an "Exclusive Engineer Unit" of the Zero phone for US$1299, or an "Exclusive Pioneer Unit" for $2499. Therefore, the company would have needed about 100 backers at the most to make its goal. However, it did not attract even 50% of this number.

In fact, the Meizu Zero crowdfunding campaign ended having gathered $45,998 in total. This proportion of the final goal was fronted by 29 backers. Therefore, it appears that the design team behind this futuristic-seeming phone were perhaps a little overly optimistic at this point. On the other hand, tech correspondents have speculated that many companies, Google and Apple including, may shed more and more ports with consecutive generations of their own smartphones. However, it seems the world is not yet ready for a 'holeless' device.

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> Expert Reviews and News on Laptops, Smartphones and Tech Innovations > News > News Archive > Newsarchive 2019 03 > The Meizu Zero crowdfunding campaign has ended in failure
Deirdre O Donnell, 2019-03- 5 (Update: 2019-03- 5)