Meizu 18 dual-machine first experience: the small-screen flagship you want is here, and the big-screen aircraft carrier is also here

The micro movie premiered, and after the release of Flyme 9, this three-day "Meizu 18 Conference Week" finally served as the main course.

Today, Meizu officially released two flagship phones of the year: Meizu 18 and Meizu 18 Pro. In the increasingly fierce competition in the industry, what kind of answer has Meizu handed over this time?

Embrace the mainstream, Meizu’s first curved screen phone

Compared with the Meizu 17 series, which is still quite self-contained in the face of the torrent of the times, the Meizu 18 series is a product that fully embraces the mainstream in the eyes of Ai Faner and tries to merge into the fast lane. The change in appearance is the most obvious.

The back of the Meizu 18 dual machine uses the AG etching glass process, which brings a very delicate matte look and frosted touch.

The arrangement of the camera modules on the back of the fuselage has also changed from the highly recognizable horizontal centering to the mainstream upper left corner matrix design. The rear three-camera module of Meizu 18 also directly uses bright glass material, which contrasts with the large area of ​​frosted glass on the back, and the thickness of the protrusions is not obvious.

In contrast, the rear four-camera module of Meizu 18 Pro is probably limited by the more "Pro" camera sensor configuration. Therefore, the protrusion thickness of the camera matrix module of Meizu 18 Pro is more obvious. In order to weaken the visual effect of thickness, Meizu is in The edge of the matrix module introduces a three-layer structure, which is composed of the outermost metal CNC polished bright edge, the glass edge and the uppermost glass cover. The original protrusion thickness is divided into three layers, and the layers are progressive, reducing the visual pressure that may be caused by the thickness protrusion.

In the camera module, the Meizu 18 Pro not only continues the classic ring-shaped fill light design, but the word "PRO" in the module highlights the positioning of the model, and also reminds me of the Meizu PRO series of that year.

For users, the most perceptual part is the screen that shoulders the responsibility of displaying. The entire Meizu 18 series comes standard with a Super AMOLED E4 screen from Samsung, with a resolution of QHD+ (3200 x 1440). The difference between the two models in the screen part is only the size of the screen: Meizu 18 is 6.2 inches, while the larger Meizu 18 Pro is 6.7 inches.

The AMOLED screen of Samsung E4 luminous material is probably the best screen that domestic mobile phone manufacturers can purchase. Therefore, the screen quality of the Meizu 18 series naturally stands at the top level of the first echelon. It goes without saying that the conventional color display, HDR10+ certification, and 4096-level brightness adjustment are naturally. What users are most concerned about is that they all support 120Hz screen refresh rate and 240Hz screen sampling rate.

In the current firmware version, the two Meizu 18 models can support up to 120Hz screen refresh rate at FHD+ resolution, and manual adjustment to 90Hz at FHD+ resolution. If you want to increase the resolution to the display state of QHD+, then the screen refresh rate is only available at 60 Hz. It is not difficult to see that this is another measure that has to be compromised in the face of power consumption. Of course, these constraints on hardware parameters are hoped to be unlocked through OTA one day. After all, Meizu’s propaganda theme for the whole year was: Everything can be OTA. .

Fortunately, at the hardware level, it is already a QHD+ resolution screen made of E4 material. In daily use, its display effect and brightness performance are satisfactory.

Meizu, which has always insisted on using a flat screen, has also used a curved screen for the first time this year after using a hole-digging screen for the first time last year.

This time, the Meizu 18 series brought the "extreme four-curved micro-curved screen" design, which is also officially called "micro-curved screen". On the one hand, Meizu emphasizes its restraint on the curvature of the curved surface. On the other hand, it also seems to want to emphasize that the curved screen on the Meizu 18 series wants to enhance the aesthetics of the visual perception and the practicality of operational interaction.

The borders around the screens of the two new models have been narrowed. With the four-curved arc, the width of the fuselage has been narrowed by 5% compared with the previous generation, and the frontal almost full-screen visual impression is also pleasant. .

With the curved screen, it becomes more handy when using gesture navigation and swiping on the side of the home screen to select applications.

The front camera, which maintains a very small aperture, has been dug out, and this time it has been moved to the center of the top of the screen. A slit is slightly opened on the top of the front camera, and the earpiece speaker is hidden in it.

Both Meizu 18 and 18 Pro are equipped with Ultrasonic mTouch (Ultrasonic mTouch), which is the second generation of Ultrasonic. Its advantage lies in the "fast and accurate" unlocking experience, and there is no fear of wet fingers.

In the actual experience, the entry speed of the fingerprint module under this screen is very fast, and the complete entry of a single fingerprint information can be completed in about 30 seconds. When you need to unlock, just touch your fingertip to the fingerprint recognition module area very naturally and briefly, and you can unlock the screen and enter the desktop in an instant.

As for the fingerprint unlocking style, the Meizu 18 series has also restored Meizu's classic "small dot" design.

Therefore, if you talk about playing with feelings, Meizu really still has countless historical hoards to dig.

Super good feel of "light to the left"

"Medium cups, large cups, and super large cups" have become the product strategies of many mobile phone manufacturers. The configuration of each cup type is very clear. The purpose is to cover more consumer audiences and price ranges, and drive products. Line shipments and increase the brand’s market share.

In the early warm-up period, Meizu not only announced the news of "no middle cup", but also proposed a product division of "lightness to the left and extreme to the right" for the 18 series.

Among them, "light to the left" refers to Meizu 18, and "extreme to the right" refers to Meizu 18 Pro. Meizu said that the two models are not simply divided by performance configuration, but the division of labor clearly meets the needs of two different types of small screen users and extreme users.

In response to the needs of small screen users, Meizu tried to find a suitable balance between performance and battery life and lightness and compactness.

So, when I personally held the two Meizu 18 series phones in my hand for the first time, the feeling description word "good hand feeling" emerged in my mind, and it was directly awarded to the Meizu 18 with a 6.2-inch screen.

The screen size of the Meizu 18 is similar to that of the iPhone 12, and the 20:9 screen ratio makes the width of the body appear narrower and slender, for me to grasp it with one hand. The pleasure of controlling the whole machine with one hand is becoming more valuable today as the size of mobile phones is getting bigger and bigger.

It can be said that in the Android camp, Meizu 18 must be called a "small screen flagship" and a Compact model.

The curvature of the slightly curved screen on the front is basically the same as the curvature of the back glass. The metal middle frame that connects with the upper and lower pieces of glass is also polished to the right degree, providing a very suitable arc to cater to the curved glass on the front and back. The metal and the glass are tightly seamed and integrated, thus realizing the "eight curved micro The "arc" design creates a mellow, full and comfortable grip.

In addition, the light weight of the whole machine is only 162g, this kind of "good hand feeling" also conquered most people in Aifaner's office, and received relatively rare unanimous praise. For a moment, it reminded me of Meizu PRO 6.

In addition, the good feel comes from the fact that the weight distribution of the Meizu 18 machine is very balanced, and there will be no "top-heavy" feeling, and the weight texture of the hands-on will obviously make me feel that the inside of the whole machine is very tight and strong. , I believe that the interior of the fuselage adopts a relatively compact design for stacking materials and a carefully allocated weight ratio. Perhaps Huang Zhang will no longer polish the prototype, but the key words of curve, weight and feel must still be designed by Meizu gene.

Meizu 18 pearls and jade are in front, and the larger Meizu 18 Pro naturally cannot get too much benefit in terms of feel. The connection design of the front and back double-sided glass and the metal middle frame is consistent with that of Meizu 18, which implements the unity of design. However, the metal middle frame of Meizu 18 Pro has been changed to a polished and shiny design, which looks more luxurious.

Meizu should also work hard to control the weight and internal stacking design of Meizu 18 Pro, which allows it to control the weight of the whole machine at an excellent level of 189g, but its relatively large rear camera module will still bring a slight "top-heavy". a feeling of. Of course, this feeling will not be very obvious. When you hold the Pro model in your hand, you will find that it has a similar feeling to mainstream large-screen flagship phones.

What the "Extreme Left" Meizu 18 Pro wants to provide is a screen with a larger display area and further hardware capabilities. Its combat power configuration is more like an aircraft carrier.

"No Middle Cup" Meizu 18 series, all Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoC

Through the configuration comparison pictures, we can find that the hardware configuration of Meizu 18 and Meizu 18 Pro have many commonalities. The gap between the big cup and the super big cup mainly lies in the four aspects of screen size, battery capacity, charging power and camera.

In the core configuration, Meizu 18 and Meizu 18 Pro both have Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 5G SoC, which together with LPDDR5 and UFS3.1 form the mainstream "performance iron triangle" configuration. This configuration is already one of the "standard configurations" of flagship phones in the first half of this year.

Therefore, whether it is running scores or game performance, the Meizu 18 series can match the first echelon of the Android camp.

During the hands-on experience, I downloaded the three games "Honor of Kings", "Peace Elite" and "QQ Speed" to play. Both models can bring a very smooth full-frame experience.

In the case of the same core configuration, the size of the screen and the body has become a variable that produces a slight difference between the two. The Meizu 18 Pro with a larger screen size will naturally have more advantages on the game display screen, and the hands will not take up too much screen area during manipulation. And the heat dissipation condition is better than that of the more compact Meizu 18.

In the digital world, when you mention the word "environmental protection", you probably have already guessed what I want to say next.

That's right, Meizu also cancelled the random charger this time, the reason is also to reduce the burden on the environment. But at the same time, Meizu also announced that the Meizu 18 series will support QC and USB-PD universal fast charging protocols, and it will be fully compatible with mainstream chargers.​​​​

Meizu 18 has a built-in 4000 mAh battery that supports 36W Super mCharge wired charging;
Meizu 18 Pro has a built-in 4500 mAh battery, supports 40W Super mCharge wired charging, and supports 40W Super Wireless mCharge wireless fast charging.

Since we did not have the official Meizu GaN fast charging head in our hands, we directly used a QC/PD 65W compatible charger around us to charge the two phones. It can be found that both of them can achieve a fast charging rate of about 30W, and the average charging rate is about 28W. Under the current firmware version, both models can be charged to 80% at this charging rate, and then the power is reduced again to Around 15W until full.

According to this charging rate, the two models can be charged from single digits to 100% full in 60 minutes. This also means that although the official does not give you a charger, you can find a charging head with PD protocol or QC protocol on a daily basis, and you can "return the blood" in a relatively short period of time.

In addition, according to Meizu's official statement, using Super mCharge fast charge, both Meizu 18 and 18 Pro can be charged to 80% power in 33 minutes, and 100% power in 55 minutes.

More "Pro" rear four cameras, DarkVision is comparable to night vision

Let's take a look at the camera configuration of Meizu 18 Pro:

Main camera: 50 million pixels (Samsung GN1, f/1.9, 23mm)
Ultra wide-angle/macro: 32 million pixels (IMX616, f/2.2, 15mm)
Telephoto: 8 million pixels (OV08A10, f/2.4, 79mm)
TOF lens

This 50-megapixel main camera uses Samsung GN1 CMOS and has a sensor area of ​​1/1.3 inches. After four-in-one, the single-pixel area can reach 2.4 μm. Compared with Meizu 17, its light intake has increased by about 70%. With the night scene algorithm, Meizu stated that its dark-light imaging brightness has been increased by 8 times (*based on Meizu laboratory data).

Not much to say, let's just look at the proofs.

The main camera of Meizu 18 Pro can handle the daytime outdoor scenes and indoor scenes with sufficient light. The telephoto end has also been optimized compared to the previous generation, but the ultra-wide-angle lens always has a worse imaging effect than the main camera, and the imaging tone has also changed.

What really makes me think that it is particularly Pro is that it comes from the dark imaging under the Dark Vision extreme night scene algorithm. Meizu even put the sentence Dark Vision on the watermark of the Meizu 18 Pro photo model.

Through this set of simple dark-light proofs, you can see that the amount of light entering the automatic gear is already at a very considerable level. The brightness of the film is several levels higher than the ambient brightness that I saw with the naked eye at the time, but the smearing feeling is more obvious. . After the night scene mode is turned on, the camera suppresses the high-light part to a certain extent, and performs a brightening operation for the dark-light part. The lines of the building are clearer, and the detail retention after zooming is much more than that of the automatic file imaging. The purity of imaging has also been improved.

I don’t know whether to praise Qualcomm or Samsung, or Meizu. When the Meizu 18 Pro turned on the night scene mode, its imaging speed was not slowed down much, and the camera interface did not make any long exposure or multi-frame shooting. Prompt, it can be taken with a click like an automatic file. The only difference is that a circle "Processing" will appear at the button of the album, and it will take about 1~2 seconds to complete the process before you can view it. The night scene becomes a film, this kind of experience improvement is a boon for users with unstable hands.

In the future, Meizu 18 Pro will also bring camera functions such as deep focus and 8K video recording through OTA.

The front camera of Meizu 18 Pro is 44 million pixels, and it also supports the algorithm of Rainbow Soft as usual. How does it perform? Let's just look at the proofs.

The rear camera does not have a prominent Meizu 18, and the camera uses a rear three-shot configuration.

Meizu 18 camera configuration:
Main camera: 64 million pixels (IMX682, f/1.6, 26mm)
Wide/Macro: 16 million pixels (S5K3P9SX, f/2.2, 15mm)
Telephoto: 8 million pixels (OV08A10, f/2.4,79mm)

The main camera part uses the 64-megapixel Sony IMX682 sensor, which has a very stable performance in most scenes. The telephoto part is also on par with the Meizu 18 Pro, and the ultra-wide-angle performance is also one step behind.

Although Meizu 18 also has the "DarkVision Extreme Night Scene" algorithm, its resolution and screen brightness are a bit inferior to 18 Pro.

Strike a balance between Volkswagen flagship and brand soul

On the day before the release of the Meizu 18 series, Meizu also specially held a formal and grand conference for Flyme 9. Let's not repeat all the highlights of Flyme 9 here. In the process of use, the three points that impressed me the most with Flyme 9 are: the purity of "0 pre-installed / 0 push / 0 advertisement", the multi-purpose "floating small window", and the meticulous privacy protection.

In particular, the function of floating small windows not only exists in multitasking, but also has application scenarios for floating small windows in places such as message reminders, shortcut switch settings, content sharing, and text operations. And the operation and interaction are in line with ordinary people's thinking habits, and a lot of thought has been spent on subtleties. This is also my impression of Flyme all the time.

Finally, I want to talk about the issue of product strength. There is no doubt that the Meizu 18 series are flagship products. Even though Meizu is now called a small factory in Zhuhai, Meizu, which only polishes one or two machines a year, is obviously still somewhat capable. For example, in the supply chain, the configuration is not outdated due to small quantities, and the foundation for many years is to make them thin and beautiful, which is difficult for many new companies pursuing growth.

Maybe Meizu can produce a larger, thicker and heavier plastic frame, plus a straight screen Snapdragon 888 model, and then sell it cheaper to get more shipments, but in the end Meizu did not do so. The small and beautiful Meizu obviously took care of it, and the Meizu 18 series was obviously taken care of. They have achieved a balance between the Volkswagen flagship and the soul of Meizu. This balance is just like the counterweight of the Meizu 18.

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