The era of ‘hole-less’ phones is here
Sunday, January 27, 2019 at 8:18AM
We’ve lost bezels and the occasional headphone jack as smartphone manufacturers attempt to innovate in their space. Admittedly, the ones who seem to be leading the charge in terms of design innovation now are the Chinese. The latest trend that might look to be the next big thing (aside from foldable phones) are “hole-less phones.” And two Chinese companies have already previewed what their take on this new trend is going to look like.
Meizu is the first one out of the gate with the Meizu Zero. It has no headphone jack and the speaker grill is replaced by the screen acting as a speaker (similar to the Huawei Mate 20 Pro). It uses a piezoelectric transducer to turn the 5.99-inch display into a speaker. It uses tiny touch sensitive panels on the side to replace the power button and volume rocker, and it has an under-display fingerprint reader, too. Without any ports or holes, there is no SIM tray, so this phone will make use of an eSIM. File transfer and charging will be done wirelessly, too. To compensate for this, Meizu has a new wireless charging standard that promises to deliver speeds of up to 18 watts (which surpasses Huawei’s 15-watt spec). It also supports Bluetooth 5.0 and wireless USB connectivity that’s said to be as fast as USB 3.0. Without any holes, it stands that the Meizu Zero is IP68-certified, too.