Meizu says the world's first hole-less Zero phone was a marketing stunt

Chinese brand Meizu literally stunned the tech world by announcing the Zero, the world’s first hole-less phone, in January. Now it has revealed that it was just a publicity stunt – the Meizu Zero will not be available in the market, at least not in its current development state.  

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The startling revelation came soon after the Zero “project” failed to rack its $100,000 crowdfunding target on Indiegogo – only 29 people showed interest and the campaign was shut down at 45 per cent.  

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“This crowdfunding project was just the marketing team messing about. The holeless phone is just a development project from the R&D department, we never intended to mass-produce this project,” Meizu CEO Jack Wong clarified. 

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It isn’t clear if Zero was dismissed because it failed to fly on Indiegogo – what if it had achieved the target? While all of that is speculation, things would have been worse had Meizu achieved the target and then announced it had no plans of mass producing the device. Whatever be the case, as it turns out, the Meizu Zero was pure hype. 

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The Meizu Zero came without any physical buttons, speaker cut-out or USB port or even a SIM card slot. Meizu had also shown off an in-house 18W fast wireless charger to go along with the Meizu Zero during its launch announcement. 

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Hardware specifications of the Meizu Zero included a 5.99-inch curved OLED display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor under the hood, dual rear cameras consisting of one 12MP sensor and another 20MP sensor, a 20MP front-facing camera. The phone had Samsung Galaxy S9-like top and bottom bezels. The phone also came with an in-display fingerprint scanner and was also IP68-certified for dust and water resistance. 

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Vivo has also launched a phone called the Apex 2019 with similar ambitions - but it has already confirmed that it is a concept phone which isn't ready for prime-time yet. The Vivo Apex 2019 concept phone comes with a “curved-surface Waterdrop glass and no openings, seams or bezels,” full-display fingerprint scanner, Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor and 5G connectivity.

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ALSO READ | Meizu Zero Is The World’s First Smartphone Without Any Physical Buttons, Speaker Cut-out Or USB Port