Meizu was once one of the most relevant smartphone makers in China. The company even launched some interesting devices like the Meizu MX4 and MX5 and was one of the first non-Samsung companies to bet on Exynos chipsets for their handsets. Unfortunately, Meizu failed to build a solid global strategy like its fellows Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo, and Vivo. Nowadays, Meizu has small relevance in the West, and even in China, it struggles against the competition. However, the brand is always up for a yearly flagship. Last May, the brand unveiled its Meizu 17 series, and now is preparing the terrain for Meizu 18 series. Today, an alleged Meizu 18 has appeared in a new hands-on video with a very intriguing characteristic.
The leaked video shows a Meizu 18 with minimalistic bezels generating a full-screen design. Interestingly, the selfie camera is nowhere to be seen. So, Meizu is likely betting in the under-display camera technology. Last year, Meizu went the punch-hole route with its Meizu 17 series. So it’s very unlikely that we will see a pop-up camera design here. This technology also allows a full-screen design, but companies have been dropping this concept since last year.
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Meizu might be the second smartphone brand to be in the in-display camera technology
Anyway, Meizu will not be the first company to bet in this technology. Last year, ZTE announced the first commercially-available phone with an in-display selfie. The device went to global markets late last year and has shown a decent technology, but that still needs to mature to become a standard. Perhaps Meizu wants to bet in the technology, no matter the quality, just to make its device more appealing. Most smartphone brands are still going with punch-holes, after all the in-display camera still has some shortcomings, especially in video recording mode. There are also some rumors suggesting a flipping-camera mechanism just like the one used on Asus phones.
Unfortunately, details are pretty scarce about the Meizu 18 right now. However, two models believed to be the vanilla and Pro model appeared on 3C certification a couple of days ago. The vanilla variant may come with 30W fast-charging, while the Pro variant ships with 40W charging. As far as the hardware is concerned, we expect at least one variant to pack the Snapdragon 888, whereas the vanilla could come with the Snapdragon 870. However, the MediaTek route isn’t discarded as the Dimensity 1200 and 1100 stand as viable options for the flagship segment. There are rumors about a Meizu 18 Max as well. So far, nothing is confirmed.
For now, we don’t know what are Meizu plans for the global market. But we’re sure that the Meizu 18 series will hit China first. The devices could appear alongside a new Meizu Watch.
