Meizu’s ride in the smartphone industry has been quite bumpy. Initially, the company went head-on with Xiaomi and its smartphones but soon, the recently listed company picked up pace, fueled by its global expansion. On the other hand, Meizu is still struggling to do well in China. Internationally, things are even worse. While I didn’t want to start the article painting a bad picture for Meizu, this is reality right now. But we shouldn’t write them off yet. They have a lot of fighting spirit and their smartphones in recent times have shown promise. What I like about the company is that they usually have a unique take to their products and often resist following the norm. And that’s what makes them special.

Today, Meizu has turned 16. It’s been a long journey for them so far, founded and steered by Jack Wong since 2003. In the past 16 years, they have achieved a lot of milestones. So, let’s take a quick look at some of the most important moments for the company so far.

• Meizu was founded by Jack Wong on March 14, 2003. The company started off as a MP3 manufacturer since Mr. Wong had previous experience in this industry.
• Meizu is headquartered in Zhuhai, a beautiful city known for its golf resorts and theme parks. This is unlike other tech companies who are usually based out of industrial cities like Shenzhen (OnePlus, Huawei, ZTE) or Dongguan (OPPO, Vivo) or even Beijing (Xiaomi, Smartisan).

  

• Meizu’s MP3 Players quickly became popular. The company made its name from its M series, which quickly rose to fame. This was followed by the popularity of its M6 Mini MP4 player. Turns out, we have a very old article about Meizu’s MP3 player journey, you can check it out here.
• While it’s unverified, it’s said that Meizu had made 30 MP3 Players in total but decided only to release 10 players in the market. The rest were scrapped because Jack Wong didn’t think they were good enough.
• After their tremendous success in making MP3 and MP4 players, Meizu released their first touchscreen smartphone, M8 in 2008. The phone was similar to the iPhone and turned out to be successful leading to long queues in front of its stores. Note that the phone was running Windows CE.
• Meizu’s first Android smartphone came in 2011, under the Meizu M9 brand name. This was another phone which was quite popular, with people lining up overnight outside its stores just to get hold of a unit.
• In 2012, Meizu announced the first model in their new MX series, called Meizu MX. The phone came with a quad-core processor with the company’s own Flyme OS skin on top.
• In the same year, Flyme 1.0 was released, the company’s own take at Android skins. You can read more about the evolution of Flyme OS here.
• In 2013, Meizu released the World’s first 128GB ROM smartphone, the Meizu MX3.
• In March 2015, Meizu partnered with Canonical to release the Meizu MX4 Ubuntu edition. There was another Ubuntu edition model released, Meizu Pro 5 Ubuntu, in 2016.
• In the same year, (2015) Meizu unveiled its innovative mBack physical button. One button replaced all other capacitive buttons for navigation. It was indeed an innovative solution for UI navigation.
• In 2018, Meizu released the Meizu 16th series, a lineup of high-end smartphones. The phone was popular for its design which didn’t adopt the trending notch design.
• The company’s most recent launch is the Meizu Note 9. The phone was announced earlier this month and comes with a 48MP camera. Oh yes, the phone has a waterdrop notch.

As you can see, Meizu has a lot more to boast about in the first half of its existence than its second. The company has been trying out a few things in the past few years, but things haven’t really worked out well. For example, there was this beautiful Meizu Gravity speakers which had a floating design but got a lot of bad press for failing to ship to its Indiegogo backers. The company made it available nearly two years later.

Further, the Meizu Zero, a completely port-less, hole-less smartphone concept turned out to be a marketing failure. The phone was being showcased at MWC, but hardly got any press. Well, the phone did look and feel beautiful but it was basically overshadowed by all the big launches out there. Not to mention that their crowdfunding campaign failed to get enough backers.

Meizu’s recent smartphones are still pretty good. However, the company doesn’t really know how to market and promote its smartphones. This has been a very big issue for the company over the past few years, especially when companies like OPPO, Vivo, Huawei, and even Xiaomi have mastered the art of promoting their smartphones.

With the entry of OPPO and Vivo in the value for money segment, things are further going to be harder for Meizu. It will definitely be a tough road for the company from here on but I hope the company learns from its mistakes and continues to make good quality smartphones for its fans.

Happy 16th Birthday, Meizu.

The post Meizu Turns 16 Today: Let’s look at their Major Milestones appeared first on Gizmochina.

Meizu has a launch event coming up on Aug. 8 for unveiling Meizu 16 and Meizu 16 Plus smartphones. Today, the Chinese manufacturer has confirmed through its official Weibo account that apart from unleashing Meizu 16 series smartphones, the company will be also announcing Meizu Gravity speaker.

In May 2016, Meizu had teased the arrival of Meizu Gravity speaker. Since it had encountered technical difficulties in mass producing the speakers, the Chinese manufacturer could not release it. However, the company seems to be all set to debut it officially alongside the Meizu 16 and Meizu 16 Plus speakers on Aug. 8.

Meizu Gravity is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth speaker that features a pair of 1.25-inch full-range speakers. An aux port is also available on the device. Compared to conventional speakers, Meizu Gravity offers 30 percent more magnetic flux density. The high sensitivity speaker by Meizu has been built in partnership with Dirac to ensure impressive audio.

The Meizu Gravity has a compact form factor as it measures 262 x 58 x 74mm. Since it features a transparent acrylic base, it appears as it the speaker is floating in the air. It is also equipped with a prism heads-up display that shows track information on the transparent surface. The design of the floating speaker with floating display was conceived by Kosho Tsuboi, a well-known designer from Japan.

There is no information on the pricing of the Meizu Gravity. In December 2016, the speaker was crowdfunded on Indiegogo with a price tag of $169.

Read More: Meizu X8 with notched display, Snapdragon 710 appears in leaked shot

As far as the specs of the Meizu 16 series are concerned, recent reports have revealed almost everything about the upcoming Meizu 16 and 16 Plus smartphones. The Meizu 16 Plus will be arriving with a 6.5-inch S-AMOLED display equipped with an in-screen fingerprint reader. Its back panel will feature 12-megapixel + 20-megapixel + 20-megapixel triple camera setup. A 3,570mAh battery enabled with mCharge fast charging will be powering the smartphone.

The Meizu 16 will be a smaller phone with a 6-inch AMOLED display. It will also feature an in-screen fingerprint scanner. The handset will be featuring a 2,950mAh battery. The Snapdragon 845 SoC will be powering the Meizu 16 and 16 Plus smartphones. Also, the Meizu 16 series will come preloaded with Android 8.1 Oreo.

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Chinese smartphone maker Meizu has officially entered the US market, but the company’s first product in the region is not going to be something that it’s popular for — smartphones, instead, the company is launching a brand new wireless speaker called as Gravity. While Meizu is a popular brand in China, out of its home country, the company is yet to make a big name. This could be a good opportunity for Meizu to show off what it’s capable of in the international markets.

Unlike other Meizu products like smartphones, which are financed directly by the company, it will be resorting to crowdfunding to manufacture the new Gravity wireless speakers. Given the size of the company, crowdfunding may not be necessary for a product like a wireless speaker, however, Meizu states that the company wants direct feedback from customers for its product, which is why it resorted to this method of financing. So, the company wants to test out the competitiveness of its product in a mature market like US where there are lots of wireless speaker options available.

Now, let’s take a look at why Meizu is calling its new speakers Gravity and it’s design.

If you have checked out the pictures in this article, you would know that Gravity comes with a floating design. When placed on a flat surface, at certain angles, it looks like the black speaker module floats in the air. This is made possible by using a transparent acrylic base at an off-central location. Further, on top of the speaker is a prism heads up display, which will show important track and playback information on its transparent surface. The company claims that it is the first to use a prism design on a wireless speaker. The use of a special coating called ‘Half Mirror’ makes it possible for the prism to hide the black display box inside it. The complete design of the Gravity wireless speaker was conceived by the Japanese designer, Kosho Tsuboi.

Gravity does have a unique look to it, and it is meant to be an artistic piece, in addition to being a powerful speaker. In the sound department, the company has teamed up with Dirac for getting good quality sound output from its small (size: 262mm x 58mm x 47mm) form factor. The company reportedly have used custom built speakers for Gravity with “dual passive resonance membrane” for a more vigorous low-frequency output. The amplifier is the latest 5-series chip from Texas instruments and the speakers also come with Dirac HD Sound at the hardware level.

Connecting to the speakers is easy, with the option of using the Gravity smartphone app to connect and operate the speakers via Wi-Fi. However, there is an aux port as well as Bluetooth connectivity option as alternatives. Given its design and the requirement of a power input at all times, it isn’t portable. So, naturally no batteries inside and you can’t carry it around like some other wireless speakers in the market.

As for the target market, the company is aiming the Western markets and China with this new wireless speakers. This would be the company’s first product that’s going to be sold in US. As for the pricing, the Gravity’s official price tag is going to be $249. But on Indiegogo, early backers can get it for just $169. Given that the company ships Gravity worldwide, we can expect good backing from fans around the world.

Now, coming to one another question that I am sure every US reader is going to ask. Does the company has plans to release smartphones in US? Well, at this moment, Meizu is not going to launch its phones in the region. This is because the company knows that US is a competitive and mature market and it would be hard to enter the market right now. So, at least for now, no Meizu smartphones are going to be sold officially in the region.

So, this was about the first US product from Meizu, the Gravity Wireless Speakers. If you liked what you read till now, check out their Indiegogo crowdfunding page and maybe even back the new speakers from the company.

Also, let us know what you feel about this new product.

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