Director Meizu: Zero portless phone was a marketing stunt

The Chinese smartphone maker Meizu is not going to produce the Zero phone after all. After a failed crowdfunding campaign, CEO Jack Wong says it was just a marketing stunt. The phone was presented at the beginning of this year and had no ports and only two openings.

The crowdfunding was set up by the marketing department and there were never any plans to mass-produce the phone. That is what Jack Wong writes on the Meizu forum. His message follows after the crowdfunding page for the Meizu Zero on Indiegogo closed. About forty thousand euros was raised there, not even half of the target amount of one hundred thousand dollars. This campaign started on January 30 and ended on March 1. A Zero phone had a converted price, with VAT about 1390 euros.

At the beginning of this year, Meizu presented the phone as the first ‘truly openable phone’, even though the phone had two openings for the microphone and a reset button. Otherwise, charging should have been done via an 18W wireless fast charger, physical buttons should have been replaced with touch-sensitive parts on the side and there was no slot for the SIM card. Instead, the Zero used an e-sim.

There was also no room for a loudspeaker grille; for sound the phone would vibrate the screen. Information transfer should have been possible with the supplied wireless charger in combination with ‘a chip for a wireless 60GHz specification’. This thanks to ‘wireless USB’ that would be just as fast as USB 3.0. According to the Indiegogo page, phone production should have started in April and the first phones could have been shipped that month.

Vivo also showed a portless phone at the beginning of this year: the Apex 2019. However, it was clear from the start that it was only a concept. Other than that, the ideas were similar, although the Apex has a magnetic port for charging and information transfer.