Can you go into more detail about why other vendors aren't able to employ Exynos 7420? Seems like the best SoC currently, so it would be great to see it come to more devices. (and hopefully at better price points!)
I don't have any more information than anybody else. It's not like other vendors aren't *able* to get them, SLSI would probably love to sell them. It's a complex issue of pricing, availability (contracts with the mobile division taking up most chips?) and many other factors. Samsung LSI doesn't comment on the matter so we can at best guess why it is like it is.
My guess would have to be software. Very few vendors actually run stock vanilla android and from what I've seen on this, it is a very custom (and iOS rip-offy) OS. You can't just slap in a Exynos chip and expect it to work with their custom OS on the get-go. Snapdragon is familiar and chances are vendors have long standing deals with them.
Lol, I wish the exact opposite. I can't deny that Apple makes great hardware (I really want the camera from the iPhone 6S) but I can't stand iOS. This phone would be very tempting if it were a bit smaller (and coming to the US).
@neo_1221: totally agree with you. I can't stand iOS. For example, It's just an app launcher without any consideration for apps to talk to one another. Apps run in silos. Android has "Share" capability forever. Apps can't pass content to one another without the developers hot wiring which apps are communicate'able. For example, I can use any TTS app to read out any app's content. That's tremendous. How about choosing your own app defaults. Why email on iOS only opens Safari when you tap a URL, not Chrome, not any other browser? And I can't always get Safari to zoom in so I can read the freaking text. It's totally stopping the show.
- Open file system, and all its file management and association advantages. - Open connectivity interface for Bluetooth and NFC. - Notification LED. - Widgets (anywhere) - USB OTG
But almost nobody uses them. They are niche features. Most of the features on iPhone appeal to a wide audience and are considered mostly general features in the industry now.
Look at NFC. It has been out for YEARS, since at least the Samsung Galaxy SIII, but it had zero traction until Apple Pay.
The classic example of how Apple pushes technology is probably the Watch. Honestly, find someone from the general population that doesn't think the Apple Watch was the first smart watch. It's hilariously embarrassing to the likes of Pebble, and even Casio, Garmin, and Timex, who has had "smart watches" like the Datalink since the mid-90's!
Apple aren't that innovative, NFC payment has been around almost as long as NFC has been in phones. What Apple are very good at is polishing turds into something people want, often it's still a turd but people want it in droves.
Apple brought ease of use (phone auto wakes with default card), tokenization, and biometric authentication. I guess you could say getting CC companies on board is a 4th pillar.
That IS innovation. Google Wallet was 4 years old and Apple's turd was shiny enough for Google to kill GW and re introduce it as Android Pay with biometric authentication.
Am I wrong? Really? It's pretty obvious a lot of technology lingers, sometimes for decades, until Apple spins it into "magic" and presto, they are perceived as the inventor when they are really the innovator. Innovator because they brought it to mass market. That's innovation because the mass market is overall pretty inept with technology, and Apple is a technology company.
Look at the iPhone. It's a smartphone, that you can hand to practically anybody, and without instructions, because they already know how to use it. That's pretty damn innovative.
Really? Who cares if it looks like an iPhone if it's a great phone? As far as the skin goes, I never use the default launcher on a phone, anyway. The rest (settings, etc) is no big deal to me.
The big question for someone like me is, is it crippled if I use it with a USA carrier?
Awesome specs, fingerprint reader, 1080p AMOLED, microSD, USB Type C, Wifi ac, Exynos Only if they provided a more reasonably sized 5.0-5.1 inch display with the same specs
yep. well maybe 72mm but certainly not 78mm.... but more often i find the height limiting. 145mm is just my upper bound. i wish someone would clone sharps crystal x & bring it to the western market.
Yeah, I think mine too. My galaxy S4 at 5 inches and 136 mm has one of the best screen to body ratios. Too bad I can't find any new phones that are 140 mm or below
I can't agree more. I have an S5 and find it a little too large in both height and width. All new phones are either phablets or don't seem to care about a good screen to body ratio. The perfect form factor for phones I have used is the LG G2. On screen buttons allow for a 5.2" screen without having to hold it lower to use the buttons, height is 138mm and width 71mm.
Just give me a modern G2 with an OLED display, SD card slot, new chipset and camera! The closest I can find for "modern" phones is the newly announced Xiaomi Mi 4c. It's very similar to the S4 in dimensions, just a tad taller. If it had on screen buttons the screen could be a little bigger and it would be close to my perfect phone.
Dude, I have almost the same requirements as you. I am still waiting for the perfect phone which is about the same size as my S4 and adds features like a fingerprint reader and USB type C and not remove them (I'm looking at you Galaxy S6).
I want to replace my current RAZR i and I'm having the same problem. There's no decent phone that's not huge. Z3 Compact would have been nice, but it seems it's very easy to break the front/back glass.
Dude, the Galaxy S didn't change much in width since the GS3 at 70mm. The GS5 went a bit up to 72mm (for water resistance), but the GS6 is back at 70mm.
Height doesn't matter as much as the width, but even that hasn't changed significantly since then... When you bottom level all of them next to each other, the top edge of the screen is almost at the same height (since that's what matters more if you're trying to reach it with your thumb).
The 4.7" iPhone 6 is one of the most ideal footprints on the market right now. They totally nailed it with that size. But I'll admin, I love smaller phones. My favorite phone of all time was the HP Veer. I think it had a 2.5" screen?
The size of the iPhone 6 is great, but not considering the size of the screen. 5" phones from a couple of years ago were practically the same size as the 4.7" iPhone 6. The average person can work one handed with a 5" screen, it's the body size and ergonomics (button placement, shape, grip, weight) that makes certain 5-5.2" phones less usable. For those who need a 4.7" or smaller phone, surely a smaller body would still be a huge benefit.
It's not about the screen size. Its about the overall size of the device, and more importantly, it's *width* since that's what matters most when you're holding it in one hand. I believe the ideal width is around 68-72mm for most people.
Apple has had one of the worst screen to device size ratios of flagship devices. On the other hand, Samsung managed to increase the screen real estate of its Galaxy S series while its width hasn't changed since the GS3 at ~70mm (an engineering/usability feat they should get credit for). The height increased a negligible 3-4mm since then, but height isn't as important because what matters is how far the top edge of the screen is away from your thumb.
The Galaxy Note series, on the other hand, has been *decreasing* in width since the first Note significantly, while going up in screen size. The Note 5 has a larger screen than the iPhone 6 plus, while the device is significantly smaller and easier to hold.
You don't hear this very often because of either bias, or not having a clue at all.
all aluminum back, Check Curved glass around the edges, check speaker grill layout, check reversible connector, check FlyMe OS UI, Check hardware button with fingerprint reader, Check The fingerprint setup is a exact match to apples touch id setup
come on man, pshh calling me a fanboy.. any normal person would agree this is a iphone 6 clone, or trying very hard to immitate apple's iphone 6 design.
the only thing different is the camera, and button/headphone jack placement.
Dunno if they noticed that this "round bezels" or rounded screens like Galaxy Edge are a major annoyances when you watch video on the device, those reflections...
just multiply the dpi by 2/3 or 3/4 and you have an pentile of the same sharpness as a true rgb amoled. at best this is ~290dpi... certainly not pro level
Well, it looks like it won't happen any time soon for efficiency and diode longevity purposes. So I gave up on "true RGB" and am waiting for a 4K 5.0-5.2" pentile AMOLED running at 1080p (for 6-8 sub-pixels per pixel). Highly unlikely, but would be truly awesome.
i just don't understand why these devices have to copy the iphone design... i mean it's instantly recognizable as a copy at a glance it could easily be taken for an iphone except for the meizu logo... so they want it to look like an iphone but be recognized as a copy??? the chinese are so wierd.
Meizu has been using this design since the MX3, 1 year prior to the giant iphones. Just because you (obviously)haven't heard about this Chinese brand does not make it an iphone copycat.
You are so damn hypocrite like the others here trying to defend the Chinese (and Korean) shameful copycat machine. The MX3 looks very different to this thing, it was a fat glossy plastic-built phone similar to the crap Samsung was doing with its big phones before they returned copying Apple design. This one here is totally an iPhone ripp-off, the aluminum build, the shape of phone, the antenna bands, the buttons on the sides, come one the bottom of this phone looks identical to the iPhone and totally different to the MX3. How could you possibly claim that this thing doesn't copy an iPhone. This is ridiculous...
And what do you say about the ripp-off of Touch ID? They also had it with the MX3? Sure not, it's a magistral rip-off similar to what Samsung did with their S6 phones (the software interface is also copied). This also shows how some Chinese manufacturers are able to quickly copy Apple's IP or any other company's IP because a lot of those products are being manufactured there. Instead of people being so stupidly anti-Apple, they should rather worry and condemn the absence of IP protection in China.
And yes, NFC payment was totally useless and unsecured until Apple introduced Apple Pay, which is more secure, easier to use and reliable. Google wallet was a joke as whatever Samsung produced before. Nobody used this crap because it was freaking unusable, period. Now Google and Samsung ended up just copying Apple which tells a lot on how much they believed on their original solution.
Wow, that's like the perfect phone spec wise. 4GB ram, yay, 7420 soc yay, 1080p screen will mean the gpu will haul ass, sd-card support, ufs 2.0 storage, yadda yadda.
Taking it back as this could be a very good high-end gaming phone as the conservative resolution will allow faster framerates and better battery life than an S6. The aluminum frame might help with dissipation of heat and lessen throttling.
This could have been the Nexus 6 this year as I don't like the Snapdragon 810 on the Huawei.....sigh.
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
56 Comments
Back to Article
xilience - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Can you go into more detail about why other vendors aren't able to employ Exynos 7420? Seems like the best SoC currently, so it would be great to see it come to more devices. (and hopefully at better price points!)Andrei Frumusanu - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
I don't have any more information than anybody else. It's not like other vendors aren't *able* to get them, SLSI would probably love to sell them. It's a complex issue of pricing, availability (contracts with the mobile division taking up most chips?) and many other factors. Samsung LSI doesn't comment on the matter so we can at best guess why it is like it is.lilmoe - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Did you hear any news about a "Snapdragon 820-B" or whatever the rumors are saying?Andrei Frumusanu - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Revision 3? Nothing out of the ordinary.quiksilvr - Friday, September 25, 2015 - link
My guess would have to be software. Very few vendors actually run stock vanilla android and from what I've seen on this, it is a very custom (and iOS rip-offy) OS. You can't just slap in a Exynos chip and expect it to work with their custom OS on the get-go. Snapdragon is familiar and chances are vendors have long standing deals with them.lilmoe - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
This would have been the perfect phone if:- Didn't have that horrid skin.
- Didn't look too much like a damn iPhone... At least the back isn't.
Akatsuki786 - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
thats actually what has made this phone popular iphone feel running android softwarebernstein - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
i wish i could buy an android phone and run iOS on it... love the software, hate the hardware...neo_1221 - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Lol, I wish the exact opposite. I can't deny that Apple makes great hardware (I really want the camera from the iPhone 6S) but I can't stand iOS. This phone would be very tempting if it were a bit smaller (and coming to the US).bklm1234 - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
@neo_1221: totally agree with you. I can't stand iOS. For example, It's just an app launcher without any consideration for apps to talk to one another. Apps run in silos. Android has "Share" capability forever. Apps can't pass content to one another without the developers hot wiring which apps are communicate'able. For example, I can use any TTS app to read out any app's content. That's tremendous. How about choosing your own app defaults. Why email on iOS only opens Safari when you tap a URL, not Chrome, not any other browser? And I can't always get Safari to zoom in so I can read the freaking text. It's totally stopping the show.lilmoe - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
You forgot these:- Open file system, and all its file management and association advantages.
- Open connectivity interface for Bluetooth and NFC.
- Notification LED.
- Widgets (anywhere)
- USB OTG
NONE of these are gimmicks.
Samus - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
But almost nobody uses them. They are niche features. Most of the features on iPhone appeal to a wide audience and are considered mostly general features in the industry now.Look at NFC. It has been out for YEARS, since at least the Samsung Galaxy SIII, but it had zero traction until Apple Pay.
The classic example of how Apple pushes technology is probably the Watch. Honestly, find someone from the general population that doesn't think the Apple Watch was the first smart watch. It's hilariously embarrassing to the likes of Pebble, and even Casio, Garmin, and Timex, who has had "smart watches" like the Datalink since the mid-90's!
kingpotnoodle - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
Apple aren't that innovative, NFC payment has been around almost as long as NFC has been in phones. What Apple are very good at is polishing turds into something people want, often it's still a turd but people want it in droves.MrX8503 - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
Apple brought ease of use (phone auto wakes with default card), tokenization, and biometric authentication. I guess you could say getting CC companies on board is a 4th pillar.That IS innovation. Google Wallet was 4 years old and Apple's turd was shiny enough for Google to kill GW and re introduce it as Android Pay with biometric authentication.
Zoomer - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link
Apple's really good to ---bullying--- lobbying others to come to their side.Pay on tap? Android had that for ages. Tokenization and biometric auth - who cares?
osxandwindows - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
How about usb, apple pushed the standard, and now we are herelilmoe - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
"But almost nobody uses them""but it had zero traction until Apple Pay"
I really can't take you seriously when you think like that.
Samus - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
Am I wrong? Really? It's pretty obvious a lot of technology lingers, sometimes for decades, until Apple spins it into "magic" and presto, they are perceived as the inventor when they are really the innovator. Innovator because they brought it to mass market. That's innovation because the mass market is overall pretty inept with technology, and Apple is a technology company.Look at the iPhone. It's a smartphone, that you can hand to practically anybody, and without instructions, because they already know how to use it. That's pretty damn innovative.
The Rogue Tomato - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
Really? Who cares if it looks like an iPhone if it's a great phone? As far as the skin goes, I never use the default launcher on a phone, anyway. The rest (settings, etc) is no big deal to me.The big question for someone like me is, is it crippled if I use it with a USA carrier?
vortexmak - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Awesome specs, fingerprint reader, 1080p AMOLED, microSD, USB Type C, Wifi ac, ExynosOnly if they provided a more reasonably sized 5.0-5.1 inch display with the same specs
jospoortvliet - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Amen. I would buy one of these in a version less than 7 cm wide. That is the widest phone I will buy...bernstein - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
yep. well maybe 72mm but certainly not 78mm.... but more often i find the height limiting. 145mm is just my upper bound. i wish someone would clone sharps crystal x & bring it to the western market.vortexmak - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Yeah, I think mine too.My galaxy S4 at 5 inches and 136 mm has one of the best screen to body ratios. Too bad I can't find any new phones that are 140 mm or below
RdVi - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
I can't agree more. I have an S5 and find it a little too large in both height and width. All new phones are either phablets or don't seem to care about a good screen to body ratio. The perfect form factor for phones I have used is the LG G2. On screen buttons allow for a 5.2" screen without having to hold it lower to use the buttons, height is 138mm and width 71mm.Just give me a modern G2 with an OLED display, SD card slot, new chipset and camera! The closest I can find for "modern" phones is the newly announced Xiaomi Mi 4c. It's very similar to the S4 in dimensions, just a tad taller. If it had on screen buttons the screen could be a little bigger and it would be close to my perfect phone.
vortexmak - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
Dude, I have almost the same requirements as you. I am still waiting for the perfect phone which is about the same size as my S4 and adds features like a fingerprint reader and USB type C and not remove them (I'm looking at you Galaxy S6).nirolf - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
I want to replace my current RAZR i and I'm having the same problem. There's no decent phone that's not huge. Z3 Compact would have been nice, but it seems it's very easy to break the front/back glass.lilmoe - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
Dude, the Galaxy S didn't change much in width since the GS3 at 70mm. The GS5 went a bit up to 72mm (for water resistance), but the GS6 is back at 70mm.Height doesn't matter as much as the width, but even that hasn't changed significantly since then... When you bottom level all of them next to each other, the top edge of the screen is almost at the same height (since that's what matters more if you're trying to reach it with your thumb).
lilmoe - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Yea, agreed about the size.Samus - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
The 4.7" iPhone 6 is one of the most ideal footprints on the market right now. They totally nailed it with that size. But I'll admin, I love smaller phones. My favorite phone of all time was the HP Veer. I think it had a 2.5" screen?RdVi - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
The size of the iPhone 6 is great, but not considering the size of the screen. 5" phones from a couple of years ago were practically the same size as the 4.7" iPhone 6. The average person can work one handed with a 5" screen, it's the body size and ergonomics (button placement, shape, grip, weight) that makes certain 5-5.2" phones less usable. For those who need a 4.7" or smaller phone, surely a smaller body would still be a huge benefit.lilmoe - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
It's not about the screen size. Its about the overall size of the device, and more importantly, it's *width* since that's what matters most when you're holding it in one hand. I believe the ideal width is around 68-72mm for most people.Apple has had one of the worst screen to device size ratios of flagship devices. On the other hand, Samsung managed to increase the screen real estate of its Galaxy S series while its width hasn't changed since the GS3 at ~70mm (an engineering/usability feat they should get credit for). The height increased a negligible 3-4mm since then, but height isn't as important because what matters is how far the top edge of the screen is away from your thumb.
The Galaxy Note series, on the other hand, has been *decreasing* in width since the first Note significantly, while going up in screen size. The Note 5 has a larger screen than the iPhone 6 plus, while the device is significantly smaller and easier to hold.
You don't hear this very often because of either bias, or not having a clue at all.
speconomist - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Wow, what a pity that the Nexus 5X won't have most of the specs of the Meizu Pro 5.Other than the skin (for which I don't have much information) the other only aspect that could improve it would be the dual front facing speakers
Morawka - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
wow iphone 6 clone anyone? will never make it to the USA lolroman.md - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Apple fanboy detected.Check the similarities between PRO 5 and Meizu MX4, which was launched in 2014, September.
bernstein - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
interesting. but the pro5 just looks like a perfect cross between a mx4 & an iphone6...Morawka - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
all aluminum back, CheckCurved glass around the edges, check
speaker grill layout, check
reversible connector, check
FlyMe OS UI, Check
hardware button with fingerprint reader, Check
The fingerprint setup is a exact match to apples touch id setup
come on man, pshh calling me a fanboy.. any normal person would agree this is a iphone 6 clone, or trying very hard to immitate apple's iphone 6 design.
the only thing different is the camera, and button/headphone jack placement.
Lolimaster - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Dunno if they noticed that this "round bezels" or rounded screens like Galaxy Edge are a major annoyances when you watch video on the device, those reflections...Lolimaster - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Im still waiting TRUE RGB Amoleds.bernstein - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
just multiply the dpi by 2/3 or 3/4 and you have an pentile of the same sharpness as a true rgb amoled. at best this is ~290dpi... certainly not pro levelmercucu1111 - Sunday, September 27, 2015 - link
No. Multiply the ppi by (2/3)^1/2. And Originally ppi doesn't show sub-pixel. So that ppi is correct Whether it is pentile or notextide - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Is it confirmed its pentile and not RGB strip? I mean there are RGB strip AMOLEDS in this size and resolution out there, aren't there?lilmoe - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Well, it looks like it won't happen any time soon for efficiency and diode longevity purposes. So I gave up on "true RGB" and am waiting for a 4K 5.0-5.2" pentile AMOLED running at 1080p (for 6-8 sub-pixels per pixel). Highly unlikely, but would be truly awesome.Akatsuki786 - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Meizu only ppl who actually got me to switch from IOS to Android looking foward to purchasing this one.toyotabedzrock - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Throw a stock Android build on there and that is almost a perfect phone given Qualcomm thinks dithering on releasing the 820 is a good marketing idea.zodiacfml - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
Right! I'm not impressed with Huawei Nexus6.bernstein - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
i just don't understand why these devices have to copy the iphone design... i mean it's instantly recognizable as a copy at a glance it could easily be taken for an iphone except for the meizu logo... so they want it to look like an iphone but be recognized as a copy??? the chinese are so wierd.id4andrei - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Meizu has been using this design since the MX3, 1 year prior to the giant iphones. Just because you (obviously)haven't heard about this Chinese brand does not make it an iphone copycat.hakime - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
You are so damn hypocrite like the others here trying to defend the Chinese (and Korean) shameful copycat machine. The MX3 looks very different to this thing, it was a fat glossy plastic-built phone similar to the crap Samsung was doing with its big phones before they returned copying Apple design. This one here is totally an iPhone ripp-off, the aluminum build, the shape of phone, the antenna bands, the buttons on the sides, come one the bottom of this phone looks identical to the iPhone and totally different to the MX3. How could you possibly claim that this thing doesn't copy an iPhone. This is ridiculous...And what do you say about the ripp-off of Touch ID? They also had it with the MX3? Sure not, it's a magistral rip-off similar to what Samsung did with their S6 phones (the software interface is also copied). This also shows how some Chinese manufacturers are able to quickly copy Apple's IP or any other company's IP because a lot of those products are being manufactured there. Instead of people being so stupidly anti-Apple, they should rather worry and condemn the absence of IP protection in China.
And yes, NFC payment was totally useless and unsecured until Apple introduced Apple Pay, which is more secure, easier to use and reliable. Google wallet was a joke as whatever Samsung produced before. Nobody used this crap because it was freaking unusable, period. Now Google and Samsung ended up just copying Apple which tells a lot on how much they believed on their original solution.
markiz - Thursday, January 28, 2016 - link
How is shape of a modern smartphone, a simple slab, IP?extide - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Wow, that's like the perfect phone spec wise. 4GB ram, yay, 7420 soc yay, 1080p screen will mean the gpu will haul ass, sd-card support, ufs 2.0 storage, yadda yadda.EXCEPT probably has no US band support. Oh well.
mortimerr - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Has there been any reference comparisons with this Sony sensor (in the new Moto X) and the camera performance between the s6 and iphone?For some reason, it seems the more stock android experience you get (Moto X, Nexus) the worse the camera performance.
I'm just wondering how well the sensor in this device has been fairing in the real world
zodiacfml - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
At this pricing and similar specs, you might as well go with the S6 unless you want the bigger screen/phone matters.zodiacfml - Thursday, September 24, 2015 - link
Taking it back as this could be a very good high-end gaming phone as the conservative resolution will allow faster framerates and better battery life than an S6.The aluminum frame might help with dissipation of heat and lessen throttling.
This could have been the Nexus 6 this year as I don't like the Snapdragon 810 on the Huawei.....sigh.
SanX - Saturday, September 26, 2015 - link
I see 5.7" not 6" and i immediately stop readingStrangerGuy - Sunday, September 27, 2015 - link
"32 / 64GB UFS 2.0 + microSD"And that Samsung's excuse of UFS 2.0 and microSD are mutually exclusive features gets blown to hell.
terminalrecluse - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link
is it just me or does it look like an iPhone clone?