We thought that only big brands will do away with charging brick because they have the holy grail of consumerism: brand power. I guess we are wrong because, Meizu has also joined the bandwagon of not including a charging brick with its latest flagship device, Meizu 18.
As explained by Arun, doing away with charging brick may cause more harm to the environment than good. I think businesses knew that, but it won’t be them who will be contributing to the environmental impact.
Anyhoo, it boggles my mind why Meizu, a smartphone company with little to no international presence, would do the same. Granted, according to Chinese benchmarking platform Master Lu, Meizu was the number 8 in the smartphone market share in China in Q1 2020.
While not exactly big like fellow Chinese handset makers like Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo, it does not stop Meizu from pulling this no charger included move with its new flagship Meizu 18 Series smartphones.
Keep reading to find the rundown of the specifications of each device.
Meizu 18
Chipset
Qualcomm Snapdragon 880 Mobile Platform + X60 5G
6th-gen AIE
GPU
Adreno 660
OS
Flyme 9 UI based on Android OS
Display
120 Hz 6.2-inch QHD+ (3,200 x 1,440 pixels) Samsung Super AMOLED display
563 ppi
1,300-nit brightness
240 Hz touch sampling rate
DCI-P3 color gamut
HDR10+
Dimensions
152.4 x 69.2 x 8.18 mm
Weight
162g
Battery
4,000 mAh battery
36 W Super mCharge super charge
Support PD 3.0,QC 3.0, and QC 3.0+
Memory
8 GB or 12 GB LPDDR5
Storage
128 GB or 256 GB UFS 3.1
Sensors
Ultrasonic mTouch fingerprint sensor, mEngine 4.0 touch sensing engine, 3D Press pressure touch sensor, NFC,
Wireless Connectivity
Wi-Fi 6E, tri-band (2.4/5.0/6.0 GHz)
Support 4K QAM, 160 MHz broadband, 4-channel dual-frequency
Front Camera
20 MP
Rear Camera
64 MP Super Anti-shake Imaging System comprising of:
64 MP IMX 682 1/1.17” SMA OIS sensor (main)
16 MP 122-degree super wide-angle (2.5 cm macro)
8 MP telephoto (3x optical zoom/ 30x digital zoom)
Other features
Glass back with metal frame construction, VC liquid cooling, 4th-gen dual linear speakers
Meizu 18 Pro
Chipset
Qualcomm Snapdragon 880 Mobile Platform + X60 5G
6th-gen AIE
GPU
Adreno 660
OS
Flyme 9 UI based on Android OS
Display
120 Hz 6.7-inch QHD+ (3,200 x 1,440 pixels) Samsung Super AMOLED display
563 ppi
1,300-nit brightness
240 Hz touch sampling rate
DCI-P3 color gamut
HDR10+
Dimensions
162.5 x 73 x 8.1 mm
Weight
189g
Battery
4,500 mAh battery
40 W Super mCharge super charge
40 W Super Wireless mCharge wireless super charge
10 W reverse wireless charging
Support PD 3.0,QC 3.0, and QC 3.0+
Memory
8 GB or 12 GB LPDDR5
Storage
128 GB or 256 GB UFS 3.1
Sensors
Ultrasonic mTouch fingerprint sensor, mEngine 4.0 touch sensing engine, 3D Press pressure touch sensor, NFC,
Wireless Connectivity
Wi-Fi 6E, tri-band (2.4/5.0/6.0 GHz)
Support 4K QAM, 160 MHz broadband, 4-channel dual-frequency
Front Camera
44 MP + 3D depth sensor
Rear Camera
AR camera system comprising of:
50 MP GN1 1.3” SMA OIS sensor (main)
32 MP 130-degree super wide-angle (2 cm macro)
8 MP telephoto (3x optical zoom/ 30x digital zoom)
Other features
Glass back with metal frame construction, VC liquid cooling, 4th-gen dual linear speakers, water resistance
In lieu of the lack of charging brick in the package. Meizu is offering buyers in China a free 40W power brick if the buyers send two used power bricks to the smartphone maker.
However, the offer is limited to within 7 days of activating the phone during a time-limited period. It is not known if the offer is available to both models or just the Pro model.
In any case, no charging brick is not smart move for Meizu, IMHO and if that’s not bad enough, this successor of the 17 is pricier. The regular 18 has starting price of 4,399 yuan (around US$677) while the Pro model starts at 5,999 yuan (about US$923) – which is 700 yuan (US$108) more than last year’s flagship, Meizu 17.
It begs the question, what the hell were they thinking??? I mean, Samsung did bring the price down significantly for the Samsung Galaxy S21 which also does away with charging brick.
Images: Meizu [CH].
