Even before the announcement of the low cost 699 Yuan Meizu M1 we got reports that the phone could come in three different OS variants. We have already seen the Flyme powered Meizu M1 Blue Charm device, which leaves us with two more editions, the YunOS version and the Ubuntu version.
Looks like the second model namely the Meizu M1 YunOS edition will soon hit the market. The device was recently spotted on the Chinese TENAA certification agency which revealed that the phone will come with Alibaba’s Aliyun OS. The other specs of the phone are the same, so this won’t be the rumored 2GB RAM version that will take on the Xiaomi’s new Redmi 2 model. The phone has the same MT6732 64-bit quad-core processor, 13MP + 5MP cameras, 5-inch display as the regular version.
This YunOS edition for Meizu M1 is not really surprising given that the company had previously partnered up with Aliyun for the YunOS powered Meizu MX4 model. At that time, we thought it could be a MX4 exclusive deal, but now we know that there are more such versions planned.
Meizu and Alibaba group recently struck a deal wherein the Chinese e-commerce giant invested about half a billion dollars for an undisclosed minority stake in the Chinese smartphone maker. So, Meizu would advantage from the vast financial as well as physical resources of the e-commerce giant, while Alibaba can finally revive its dying OS which was unveiled almost 4 years back.
After the deal, the Alibaba group made an announcement that the company aimed to provide support to Meizu in a number of fields like e-commerce and mobile operating system.
“Alibaba Group will provide Meizu with resources and support in the fields of e-commerce, mobile Internet, mobile operating system and data analysis with the aim of developing Meizu’s smartphone ecosystem,”
So, this partnership could give a boost to Meizu, which is still behind Xiaomi and other companies in China. In fact, the company is yet to make it to the top 5 smartphone manufacturer list in its home country. But the manufacturer has shown promise especially by selling around 1.5 million smartphones in just January alone.
Both the Meizu M1 and the Meizu M1 Note have received positive response from customers and hence, they could be quite popular in the international markets too. So, with this newly announced partnership with Alibaba, Meizu is all set to take things to the next level.
But only till will tell whether Meizu can compete with well established manufacturers in the international markets.
