Meizu’s biggest smartphone launch of 2020 is here and the company has announced not one, but two new flagship-grade smartphones for China. Staying true to its minimalistic design, the phone slims down the bezels on the side and adds a horizontal camera housing at the back featuring four cameras in total. The Meizu 17 Pro is the company’s most powerful flagship for the first half of 2020 while Meizu 17 comes as a slightly cheaper alternative.
Meizu 17 & Meizu 17 Pro Design
The Meizu 17 and Meizu 17 Pro come with a simple punch-hole design upfront. The two phones feature an advanced CoF packaging technology which increases the screen to body ratio by limiting the lower bezel to just 3.3mm. The Meizu 17 duo come with a 6.6-inch custom Samsung AMOLED display with a 19.5:9 aspect ratio and 92.2% screen to body ratio. The AMOLED panel supports 100% DCI-P3 color gamut with a 90Hz high refresh rate and 180Hz touch sampling rate. The display panel has a peak brightness of 1100 nits with a pixel density of 390 ppi. You get a 0.15-sec fast screen fingerprint sensor on the front as well.
Meizu has always given due importance its flagship designs. The new Meizu 17 weights 199 grams and is just 8.5mm thick. The phone isn’t top or bottom-heavy as Meizu has used a balanced design to make it comfortable to hold. The standard Meizu 17 comes in three colors at launch: Black, Dark Green, and White.
Note that the biggest difference between the Meizu 17 and the 17 Pro is in the material of the body. The Meizu 17 Pro comes in a premium ceramic body in white, black, and light green colors.
The company also justified its decision to add a 2.9mm diameter camera on the top right corner because it believes this position creates the least amount of visual interference. Meizu explained at the event that we are used to reading from left to right and having the selfie camera on the right won’t hinder our reading experience. Furthermore, the company is making full use of the punch-hole camera by using it as a battery indicator. The phone also boasts of stereo speakers and Meizu claims that the sound output has increased by 30% as compared to its predecessor.
Meizu 17 & Meizu 17 Pro Specs
Both the models come with the flagship 2.84GHz Snapdragon 865 5G chipset under its hood with support for SA /NSA 5G. The company employs a new mSmart 5G technology inside its new flagships which reportedly improves its battery life when using the new-age cellular network. Meizu claims that mSmart 5G is fast and stable, so the Meizu 17 can last up to 4 hours and 25 minutes longer after turning on this special mode as compared to the regular 5G mode. The phone’s battery efficiency is also attributed to the 360-degree surround antenna design that will ensure a stable network connection.
The Meizu 17 has 8GB RAM onboard with up to 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. The biggest difference between the standard and the Pro model is the presence of LPDDR5. The Meizu 17 Pro comes with the new-age LPDDR5 standard and UFS 3.1 as standard across its variants. Meizu claims that the Pro version’s AnTuTu score goes up to 600K.
The Meizu 17 and the 17 Pro feature a 4500mAh battery inside with 30W Super mCharge fast charging technology that promises 56% in half an hour. Meizu claims that the Meizu 17 can easily outlast other flagships like Huawei P40 Pro, Xiaomi Mi 10, and OPPO Find X2 Pro in a typical battery test – all thanks to its mSmart 5G technology. Note that only the Pro model comes with the Super Wireless mCharge 27W charging solution that can charge up to 47% in 30 minutes. The Pro model also supports reverse wireless charging.
The new Meizu flagship comes with mEngine 3.0 that improves the gaming performance of the device. It also features the new One Mind AI 4.0 that significantly improves the fluency of the UI (35% improvement over One Mind 3.0). The phone supports NFC, Wi-Fi 6 as well as eID.
Meizu 17 & Meizu 17 Pro Cameras
The Meizu 17 series come with a quad-camera setup in a horizontal camera housing. The standard 17 model features a 64MP Sony IMX686 f/1.8 primary camera with a 12MP f/1.9 portrait camera, a 5MP dedicated f/1.9 macro camera that can take shots as close as 2.5cm, and finally, a 118° 8MP f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle lens.
The Meizu 17 Pro features a much more powerful camera setup. It consists of the same 64MP IMX686 f/1.8 primary camera but features an 8MP f/2.4 79mm telephoto camera too. With the help of these two sensors, the phone can capture up to 8x lossless zoom samples with a focal length range of 26mm-210mm.
Another big highlight of the Pro’s camera setup is the brand new Sony IMX616 32MP ultra-wide-angle camera lens. This f/2.2 aperture lens can capture extremely wide 129° camera samples. The Meizu 17 Pro is also the world’s first smartphone to use the Samsung S5K33D 3D depth-sensing camera that brings hardware-level portrait blur to photos and even videos and adds unique features to the device like 3D wallpapers and AR tools. Meizu has said that it will add more AR features to its Flyme 8.1 OS in the future to take advantage of this hardware.
Upfront you have a powerful 20MP camera taking care of your selfies. The company claims that the front camera now features the third generation night mode algorithms (Super Night Mode 3.0) which ensure clear and bright selfies even in low light situations.
Meizu 17 & Meizu 17 Pro Pricing & Availability
The Meizu 17 is priced as follows.
- 8GB RAM + 128GB ROM – 3699 yuan ($523)
- 8GB RAM + 256GB ROM – 3999 yuan ($565)
The Meizu 17 Pro is priced as follows.
- 8GB RAM + 128GB ROM – 4299 yuan ($607)
- 12GB RAM + 256GB ROM – 4699 yuan ($664)
Both models will go on sale via online and offline sales channels in China from May 11.
The Meizu 17 Pro Collectors edition will be priced at 9999 yuan ($) and will go on sale on May 25.
There’s a special Meizu 17 Aircraft Carrier Limited Edition which will feature cool graphics at the back and customized themes for hardcore fans. This limited edition will also feature customized accessories such as a unique charger, customized case, badge, and even a SIM card ejector pin. This special limited edition is priced at 4299 yuan ($607) and goes on sale on May 27.
Meizu will also offer a bunch of PANDAER 17 series funky cases for the Meizu 17 series starting at 49 yuan (~$7). The cases go on sale from May 20. You can also get special silicone protective cases starting at 89 yuan (~$13).
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