Meizu Zero vs Vivo Apex: Both of these are concept smartphones, which means that there is no release date or pricing details, and they might never be launched.
The smartphone of the future is already here at the start of 2019. China’s Meizu and Vivo have unveiled their portless and buttonless smartphones, named Meizu Zero and Vivo Apex (2019) respectively, which markt the start of a radical new design.
Both of these are concept smartphones, which means that there is no release date or pricing details, and they might never be launched for the public. But the idea of a portless, buttonless smartphone is something unique.
Vivo has said that the company will showcase its new Vivo Apex at MWC 2019 being held in Barcelona. The original Vivo Apex with a pop-up camera was launched last year. Vivo later launched the commercial Vivo Nex in India, which has a selfie pop-up camera. Here’s how both the Vivo Apex (2019) and Meizu Zero compare.
Meizu Zero sports a 5.99-inch full HD+ Super AMOLED 2.5D curved display with a resolution of 2160×1080 pixels. The device has minimal bezels with the 20MP front camera sensor placed inside of the top bezel. The fingerprint sensor is integrated into the display.
The device has no physical buttons or speaker cutout or 3.5 mm jack port or Sim card slots or even a USB charging port. To get past all of these the company uses pressure sensitive capacitive buttons on the sides, a piezoelectric transducer under the display to create sound, an e-SIM functionality and support for wireless charging.
Meizu Zero sports a 5.99-inch full HD+ Super AMOLED 2.5D curved display with a resolution of 2160×1080 pixels.
Coming to the build, the device is housed inside a ceramic body with cuts for only the camera units and microphones.
Vivo Apex (2019) features a “Super Unibody” curved glass design, which allows the device to turn itself into a speaker by using Body SoundCasting technology and vibrating the glass. The device just like Meizu Zero doesn’t feature any ports or buttons.
To emulate the buttons, Vivo uses touch and pressure sensitive buttons and for charging and data transfer, the company has added a port with magnetic pins, like Apple’s MagSafe charging point on the back of the device.
There is no selfie camera on the front, however, the company might launch a version with a pop-up camera sensor at MWC 2019. The device sports an all-view display, with only a small chin and no bezels on the top or sides of the device.
The company states that the fingerprint sensor covers almost the full display, which will help enable security features for apps.
Meizu Zero is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor paired with an Adreno 630 GPU. This is the same processor that most current flagships like Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and OnePlus 6T are currently powered by.
Vivo Apex (2019) is powered by the newer Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor paired with an Adreno 640 GPU.
To handle the heavy processing power Vivo has added Liquid Cooling technology to the product, which will keep the temperature in check and provide a sustained level of performance while running high-end graphics-intensive tasks for a long time.
Vivo Apex (2019) is also the company’s first smartphone to come with support for 5G networks.
Vivo Apex (2019) features a “Super Unibody” curved glass design, which allows the device to turn itself into a speaker by using Body SoundCasting technology and vibrating the glass.
Meizu Zero sports a dual camera setup on the back consisting of a Sony IMX380 12MP primary sensor paired with a Sony IMX350 20MP secondary AI sensor. On the front, it sports a 20MP sensor for taking selfies.
Vivo did not reveal much about the camera specifications during the China showcase, however, in the images of the phone, we can see a dual camera setup stacked vertically. The device doesn’t seem to have a front camera module.
Both the companies have not revealed, which Android versions will the devices run. However, Meizu did state that the Zero will come with its own Flyme 7 skin on top of Android.
Meizu hasn’t revealed any information regarding the device’s RAM, storage and battery capacity at the moment. However, the company did state that the device supports the company’s own 18W mCharge wireless charging technology. They also stated that the device will come with a mCharger bundled within the retail box when the device launches.
Vivo hasn’t revealed battery information for the Apex (2019) as of now, however, more details are expected to be revealed at MWC 2019. To charge the device and transfer data Vivo states that the device will utilise the magnetic pins at the back, which they are calling MagPort. The device will come with 12GB of RAM paired with 256GB of internal storage.