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Meizu 16

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DongV, 04 Mar 2020will only Oreo in 2020 good enough for this phone? am getti... moreYou can give a try with an used Meizu 16th. Make sure the previous owner have properly logged out/ signed out from the Flyme account & Android account which he created in the phone. Then when you receive your phone perform a factory reset/ hard boot (plenty of videos available on youtube). You are then good to go.

Whether it is the right choice to go for Meizu 16th in 2020 is open for debate. When you are spending just US $240 (in my case) on a this level of flagship worthy hardware, not to mention the built quality something has to go. In Meizu's case it is the Android version upgrades, as every upgrade version costs a lot to the company.

As yes don't expect Huawei's EMUI level of OS refinement with Meizu's Flyme OS.

    • D
    • DongV
    • wch
    • 04 Mar 2020

    will only Oreo in 2020 good enough for this phone? am getting an used one to give Meizu a try, May I does flyme account also locked the phone when changing owner? what should be done to be sure it has no problem with the flyme account

      Hello all,
      I have managed to install the Chinese Firmware ( Flyme 8.0.0.0A) you can choose English as the language while starting up( although some, almost negligible text is in Chinese mostly in the native apps of the phone),
      And it looks great, I can hardly spot any bugs in the updated version.
      The UI is snappier and faster. And there are tonnes of customizations such as live wallpapers, you can change the fonts too. I love the feature called App Quick Look, it previews the app on top of any screen which is quite a nifty feature.

      Also with some debugging, I got all the Google apps working on the Chinese firmware.
      The android version is still 8.1 but I don't see it as a problem as the Flyme skin is smooth.

      Now the issues with it,
      1. There are a lot of preinstalled apps on it, but you can delete most of them.
      2. Google apps were not working properly for me in the beginning but once I experimented a little, the apps are working great.
      3. I am not sure whether you can go back to the global firmware from this one. ( I would let you know once I try it out)
      4. There are a lot of features we won't be able to use (such as Aicy assistant which is amazing though) but that's okay.
      5. GPS gave me a nightmare in the beginning but after another installation, it worked like a charm. I am yet to look into it further( somehow GPS takes about 2 minutes to get a fix)


      All in all, it is worth the upgrade because you get rid of the bugs and get a good OS which at least respects the hardware this phone has.

      Now down the line, my plan is to root this phone and try to fix the issues I am facing. And if devs release a stable ROM for Meizu 16th I will switch to it.
      Developers have been working to get a stable ROM released for the phone, it may happen soon as they are trying to fix current issues.

      If anyone interested in trying it out at their own risk can let me know, I could help out.
      Until then, cheers!

        Akshay24, 21 Feb 2020Hey RishiGuru, Can you give me the links to the TPU case a... moreGSMArena does not let us post links. You can search in AliExpress:

        GodGift Meizu 16th Case Soft Silicone TPU Cover For Meizu 15 16th 16 th Pro 6 7 Plus U10 U20 Phone Case Back Cover

        Hydrogel Film For Meizu 16th 16X 16 Screen Protector For meizu 16 Nano Film 3D Soft TPU Explosion-proof Full Coverage (Not Glass

        Good luck with your custom ROM implementation on Meizu 16th.

          RishiGuru, 21 Jan 2020Meizu does not specify the glass used on 16th (Meizu 16 in ... moreHey RishiGuru,
          Can you give me the links to the TPU case and the screen guars for the Meizu 16th.
          And I have been trying to work on a method to install custom ROM on the phone. WIll let you know if I succeed.

            Drifter, 19 Jan 2020Phone is really nice, very well built, good cameras, fast, ... moreSoftware is the only issue for Meizu phones. My Honor View 10 released on Dec, 2017 received Android 10 last week. The View 10 arrived with Android Oreo, then got updated to Pie and finally to Android 10.

            My Meizu 16th (Meizu 16 in China) arrived on Aug, 2018 with Android Oreo. In 2020 it is still in Android Oreo. I do not face any major issues with my 16th but none the less their are some small niggling software issues.

            However the product quality of my 16th minus the software is way superior than my View 10. The 16th have 3.5mm headphone and the audio quality is far superior than other phones far few like LG V30+ or Vivo NEX S.

              Alpha8, 16 Jan 2020Awesome inspirational in dept post as always. Thanks for le... moreMeizu does not specify the glass used on 16th (Meizu 16 in China). So it can be from any vendor be Corning, Dragontrail, NEG or anything else. All glasses accumulate scratches overtime, even Corning Gorilla Glass so it is better to protect them.

              I use a transparent TPU case with my Meizu. For display protection I use a HydroGel film screen protector. Both are sourced from China via AliExpress. Total cost for the two is INR 250 only.

                • D
                • Drifter
                • pr4
                • 19 Jan 2020

                Phone is really nice, very well built, good cameras, fast, has high-quality screen but... it has the worst software I've ever seen on any smartphone. FlyMe OS is full of bugs, unstable and extremely limited. It doesn't allow any modification and doesn't even allow users to change some "security" (read: spying) settings which all other non-Meizu phones except iPhone allow. Meizu should get rid of their ugly FlyMe OS and instead use clean Android software which would make their phones much more reliable.

                  • ?
                  • Anonymous
                  • DkR
                  • 17 Jan 2020

                  Alpha8, 16 Jan 2020Awesome inspirational in dept post as always. Thanks for le... moreI couldn't find any screen protectors in India.
                  So I ordered from AliExpress but it is highly unlikely I would get the delivery of it as most sellers at AliExpress do not ship items which are worth below 5$
                  Let's see if I will get the glass protector in one piece.
                  You could try the same. Amazon has a few screenguards but they are not of the correct size. So don't order from Amazon.

                    RishiGuru, 12 Jan 2020Good to know you are enjoying the Meizu 16th. Below are my ... moreAwesome inspirational in dept post as always. Thanks for letting us know about the current trend of camera tech in smartphone industry. Can you confirm the glass used in the phone is gorilla glass? Also are you using any display protection like tempared glass.

                      Akshay24, 04 Jan 2020I am still waiting for it. :) It will be delivered in 2-3... moreMy phone is great. I am very happy that I was able to get a flagship phone at a upper midrange price. Ok rishiguru might have pulled of a great offer on meizu 16th, he got it for just 17k which is similar prices to Redmi note8 pro but that is one off.

                      I do not know how to flash phones as I am an non technical kind of guy. But I love using phones and buy one or two each year and selling the old ones. So far the Meizu is delivering on all fronts considering it's price. Thanks.

                        Akshay24, 05 Jan 2020RishiGuru, you should blog about it, man. Your insights a... moreThanks for the complements. I got invitations many times in the past from different platforms & publications.

                        Currently, I have one big problem. TIME.

                        I just write for pure fun. However when I get old and retire, I may consider this hobby of mine as a profession.

                          Akshay24, 07 Jan 2020Received the phone yesterday, here is my first impression ... moreGood to know you are enjoying the Meizu 16th. Below are my views related to the pointers you raised:

                          1) Meizu 16th is an example of symmetrical design in smart-phones. As such the shape & attention to overall design is just exemplary on this device. Built quality is also superb and I love the ceramic like look on the back glass panel.

                          2) Always-on Display is a nifty feature, I use it but as always it consumes some battery.

                          3) Audio quality over headphone jack is great for any user bar audiophiles. Get yourself a pair of decent headphones like Edifier H850. They are available at decent entry level prices at Amazon/ Flipkart and will atleast provide justice to Meizu 16th audio quality. The H850 being a low impedance headphone the 16th will have no issues driving it. Earphones simply cannot provide the soundstage of headphones.

                          4) Performance is no doubt excellent on Meizu 16th as it is packed with flagship grade hardware to the gills. An average user like me does not feel the difference in day to day activities. I always take objective benchmarks like AnTuTu with a pinch of salt as they in no way can measure the subjective user experience of the phone. But it also holds true FlymeOS on Meizu 16th could have been more optimized to reap extra benefits from the top level hardware on disposal.

                          5) Meizu's haptic feedback engine is just top notch. Good to know gaming experience is great. I too am not in mobile gaming, but I had installed Ashalt 8 and the experience have been decent.

                          6) Meizu 16th have one of the best rear camera hardware for flagships. Period. Where it lacks is in computational photography embedded in camera software which is the new talk of the town. Google with its Pixel lineup have shown the power of computational photography and now every major manufacturer are heavily investing on this new tech to get great photos & videos. Unfortunately Meizu currently does not even have the financial strength of LG, Vivo, Oppo let alone the top three: Apple, Samsung & Huawei. That is why you will get decent photos on broad daylight on Meizu 16th, but under artificial light where computational photography comes into its own, the 16th falls back.

                          A great example is the camera comparison between my Vivo NEX & Meizu 16th. The NEX main camera uses the 12 MP, Sony IMX363 where as 16th uses the superior 12 MP, IMX380. Hardware wise Meizu has the upper hand, but every time I take a photo the NEX wins be it sunlight or moonlight. The difference is more evident after recent camera software updates on my NEX. The new updates on Vivo have much superior computational photography algorithm than Meizu resulting in overall better pictures. BBK has started investing heavily on computational photography and all its own brands Vivo, Oppo, Realme, iQOO & OnePlus are reaping the benefits.

                          7) For decent covers & screen protectors, expand your horizons and go for AliExpress. Download the app, and you will get unlimited options here at very reasonable prices. AliExpress is safe and it takes 3 weeks to reach from China to my home in India.

                          Hope it helps!!!

                            Received the phone yesterday, here is my first impression
                            • The phone looks premium, the build quality is amazing. Feels so good to hold.
                            • The display is gorgeous, I love the Always-on Display feature, but not sure how much battery it consumes or whether it affects the display.
                            • Audio quality is rich and smooth, the sound signature in my opinion is warm. In earphones the audio is great; no complaints there.
                            • Performance-wise the phone is packed with powerful hardware but lacks the optimized software to drive it. But still its performance is at par. I ran AnTuTu Benchmark on the device it got the score of 339k which is just a little behind POCO F1
                            • The haptic feedback is spontaneous, for checking phone’s gaming capability I installed GTA San Andreas( it runs smooth by the way, but I am not into mobile gaming) But I want to point out that I was getting the haptic feedback whenever I bumped my car or took a hit, which was pleasant.
                            • I am not sure about the camera yet, the photographs I took were in the night and had a considerable amount of noise to it. Although the camera seems decent.
                            • I got a decent back cover for the phone, but I could not find a good screen guard for it. On amazon all the screen guards for 16th are shitty. If anyone knows where I can get a screen guard for this phone do let me know.

                              RishiGuru, 05 Jan 2020Welcome to the realm of flagship phones. Like you I too fir... moreRishiGuru, you should blog about it, man.
                              Your insights are amazing in regards to phones.
                              Trust me, your posts here acted as a catalyst in making the decision to buy this phone (even though in your initial posts you was against the 16th)
                              You can start posting the reviews of the phones over Medium or any of the blogging sites. And if you are serious about I would totally assist you with it.

                              Thanks for the pointers.
                              Nokia 6.1 is truly the toughest phone out there. But because of the same reason, it is so heavy.
                              Also as it has a metal body, it is really slippery. So the only option is putting on a cover on it which is a shame to put on a plastic cover over an armor-like body.

                              For Meizu 16th cover is a necessity, so I ordered the cover from Amazon which is expensive but it seems worth it. You could take a look at it if you don't have a cover for it yet.

                              Hopefully, I would get the phone by tomorrow.
                              I am excited to explore it, especially it's audio quality.
                              And as you had mentioned that its headphone jack has a different chip built into it; I have a couple of earphones( KZ ED16 & UiiSii HM7, had VE Monk too but it broke 2 days ago) which I want to test on the phone. See how the phone drives the earphones.

                              I think Meizu reflects the philosophy Apple had while Steve Jobs was overseeing the company. No wonder Jack Wong, founder of Meizu is often called the Steve Jobs of China.

                              In a hindsight, I feel bad that Meizu did not succeed in India. Otherwise, we could see far more smartphones of the caliber of the 16th in here. I hope it turns around in the future.


                                Akshay24, 02 Jan 2020I ordered this phone today. I got it for 18490Rs (19k with... moreWelcome to the realm of flagship phones. Like you I too first was hesitant to dash out more money in-order to move up the ladder from mid-range to flagships. Believe me once you are done experiencing a phone of Meizu 16th caliber you will probably never look back.

                                I too own a Nokia 6.1, the Blue/Gold variant with 4/64 GB configuration. Bought from Flipkart under offers @ INR 7.2K during factory clearance sale. Got the Nokia just for its legendary built quality and exquisite craftsmanship. In the last decade if their is one phone that's built like a tank then it probably is the Nokia 6.1. Even under a nuclear attack I think the 6.1 may survive in its face down position.

                                Below are few pointers:

                                1) Upgrading from your Nokia to Meizu will not entail in any drastic built quality improvements. Nokia 6.1 was billeted out from a solid block on metal, while the 16th metal mid-frame is still CNC machined but we have the latest trend of glass sandwich design here. More fragile like all new flagship phones. So welcome from the phone that won "Good Design award 2018, awarded by The Chicago Athenaeum: Musuem of Architecture & Design" to the phone winning the "RedDot Design Award for 2019". You can spend an hour each on both phones just my gazing on these phones and appreciating their individual designs as an work of art.

                                2) While using the Meizu 16th, performance wise you will encounter a sizable difference over the Nokia. The Meizu 16th with its flagship grade Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 SoC, 8GB LPDDR4x RAM (Samsung K3UH7H7) and 128 GB UFS 2.1 flash storage (Samsung KLUDG8V1EE) with 880 MB/s read & 200 MB/s write speeds.

                                3) You will get flagship RF capabilities with Meizu 16th, quad antenna design with 2X2 MIMO capability for more stable and much superior call quality & data.

                                4) Using Meizu 16th you will immediately feel & appreciate the lightness of this device over the Nokia 6.1. While 6.1 was a chunky slab, the 16th with nestle in your hand.

                                5) Considering both have identical battery capacity, battery life on a single charge is almost same for both phones. However the 16th with its 18 watts charger has a faster charging speed compared to the supplied 18 watts charger with Nokia 6.1.

                                6) If you are an audio aficionado, you will immediately appreciate the rich audio quality that is available through the Meizu 16th audio jack and also the stereo speakers. This is a sizable upgrade over your Nokia 6.1.

                                7) The notch less Samsung Super AMOLED display on Meizu 16th is great, just the brightness could have been a tad better being capped at 430 nits. Saying that the Nokia 6.1 IPS LCD display was also very good for content viewing with very good contrast ratio and max 470 nits of brightness.

                                8) Coming from Nokia 6.1, you will also be awed by the Sony camera sensors at the back of Meizu 16th, especially with the monster Sony IMX380 main camera with its King Kong sized sensor. It will amaze you for sure in both daylight and especially low light photography.

                                9) The haptic feedback on the Meizu 16th is just legendary. You are still to experience it.

                                10) Even though running on Android Oreo, the stability of the Meizu's Flyme OS 7 is very good on Meizu 16th.

                                In the end I can assure the Meizu 16th will not let you down, just that you have to live with the pain of no software updates that comes with every release of their global variants.

                                  Alpha8, 04 Jan 2020You made the right choice of having the Meizu 16th at right... moreI am still waiting for it. :)
                                  It will be delivered in 2-3 days.
                                  So I will know that afterward. Until then I have been reading and watching everything I find about it lol.
                                  You are right. I think I got the phone from the last of the stock.
                                  There is only one Meizu 16th available on Amazon for a whopping 25k. And it is unlikely it will be sold anymore.
                                  So feeling quite good about it.
                                  How is your phone so far?
                                  Do you know if there is any support to unlock the bootloader of the phone?
                                  I used to flash custom ROMs on my phone, so I was thinking in the future I will try that with this phone too (considering its a beast).

                                    I was thinking about(well I am in love with it so) Meizu 16th and then I thought this phone is so beautiful that it must have won several awards.
                                    Then I googled it and just found out on Red-dot.org that the Meizu 16th has won the prestigious Design Award for the 2019 year.
                                    Check it out here,
                                    https://www.red-dot.org/project/meizu-16th-40139/

                                    This is something any company would have boasted, but no one really knows about it.
                                    Only the website Red-dot.org mentions it.
                                    I don't know why there wasn't anyone reporting about this fact.
                                    This phone is truly an underdog.

                                      Akshay24, 02 Jan 2020I ordered this phone today. I got it for 18490Rs (19k with... moreYou made the right choice of having the Meizu 16th at right time. The phone have been out of stock in amazon India for the last two days. Rishiguru got a killer deal of 17k during Diwali offers period which I believe is very unlikely to repeat. Also I believe this phone is much better than poco f1.

                                      How is your feedback regarding the phone?

                                        I ordered this phone today.
                                        I got it for 18490Rs (19k with EMI), I never thought I would spend so much on a phone.
                                        My current phone is Nokia 6.1 which I bought for 7k only. And that's the rule I had( not to spend more than 10k on a phone).
                                        Initially, I was thinking of going with POCO F1 Armoured Edition priced 8GB 256GB(18990)
                                        But as it's build quality is cheap I was hesitant in investing in it.
                                        And then I fell in love with Meizu 16th. It was difficult to like any other phone(I hate notched phones)

                                        I tend to think I spent too much on it considering RishiGuru got it for 17k.
                                        So having second thoughts as to cancel the order and wait for another price cut.
                                        But then I am not sure if the phone will be available on Amazon.

                                        Anyone has any idea about it, please let me know.

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