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Meizu 16s announced: Snapdragon 855, 48MP main camera with OIS for under $500

Meizu's latest flagship offers a 48MP, OIS-enabled main camera, an OLED screen, and top-end horsepower.
By
April 23, 2019
The Meizu 16s in Carbon Black

Meizu might be one of the most underrated smartphone brands around, delivering great value for money and a gesture-driven user interface way before Android at large. Now, the company has launched its latest flagship phone, the Meizu 16s.

The new flagship ticks plenty of boxes for a top-end device in 2019. So that means a Snapdragon 855 chipset, 6GB to 8GB of RAM, a 6.2-inch full HD+ AMOLED screen with super-thin bezels, and an in-display fingerprint sensor. The phone also offers 128GB of storage, with a 256GB option available in China only. Unfortunately, there’s no microSD expansion here, but at least you’ve got plenty of storage to begin with.

The Meizu 16s also offers a 3,600mAh battery with 24 watt fast charging — not quite as fast as HUAWEI, Xiaomi and OnePlus’s fast-charging solutions but still pretty nippy.

Shifting to the photography field, Meizu’s latest flagship joins the high-resolution party, offering a 48MP f/1.7 main camera with optical image stabilization. This is pretty noteworthy, as the likes of the HONOR View 20 and Redmi Note 7 series don’t offer OIS with their 48MP shooters. We’ve also got a 20MP f/2.6 secondary rear camera for 3x lossless zoom shots. It’s certainly no periscope shooter, but it should still help when you’re not quite close enough to the subject.

Meizu 16th hands-on: Impressive sum of parts
Reviews
Meizu 16th

Meizu is also touting AI-powered scene recognition, the now ubiquitous portrait mode, and Dual Super Night Scene mode. The latter sees up to 17 images being combined for better low-light results, and Meizu says it’ll also be coming to older devices — check out the list of supported phones in the image below. Otherwise, a 20MP f/2.2 front-facing camera handles selfies and face unlock duties.

A list of Meizu phones that will receive night mode.

Other key Meizu 16s features include Android Pie (with the FlymeOS skin), USB-C, NFC, a notification light, dual-SIM support, dual-frequency GPS, but no 3.5mm port. The company also retained its signature mEngine gesture navigation method, using an Apple-style vibration motor to simulate a home button and facilitate gestures.

Meizu 16s (M1971)
Display
6.2-inch AMOLED display
18.6:9 ratio
2,232 x 1,080 resolution
2.5D glass
Processor
Qualcomm Snapdragon 855
RAM
6GB / 8GB LPDDR4X
Storage
128GB / 256GB UFS 2.1
Non-expandable
(256GB exclusive to China)
Battery
3,600mAh
24W mCharge fast charging
No wireless charging
Cameras
Rear:
48 MP Sony IMX586 main sensor, ƒ/1.7 aperture, OIS
20 MP Sony IMX350 secondary sensor, ƒ/2.6 aperture

Front:
20MP sensor, ƒ/2.2 aperture
Headphone jack
No
Security
Super mTouch Optical In-Screen Fingerprint Sensor (Goodix)
Software
Flyme 7.3, based on Android 9 Pie
Carrier frequencies (global version)
GSM: Bands 2, 3, 5, 8
WCDMA: Bands 1, 2, 4, 5, 8
CDMA: Band C0
TD-LTE: Band 40
FDD-LTE: Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 20
Dimensions and weight
151.9 x 73.4 x 7.6 mm
165g
Colors
Carbon Black
Pearl White
Phantom Blue

The Meizu 16s will be available in Carbon Black, Pearl White, and Phantom Blue at a starting price of 3,198 yuan (~$476) for the 6GB+128GB variant. The 8GB+128GB model will retail for 3,498 yuan (~$520), while the 8GB+256GB option will be available for 3,998 yuan (~$595).

The firm also had a few more devices to offer, such as a 169 yuan (~$25) USB-C to 3.5mm audio dongle that promises higher quality sound, 399 yuan (~$60) Pop 2 wireless earbuds with up to eight hours of juice, and EP63 noise-cancelling headphones for 499 yuan (~$74).

NEXT: HUAWEI is bringing EMUI 9.1 to almost 50 devices