Chinese phone maker Meizu has unveiled the world’s first smartphone with no buttons and no ports. The sides of the Meizu Zero are completely smooth, for better or worse.
If you’re wondering how you use the thing, it has touch-sensitive sides that you can use to turn the phone on and off or adjust the volume. It supports 18W wireless fast charging so there’s no need for a USB port. And the phone has eSIM support, so there’s no need to insert a SIM card.
There’s also no audio jack, so I suppose you’re expected to use Bluetooth to connect headphones or speakers… but that’s hardly a unique feature. Over the last few years phone makers have released a lot of models that lack headphone jacks.
Meizu also used an in-display fingerprint sensor to minimize obstructions on the front of the phone. But one trend the Meizu Zero doesn’t adopt? The notch. There are small black bezels above and below the 6 inch AMOLED display, and the 20MP front-facing camera fits snugly into the top border.
On the back of the phone there’s a 12MP + 20MP dual camera system. And under the hood there’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor.
Meizu hasn’t unveiled the price or release date for the phone yet, so while the company is the first to announce a button-free, port-free smartphone, it’s unclear if the Meizu Zero will be the first such device to ship.
Rival Chinese phone maker Vivo is expected to unveil the Vivo Apex 2019 tomorrow, and it’s expected to have a similarly sparse design.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-kM8FohVy0
So, instead of a cable you can lug around a wireless charging pad. AND a cable. Any you can’t top it off from a powerbank. That’s so great!
The powerbank has a magnet and coil on it to connect to your device while you use it. It is heavier, but eliminates the need to carry a cable with your powerbank. I am expecting that the powerbank can be charged wireless, and it can charge the phone wirelessly too while charging (you just stack them). There are two coils, and I have actually seen the demos.
Well done Meizu! Cables have done a good job in getting us this far. I use rsync to mirror my phone data to my home server, and it runs autonomously over wifi. Not using the cloud. Now we just need cheaper 18W pads.
“Well done Meizu! Cables have done a good job in getting us this far.”
My main mobile computer, however, is my tablet. Am I still allowed to/supposed to charge it via the cable? What the future holds here? This is a serious question, of course.
My main mobile device is my tablet too. My phone can go 2 days on a single charge. For me a port-less phone would work just fine. As for using the device while charging, I am thinking that magnetic pads could keep a connection while the device is in use. It has the added feature that if you accidentally pull your device while charging it will just stop charging vs a cable get pulled that damages the port. I am hoping that phones become simpler (and cheaper).
“I am hoping that phones become simpler (and cheaper).”
I don’t know if current Nokia phones are cheap/good enough to you or what other technological breakthrough do you expect. We all wish for a technological breakthrough in battery technology, but what else is reasonably expected?
There are a lot of small ICs in the phone related to the USB port… enumeration, OTG boost, MHL video. Also there is a good amount firmware verification for the USB port. Maybe they won’t pass the savings on to the customer.