Chinese smartphone company Meizu introduced a concept device earlier this year that didn’t have any ports or buttons. The Meizu Zero didn’t have a charging port, no SIM card slot, no buttons, and mSound 2.0 technology which used the screen for sound and thus eliminated the need for a speaker grille. Meizu CEO Jack Wong has now said that this project was nothing more than the marketing team “messing about.”
Meizu had launched a crowdfunding campaign for the device on Indiegogo. It would have only entered production if the $100,000 goal had been met which wasn’t. Not by a long shot. With the project failing, Wong noted on Meizu’s offical forum that “This crowdfunding project was just the marketing team messing about,” adding that it was a development project from the R&D department and the company “never intended to mass-produce” it.
The least amount of money one could contribute to that campaign in order to get that phone was $1,299. Despite the various tricks it used to remain hole and button-free, that price tag seemed a bit too high for a device with last year’s hardware, like the Snapdragon 845 processor and a 5.99 inch AMOLED display.
Meizu did manage to raise around $45,000 in the campaign but it clearly shows that not many were willing to pay that much for this phone. The failure of this project will no doubt come as a disappointment to backers but at least they will get all of their money back.