Meizu’s button-less, port-less smartphone was only a marketing stunt
Remember earlier this year when Meizu took the wraps off a brand new smartphone that had no physical buttons and no ports? The company had later attempted to launch the device on Indiegogo to try and raise money for production, but at a price of $1,300, it did not seem like there were many who were willing to take a risk on such a concept.
Now perhaps in a bid to save face (or maybe it’s true), Meizu’s CEO Jack Wong took to the company’s official forums and revealed that the phone was not real and that it had been a marketing stunt where the company apparently had no intentions of ever mass-producing it.
“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.”
Some on the forums have reacted negatively to Wong’s statement, suggesting that he shouldn’t have been so blunt. Others, such as Richard Lai of Engadget, point out how this seems to be an increasingly common practice by large companies where they use crowdfunding platforms for marketing rather than actually try to raise money to build a product for consumers.
It is unclear if Meizu would have proceeded with the full-on production of the device had it become a hit on Indiegogo, but we suppose we’ll never really know. Interestingly enough Roland Quandt of WinFuture did manage to get a brief hands-on with the device which was displayed at MWC 2019. Perhaps Meizu really did intend to make this phone a reality and was simply testing the waters.
Judging by the lack of backers, it seems unlikely that we will be seeing this phone launch anytime soon.
