It won't revolutionize the industry, but it certainly won't disappoint loyal Meizu fans.

In the blink of an eye, it's the second half of 2025, and Meizu fans have finally waited for the official pre-announcement of the Meizu 22.

At the end of the Note16 series conference on May 13th, Wan Zhiqiang, CMO of Starry Meizu Group China, donned a wig on stage to make the first official pre-announcement for the Meizu 22: a small-screen flagship, more personalized, lighter, and thinner, breaking traditional form, equipped with a periscope telephoto lens, and no compromises on imaging. It will be released this summer.

Summer may still be in full swing, but Meizu Technology can't keep everyone waiting much longer.

In the past couple of days, Meizu Technology has announced two significant pieces of news. First, the Meizu 22 challenges the global narrowest 1.2mm physical four equal sides. Second, they will publicly showcase the tactile experience of the Meizu 22 in advance through the innovative form of a "tactile blind box" at the 2025 ChinaJoy, held from August 1st to 4th. By abandoning brand and other factors to conduct a blind evaluation of tactile feel, Meizu has regained its confidence in tactile quality from years past. By the way, Lei Technology will also send a professional reporting team to the ChinaJoy venue to bring you more first-hand information.

(Image from Weibo)

Returning to the Meizu 22, perhaps Meizu Technology officials are aware that netizens have been eagerly anticipating its arrival, so they've come up with the slogan "not waiting in vain." On one hand, it could be a nod to the white panel; on the other hand, it seems to imply that they are fully prepared and haven't let netizens wait in vain.

Indeed, based on Lei's experience, while the Meizu 20 series and Meizu 21 series are both well-crafted, with balanced hardware configuration and Flyme AIOS aesthetics and smoothness, if there is anything regrettable, Lei Technology believes that the tactile feel and size were "not Meizu enough," lacking compared to the Meizu 18 in terms of imaging. Now that the Meizu 22 regains the tactile feel and white panel to return to the small-screen flagship market, will the market still welcome Meizu phones?

Don't worry, let's dissect it step by step.

Currently, the record holder for straight screen phone screen borders is the OPPO Find X8s, released in the first half of 2025. Through the second-generation chip-level screen packaging process, its screen border has achieved 1.25mm. The 1.2mm challenged by Meizu Technology, according to official statements, is achieved through a more complex self-developed LIPO process at the cost of a higher defect rate.

Unlike the common black single-layer bezel, the white panel is actually composed of two parts: a black border and a white border. Within the 1.2mm screen border thickness, the width of the white border is only 0.84mm, roughly equivalent to 8-9 sheets of A4 paper stacked together. In daily use, the extremely narrow screen border itself is not easily noticeable, so initially, many netizens questioned whether Meizu was doing "futile work".

Furthermore, the white panel has much higher requirements for material and processing precision than the black border, and the former is also more prone to defects. Lei learned from some netizens that the white border has slight light leakage at night and may turn slightly yellow over time.

But Meizu insists on making white panels, and Lei Technology believes they have their reasons, with emotional value and market differentiation being the main ones. Another reason is that in 2025, small-screen flagships are abundant, and mainstream manufacturers all have small-screen products with flagship positioning. "Small screen" can no longer be strictly considered a differentiation. Adhering to the white panel can better reflect the uniqueness of "what others don't have, I have".

Returning to the "supremacy of tactile feel," regardless of the significance of the extremely narrow white border, at least we can look forward to the tactile experience of the Meizu 22.

Huang Zhipan, current CEO of Hubei Starry Meizu Group Co., Ltd., revealed that the Meizu 22 will have two versions, with the standard version released first, followed by an ultra-thin large-screen version - Meizu 22 Air. Regarding the absence of a Pro version, Huang Zhipan provided further explanation, stating that the positioning of the Meizu 22 is already a Pro-level small-screen flagship (similar to the "standard version" of the OnePlus 13 being the "Pro").

(Image from Weibo)

After all, for the current mobile phone market, the distinction between the conventional standard version and Pro version has little potential to break through the norm, and manufacturers place more emphasis on the volume-driven standard version. The "Air" representing lightweight large screens is a new trend distinct from small-screen phones, and it's not a bad thing to get on board early.

As for imaging, Wan Zhiqiang mentioned "no expense spared" and "completely reversing the imaging reputation" at the Meizu Note16 series conference, and said that they have recruited many talents from major imaging teams to form a dedicated "imaging expert team" to address the shortcomings of Meizu phones in imaging.

It is yet to be seen how effective it will be, but it can only be confirmed that the Meizu 22 is the first model equipped with a periscope telephoto lens. Considering its small size, the highest current specification is the 1/2-inch sensor of the vivo X200 Pro mini. According to @DigitalChatStation, the imaging performance can be comparable to that of Ultra flagships, and there may be some breakthroughs in AI, but Lei believes that expectations should not be set too high.

What is the last week of July 2025, a significant time node?

In another month, a new generation of flagship chips will be released, and new flagships equipped with the new platform will flood the market, marking the new machine tide in the second half of the year. Compared to last year, the iteration pace of flagship chips this year has accelerated, meaning that the new generation of flagships will be released earlier.

Unlike the Meizu 21 series from the year before last, Meizu has not released a single flagship since the second half of 2024. If the Meizu 22 series is equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 or MediaTek Dimensity 9400, it would be somewhat underwhelming from a timing perspective. According to @DigitalChatStation's revelations, the Meizu 22 may skip this generation and be one of the first to be equipped with the second-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 or MediaTek Dimensity 9500.

(Image from Weibo)

Being among the first to release a new flagship chip gives manufacturers a first-mover advantage, and they can gain more popularity by catching the new machine tide. Meizu needs such an opportunity even more. Whether it's MediaTek or Qualcomm is not important in itself. On one hand, both chips are very powerful, and whether they are good or not depends on the manufacturer's own optimization.

The last product to do something similar should be the OPPO Find N series. It was originally at the end of the contemporary flagship chip pack, but then it skipped a generation of flagship chips, and the Find N5 directly became the first foldable screen to be equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. Anyway, it's better to skip a generation than to catch the "last bus" one month before the release of the new generation of flagship chips.

@DigitalChatStation also said that Meizu has a new phone equipped with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8s Gen 4, and it is speculated to be the lightweight large-screen Meizu 22 Air. If that's true, Lei would find it a bit unfortunate, as it means the positioning of the Meizu 22 Air is lower than that of a flagship. In addition to the core computing platform being one tier lower, the surrounding components may also have to make certain compromises and concessions. Moreover, according to relevant certification information, the rated battery capacity of the Meizu 22 is 5370mAh, which does not have a significant advantage over this year's small-screen flagships. It depends on the later efforts of OneMind.

It can only be said that the Meizu 22's hardware, except for imaging and the extremely narrow 1.2mm screen border, will be very common hardware configurations in the mobile phone market. Moreover, there are already many options in the small-screen race. If the Meizu 22 does not create some unique features, the difficulty of its comeback is easy to imagine.

Some netizens said that Meizu Technology may discuss the issue of "unlocking the Bootloader" at the new product launch event, treating "freely unlocking the Bootloader" as a selling point, which just happens to be able to satirize Xiaomi's recent uproar over unlocking the BL lock. Whether this is true or not, Lei believes that Meizu Technology has placed more focus on the construction of AIOS. The surprises that hardware can bring are already limited, and only software can catch people's eyes.

(Image from Coolapk)

Will the Meizu 22 finally not let Meizu fans wait in vain, or will it disappoint them again? Lei Technology believes that this answer will not come out in a short while, but it is worth recognizing that there is still such a manufacturer in the mobile phone market that insists on updating its product line, which is already relatively difficult.

Once upon a time, Meizu was one of the few brands in the mobile phone market that could go head-to-head with Xiaomi, with confrontational intentions in both products and pricing, such as the Meizu 16 being $1 cheaper than the Xiaomi 8.

Times have changed. Meizu has lost its voice in the mobile phone market and has gradually been left behind by first-tier manufacturers. Component supply is also in a relatively passive state. Every generation of products is well-crafted, but it is difficult to break through the norm, and there is always some regret. Fortunately, there is indeed a group of people behind Meizu who have always agreed with Meizu's product philosophy. It is precisely because of irreplaceable things like the white panel and design that they still insist on using Meizu phones.

Meizu Technology is also trying to explore its own audience, such as the Note16 series, which packs the configurations of hundred-dollar and thousand-dollar phones to the fullest. You may not know the Meizu brand, but the phone's configuration will not be inferior in any comparison.

(Image from Meizu Technology)

In addition, for important exhibitions such as ChinaJoy, Meizu Technology attends as much as possible to ensure that it has a place to gather fans offline and strengthen interaction between manufacturers and users, which is also worthy of recognition.

Obviously, Meizu Technology is aware of its unique value and deficiencies in the mobile phone field. Therefore, on the Meizu 22, we can still see the white border that it has spared no expense to retain, as well as what may be the best imaging system ever on a Meizu phone. Lei still chooses to believe that the Meizu 22 series will not disappoint Meizu fans, nor will it surprise the mobile phone market. It is such a new product with unique emotional value.

From this perspective, the Meizu 22 does not need to break through the norm. What it needs to do is to restore the "Meizu value" in the hearts of Meizu fans.

Source: Lei Technology

Images in this article are from: 123RF Authenticated Image Library. Source: Lei Technology