This phone has no physical buttons or ports, and it’s coming to Indiegogo
Spoiler alert: Meizu’s phone without holes does appear to actually have holes
One of the latest comes from Meizu, a brand unfamiliar to anyone in the US because it doesn’t sell phones there. It has no carrier partners and doesn’t have an online store in the US.
(Abacus is a unit of the South China Morning Post, which is owned by Alibaba -- an investor in Meizu.)
For a China-focused brand that’s never sold phones in the US, it might seem odd that it’s launching there before its home market. But it actually makes a lot of sense when you consider one of the things that Meizu had to ditch to create a “phone without holes.”
You see, the Meizu Zero supports eSIM, an embedded SIM card that can switch between networks, instead of needing to insert a physical SIM card provided by your carrier.
What else had to go to create this phone? The home button, of course, and the headphone jack. Volume buttons are now virtual, just like the home button. There’s no speaker grille -- sound is produced by the vibration of the screen. And without a charging port, you have to use a wireless charger.
But this “phone without holes” does, in fact, have holes: There are a few small ones dotted around which could be microphones.
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For more insights into China tech, sign up for our tech newsletters, subscribe to our Inside China Tech podcast, and download the comprehensive 2019 China Internet Report. Also roam China Tech City, an award-winning interactive digital map at our sister site Abacus.