CES 2019 came with a whole lot of rumors, this time about portless phones, in particular, a Vivo handset and a Meizu phone without ports and buttons. And while the leaked headlines seemed somewhat not right, Meizu broke ground this year with a recent announcement about a portless smartphone. Be amazed, because the Meizu Zero is actually the first smartphone without ports and proper buttons. And it has now launched in the US.
Ditched the headphone jack, USB-C; introduced wireless charger
The newly released handset doesn’t have a headphone jack, and that’s not a problem since various phone makers have been ditching the feature for a while now. What we didn’t see coming, however, is the fact that Meizu Zero has ditched the trendy USB C connectivity as well – and in its place an 18W wireless charging gadget. The new Meizu wireless charging device is miles faster than that of Google Pixel 3’s 10W wireless charger.
No SIM tray? No problem, eSIM has you covered; introduced virtual keys too
With the new Meizu Zero, you won’t need to break a sweat looking for a SIM tray since the device adopts the trendy eSIM feature tech. This means that you won’t need a physical SIM card – because Meizu Zero already has a tiny SIM component in it already. Additionally, there’s no micro-SD tray either. Therefore, you will have to get used to the available phone storage.
The Meizu Zero has also gone miles to lose the usual physical volume and power buttons, and instead opted for virtual buttons. And even though we’ve seen a similar approach by the HTC U12 Plus – which tried the unpopular volume keys, but received angered reactions from its consumers, and several other editorial outlets. Nonetheless, Meizu has used tactile user reactions to design a simulated button, which can be pressed; just like its virtual home buttons on its phones – the 2018 Galaxy flagship tier and the iPhone 7 line.
Extra features and specs
The Meizu Zero is powered by the trendy Snapdragon 845 processor, and sports a 5.99-inch of AMOLED display with a ‘screen sound’ technology. The devise ships with a 20MP selfie camera, and a 20MP+12MP double rear camera pairing. As of the time of publishing, details about its battery capacity are a little blurry.
With all these changes in place, it implies that we now have a rather slick device, with an ultimate premium look – made out of a ceramic body. What’s more, the new Meizu Zero houses a rating of IP68 water & dust resistant. Besides, there are no ports or buttons to seal.
What we think
We can’t help but wonder if this move was a step-too-far by the Chinese phone maker. Considering a situation where your phone is losing power a little fast, and you need to plug a USB to your computer. And what if you need to use a new external flash-drive on your phone? What then? The market is used to proper ports, buttons, as well as actual SIM and micro SD trays. But Alas! Who are we to judge? The market has been adapting to the ever-evolving technology, and they apparently won’t stop now.
