The Fastest Android Phone in 2018?

Meizu just held a product launch event in Beijing for its latest flagship product – the Meizu 16.

SEE ALSO: Meizu Releases Its New Budget Phone the Mblu 6T Starting at $124

Meizu 16 adopts a 6-inch 18:9 AMOLED display with a screen resolution of 1080 x 1920. It runs on the Snapdragon 845 chipset with octa-core CPU. The version with the highest specs has 8GB of RAM and 256G of internal storage, and is powered by a 3010 mAh battery (3640 mAh for the plus version). It also supports fast charge which fills up 67% of battery with 30 mins of charging.

The new flagship features a stunning 1.43mm bezel on the side, giving it the thinnest side bezel of all smartphones on the market. You still get a bit of the chin, however. It has an impressive screen-to-body ratio of 91.18%.

Now, with a big screen, the 16 also supports full-screen gestures. The basic controls are standard as to most other phones with full-screen gestures. However, Meizu takes a step further by also optimizing the controls for left-handed users, which is what a lot of other brands has chosen to ignore.

Meizu 16 is super light weighing only 150 grams, with a thickness of 7.3 mm. Despite its light weight, Meizu also claims the 16 is the fastest performing smartphone on the market, beating all other brands in terms of speed test scores. Now that’s a bold claim, and I’m excited to see more tests done by other reviewers. However, I do know that the 16 uses a new liquid cooling technology which definitely boosts its CPU performance.

Another really cool feature coming with the 16 is the in-display fingerprint scanner. Meizu claims the technology is 8 times more expensive than the widely-adopted scanner on the back. To bring a quality unlocking experience, Meizu tested and fixed over 300 bugs to achieve an unlocking speed of 0.25 second with an unlocking success rate of 99.12%. It claims to have the fastest and most secure fingerprint unlock system on the market at the moment.

The phone uses a Bluetooth 5.0 technology, meaning even with wireless earbuds you can get premium sound quality due to its high speed. For those of you who hate using audio adaptors, Meizu 16 has kept the 3.5mm audio jack. It also supports in-game spatial audio for a better mobile gaming experience.

In terms of the back camera, we have a 12MP and 20MP dual lens setup. Worth mentioning is that the camera uses 4-axis stabilization, IMX 380 (CMOS), and Spectra 280 image processor, giving it a top-of-the-shelf hardware package for smartphone photography. The front selfie cam supports 20MP photos and 1080p, 30 fps videos.

Along with the 16, Meizu also unveiled a flagship speaker – Gravity. The Gravity speaker adopts a very futuristic design and is priced at 1099 yuan ($161). The head of acoustics at Meizu claims that Gravity adopts the newest DPS technology, giving it one of the best Hi-Fi sound qualities compared to other products in the same price range.

Now, the standard 16 is priced at 2698 yuan for the low-spec version with 6G of RAM and 64G of storage, and goes up all the way up to 3998 yuan for the plus version which has 8G of RAM and 256G of storage. Is it really the fastest smartphone as they claim? And is it worth the price? I guess this calls for another smartphone review!