Meizu 16s goes official with Snapdragon 855 & 48MP rear camera

Meizu launches some really good value for money phones in every price segment but most of its “best” phones don’t make it to the global market. The Meizu 16s is the latest offering from the brand and it’s a flagship featuring the powerful Snapdragon 855 processor, a beautiful design, 48 Megapixel primary rear camera & more.

The design of the 16s isn’t anything that’s crazy or unique. It is a normal looking phone from the company & interestingly, it has a bezel-less design but no notch or cutout. And yes, there is no slider or anything as such. The company managed to keep the screen-to-body ratio at 91.53%, even with a front camera & earpiece in the top bezel.

This is not the first time Meizu has decided not to go for a notch or cutout. You will find only a couple of phones from the brand that have a notch & they too are budget or mid-range devices. The Meizu 16s has a glass sandwich design, so there is glass on the front as well as the rear. A couple of design highlights include the COF bonding technique and the large-radius corners.

There is a ‘Carbon black’ color option that reflects the looming carbon fiber texture under the multi-layer nano-scale optical coating. The ‘Phantom Blue’ color option has eight layers of gradient nano-optical coating, and the addition of two-color of a gradient tilted 45 degrees. Well, you gotta say, Meizu has put some good effort into the overall design of the phone.

Coming to the specifications, the Meizu 16s has a 6.2-inch Super AMOLED Full-HD+ display with a screen-to-body ratio of 91.53%. The bottom bezel is 4.2mm thick & the display is VDE Blue-Light protection certified from Germany. There is DC Dimming as well which reduces stroboscopic & hence allows the screen to reduce the strain on the eyes.

Under the display is the fingerprint scanner which, according to Meizu, has improved a lot from the previous generation. Meizu increased the fingerprint recognition speed of the scanner by 100% & unlocking success rate with wet hands b 30%.

Coming to the cameras, there is a dual camera setup on the back that includes a primary 48 Megapixel Sony IMX 586 sensor with f/1.7 aperture & OIS, along with a secondary 20MP f/2.6 Sony IMX 350 wide-angle camera. There is also a “Super Night Scene” mode to capture more light in low-light shots.

On the front is a single 20 Megapixel camera with the Samsung 3T2 CMOS sensor, the first on any smartphone. The front camera features include Portrait Mode, HDR, ArcSoft AI Beauty, etc.

Talking about the performance, there is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, Adreno 640 GPU, 6/8GB RAM, and 128/256GB storage. The 16s also has a “Hyper Gaming Mode” for, well, Hyper gaming.  There is a 3,600mAh battery underneath & the phone supports 24W Meizu mCharge. Android 9 Pie runs out of the box with the Flyme OS 7.3 on top. Other features include Stereo Speakers, NFC, Bluetooth 5.0, dual frequency GPS, mEngine 3.0, etc.

Finally, coming to the pricing & availability, the Meizu 16s launched in three colors – Pearl White, Carbon Black, and Phantom Blue. The pricing is as follows –

  • 6GB RAM + 128GB ROM – 3,198 RMB | $475
  • 8GB RAM + 128GB ROM – 3,498 RMB | $520
  • 8GB RAM + 256GB ROM – 3,998 RMB | $594

The phone is available for pre-order via the official Meizu’s website & will be on sale starting 28th April.