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Meizu's $1300 'Zero' Smartphone With No Ports Got Just 29 Pre-orders on Indiegogo (androidpolice.com) 64

Posted by msmash from the no-thank-you dept.
Chinese smartphone maker Meizu generated some headlines in January after it unveiled Zero, a $1300 smartphone that doesn't have a headphone jack, or a charging port, or a physical SIM card slot, or any buttons, or a speaker grill. The company said it would make the phone available to consumers via Indiegogo crowdfunding platform. Well, the market has spoken. AndroidPolice: Meizu set itself an eminently reasonably bar for the campaign, too, at $100,000. That may sound like a fair bit of cash, but Meizu would only have had to sell 77 phones in order to meet this goal. It managed just 29. It's unclear how many of those were Meizu employees, other than to say "not enough."
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Meizu's $1300 'Zero' Smartphone With No Ports Got Just 29 Pre-orders on Indiegogo More

Meizu's $1300 'Zero' Smartphone With No Ports Got Just 29 Pre-orders on Indiegogo

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  • It was very brave of them to remove all ports (Score:5, Funny)

    by GrumpySteen ( 1250194 ) on Thursday March 07, 2019 @01:49PM (#58232606)

    So brave that they crossed the thin line between bravery and stupidity, in fact.

    • Re:It was very brave of them to remove all ports (Score:4, Funny)

      by sinij ( 911942 ) on Thursday March 07, 2019 @01:54PM (#58232632)
      If it doesn't have a DB-25 parallel port, I am not touching it.

      Get off my lawn.

    • Apple manufactured hundreds of millions of smartphones without headphone jacks, knowing that consumers would in the end be OK with the choice.

      This company said they would produce this device only if they were paid enough ahead of time to do so.

      How is that brave again? Hey, I'll produce a phone made of razor blades if you you me ONE MILLION DOLLARS. Wow I am super brave!

      • Re: Not very brave at all (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Apple manufactured hundreds of millions of smartphones without headphone jacks, knowing that suckers and fanboys would in the end be OK with spending a ton of cash to purchase Bluetooth and/or overpriced Apple branded Status Symbol headphones.

        Fixed for you.
        Yes, Apple knew their target demographic, but for many people a $2 (or free) pair of earbuds is just fine. By raising the cost of ownership it just helps them cement their position as a maker of luxury phones, which helps stabilize their profits now that the market has reached a saturation point.

        • I haven't used headphones on any mobile devices for a few years. When I switched from Android to Windows Phone to Apple, I didn't even miss the headphone jack. On the rare occasion i have headphones on, I use bluetooth over the ear.

          • Re: Not very brave at all (Score:4, Informative)

            by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Thursday March 07, 2019 @10:56PM (#58235406) Homepage

            I always use the socket, because I bought one pair of earphones and have never lost them, it's the cable, even when they fall out of your ear, they kind of just hang there and do not fall on the ground. Tell me, how many of your stick that earphone back in your ear after it falls on the ground, and the oil from your earth, pick up all the dog and bird shite and you whack that crap right back in your ear. Which is more convenient for ear phones, blue tooth or the cable often with a switch and mic on it, to change tracks, turn it off and make a call and turn it back on again, that cable does far more than just connect the earphones, it keeps them together, stops them falling on the ground and controls them very effectively and you can charge your phone while using them and they never ever need recharging.

      • Apple is in a very unique position to force rather unpopular decisions upon the consumers because of the cult of mac and iOS. There is a ton of people who consider iOS effectively irreplaceable because of better apps, better security, and better APIs. So, they will eat up rather unpopular decisions like removing the headphone jack or continuing shunning away standard usb ports. Moreover, Apple knows that losing a few percent of iPhone sales because of headphone jack will be more than made up with sales of

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Not quite. My new Vapor phone crosses that line and then some. The Vapor not only does away with all ports and buttons, it removes the phone itself! No more interruptions by telemarketers, no more nagging alerts, no more anything, just nothing! Now available for preorder at a discount price of only $1,995. It's so sleek and stylish that you won't even notice that it's there. Packaging is 100% eco-friendly and shipping is free! Experience the disconnected life with the only phone that offers you true freedom

      • Not quite. My new Vapor phone crosses that line and then some. The Vapor not only does away with all ports and buttons, it removes the phone itself! No more interruptions by telemarketers, no more nagging alerts, no more anything, just nothing! Now available for preorder at a discount price of only $1,995. It's so sleek and stylish that you won't even notice that it's there. Packaging is 100% eco-friendly and shipping is free! Experience the disconnected life with the only phone that offers you true freedom - Vapor.

        You forgot to add that only people that are smart enough to see it can do so.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • AFAIK there isn't a way of making a phone with ports where you can just dunk it in a tank of water and not have issues so I could see this being a feature to those that are at risk of their phone getting wet.

        Moto X4 is supposed to be IP68 and there are Youtube videos of people immersing it in water. On the other hand, mine showed up with a bad speaker, and Moto wants to refund me and make me buy it all over again because I got the silver one and they won't just send me a black one under RMA, WTF? Anyway, it has a Type C port, a headphone jack, and a pop-out tray where you load a SIM and a uSD card. It's super irritating that the speaker isn't working, because I am super happy with it in every other way.

  • Pricesless "customer" list (Score:3)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Thursday March 07, 2019 @01:50PM (#58232610)
    That list of 29 names contains 100% rich sucker content and such data would be priceless on the dark web.

  • So the only possible way to even use this thing as a phone is with a separate blue tooth device? That's fine if you're anticipating a call, but a bit cumbersome if you're walking down main street and not hooked up.

    This is moving the smart phone even further away from being a phone and more into being a PDA.

    • Wait... No Speaker? So the only possible way to even use this thing as a phone is with a separate blue tooth device?

      On the web, there are these things called links. They are typically represented by differently-colored, underlined text. The first one in the fine summary (here, sometimes written "TFS") goes to this earlier Slashdot story [slashdot.org] (see, that was a link) whose fine summary states:

      Zero's 5.99-inch QHD OLED screen will act as some sort of a giant speaker and earpiece replacement.

      HTH (hope this helps), HAND (have a nice day)

  • It got 29 fake pre-orders from their "friends".

  • Apple will release one (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    And it will sell millions.

  • Deleting just the headphone jack is stupid, because there are still other holes for stuff to get into. But deleting all of the ports makes at least some kind of sense, because having no ports actually does eliminate some problems. I still wouldn't buy a phone like this, but I can see what they're trying to accomplish other than selling more expensive headphones.

    • You know, we're going to see Apple announce this exact device next year at WWDC.

      But in all seriousness, I wouldn't be surprised if that actually happened. It's the logical end of the present round of form-factor updates, until the phone can be made to be invisible itself.

      • It's the logical end of the present round of form-factor updates, until the phone can be made to be invisible itself.

        Yeah, or made so thin that it cuts your hand when you hold it wrong

    • Exactly. I was just thinking what a problem it always is finding my USB cable to plug in at the airport, in the train, at my friends house, in my car, and at work. It's a constant problem.

      With this device not only will I not have that problem but I will be able to reconnect with my loved ones, face to face, overcome my phone addiction, and reduce my screen time to nothing all at the same time.

      Thanks Meizu!

  • How do you force a reboot with no buttons?

    My LG G smartwatch has no buttons, except a recessed one to force a reboot.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tsqr ( 808554 )

      TFS is rather short on information. The original story mentioned that there's a pinhole so you can force a reset by inserting a paper clip.

      • TFS is rather short on information. The original story mentioned that there's a pinhole so you can force a reset by inserting a paper clip.

        So when your phone inevitably freezes up, you've gotta hunt down a paper clip. That's a pain in the ass enough as it is the few times you've gotta futz with the SIM card on phones which use the "paperclip eject" mechanism for the SIM tray.

        They sure went full user-hostile on this design.

    • Well the solution in other devices has been "you don't". You have to wait for the battery to die. At least the frequency you need to has declined dramatically.

  • I no longer care about people that fall for these scams. If you failed to learn from the last few years, you now deserve to lose your money.

  • Develop and manufacture a complete phone for $100,000? More likely "we' ll buy a galaxy s10, and glue a portless non-removable otterbox knock-off around the thing"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Develop and manufacture a complete phone for $100,000?

      Easy, if you're already a phone manufacturer. Just take one of your existing phones that has wireless charging and put it in a case that covers the USB and headphone jacks.

  • Just get rid of the screen, cameras, and microphone and they'll be onto something!

  • Can rarely be trusted with US based campaigners, why would anyone in their right mind expect to get anything back from a Chinese one?

  • ...uncrossing my eyes after reading and rereading "Meizu set itself an eminently reasonably bar for the campaign" several times.

  • I get that people really love their headphone jack, I've never had an issue with Bluetooth but I've quickly learned my lesson about trying to encourage anyone on Slashdot to just use BT for everything audio, but the whole port thing aside, the thing about this device that I think really killed it. $1300 price tag. I get that Apple came out with the $1k phone just recently and what-not but look every phone maker on this planet. If current gen will now always cost $900+, I'll always go with previous gen.

  • the indiegogo is now closed but here is a link for anyone that wanted to look. https://www.indiegogo.com/proj... [indiegogo.com]

  • How many of those are real persons and not competitors buying for disassembly/reverse engineering? And then there is the usual suspects (NSA, Russia, China, Iran, Best Korea etc)

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