Chinese smartphone maker Meizu launched today MX4, the fourth Android phone of the MX series.
Tech Specs of MX4:
- Operating System: Flyme 4.0 (The fourth update of the custom Android system developed by Meizu)
- Weight: 147g
- Colors: Gold, Gray, White
- Dimensions: 144×75.2×8.9 mm
- Display: JDI 5.36-inch display, 1920-by-1152-pixel resolution
- Protection: Corning Gorilla Glass 3
- CPU: MediaTek 6595 octa-core processor (custom version for Meizu)
- GPU: PowerVR G6200
- Rear Camera: Sony IMX220 Exmor RS sensor
- Front Camera: Sony IMX208 sensor
- Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.0
- 4G Network: China Mobile TD-LTE/FDD LTE (adopted by China Unicom)
- WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 ac/a/b/g/n (5 & 2.4GHz)
- Internal: 16G/32G/64G
There’s a long story about why Meizu publicly hates Xiaomi. In the same month last year Meizu launched MX3 a couple of days ahead of the launch of Xiaomi’s third flagship phone Mi3. Although Meizu’s founder Huang Zhang (a.k.a. J.W.) said Xiaomi copied his business plan, Xiaomi has been growing very fast and surpassed Meizu in terms of both popularity and sales.
Xiaomi has shipped more than 52 million handsets in less than three years. It’s unknown how many Meizu phones in total have been shipped, but what’s for sure is Xiaomi has become one of the popular smartphone brands in China while Meizu is, albeit well-regarded and respected, still seen as a niche brand.
This year Meizu’ s annual launch event is later than Xiaomi’s. It’s unknown whether Meizu was on purpose so that it could price the new model lower than Xiaomi’s latest model Mi4. The 16G and 32G MX4s are priced at RMB1799 and RMB1999 while the two models by Xiaomi (16G and 64G) are sold for RMB1999 and RMB2499.
Pressured from Xiaomi, Meizu finally decided to make a big change from this year. Unlike before that the company used to develop one product a year, Meizu will launch four in the remaining four months this year. The company has begun developing smart home products. It is expected the first product to be launched will be a smart WiFi router. At today’s launch event the company unveiled Liftkit, a software solution for third-party smart gadgets to interact with its Flyme system.
Also, the company began to raise outside funding. In July the company disclosed that it had raised some US$300 million at a valuation of US$3 billion. Bai Yongxiang, president of Meizu, said in a recent interview with Sina News that the number is about RMB2 billion (more than US$300 million) and the first round of fundraising hasn’t finished yet. With the funding the company can afford to sell products at lower prices so that more units will possibly be sold. The company plans to go public in five years, according to Bai.
The company’s headcount has grown to about 1500, up 40% from several months ago. The number will eventually reach two to three thousand.
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