Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Is This The Most Underrated Smartphone Right Now?”.
So I’ve been getting a lot of requests from you guys to check out this device in front of me. This is the 16th. It’S the latest device from a zoo. I have featured some of their products in the past, one of their devices that had a screen on the back of the phone they’ve done some interesting stuff. You might not have had exposure to this particular brand.
That said in certain parts of the world they’re putting out some some really competitive stuff, and you can pick up a device like this one, the 16th starting around 360 bucks. So this one is kind of targeting the polka phone area of the segment. It’S got close to flagship specs, Snapdragon 805 processor, 3000 milliamp hour battery. The one in front of me has 128 gigs of storage and 8 gigs of RAM you’re talking about a 20 megapixel camera on the front dual lens setup on the back.
Now, if you are in North America, you’ll likely need to import this device. You can do so through Aliexpress and just keep in mind. You want to check your local bands for your particular wireless provider to make sure they’re supported by the unit that you actually purchase. This one features LTE and that’ll work on certain carriers, so just make sure before you buy, there is a plus version.
This is the smaller of the two now apparently, this device is also very light and slender weird name as well. I should mention it is not meizu 16, it is 16. Ah, I almost forgot features an inbuilt fingerprint scanner, which is incredibly unusual at this particular price point.
It has a slim, bezel, curved bezel top and bottom. I’M a fan of this. You guys know I’m not a big notch guy.
Let me peel this off peel this off peel this off peel the midnight black. You can see the dual lens setup here: 20 megapixels 12 megapixels Sony sensor, so it should be pretty good. You know cost to performance ratio below.
There is what looks like a flash kind of a ring. Flash unique design. This glass design is what everyone’s going for.
It’S that luxury feel and, to be honest at this price point, it’s one of the differentiating factors of this device. A lot of the competitors delivering similar specs at this price are not giving you these materials, metal and glass is pretty much all that’s on here. You still have the headphone jack. Many of you are fans of this.
I myself don’t see the need to rush it out the door. You would be type-c over here. Beside that a case to get you started a hard shell and it’s very slim – and I kind of like that, yeah, it’s free, okay, type C on one end, classic USB on the other, your sim tool and your quick charge power, brick included in the box. Okay, very nice, given the price point, you’re probably wondering what is this display all about? Well, it happens to actually be AMOLED, fhd plus. So you place your finger on the display right over here. I’Ll make sure it gets. Every angle of your finger. Cool succeeded all right whoo, you know what it’s pretty effective. This is what’s so weird to me. Why is it that Apple, for example, would be reluctant to do that? Why is it that market leaders, who should have way more money to invest in tech like that or to even buy up companies that are capable of doing it? Because, for me, that’s just an easy obvious fix to the problem of having strictly faced ID and if users understand that it’s an optical scan, if they understand that, maybe it doesn’t have the same security level. Then, what’s the problem, you just give them the option for the end display. Okay now, obviously, as you can tell straight away, there’s a pretty heavy skin situation going on. It is not stock Android. Although the settings menu is very similar, it’s got your usual eye friendly modes, there’s some different, optimization modes for the display, as well from adaptive standard photo it’s set to dynamic out of the box. You can also toggle in your color temperature independently. It’S got always on display functionality raised to wake, and so on.
So something that’s interesting to me about this phone is how slender, how slim and light it is, here’s the pixel 3xl even makes that one feel a bit fat. I guess the materials here do give off a premium. Vibe fingerprints are a bit out of hand, though, like I do have to say alright. Now the camera seems to be an area where you make some compromises, but ever since all these manufacturers at the lower end started to just use these very similar Sony.
Sensors you’ve seen the caliber of the budget, smartphone camera just elevate substantially. We have our usual little test here. We’Ve got Conor, we got the plant, there’s a beer bottle back there. This is just the standard photo mode. I have not changed anything by default. Beauty mode looks set to off by default. I like that.
Thank you very much, and what do we have? Okay, you know. Maybe it’s a little blown out in certain parts. It is a super bright environment. The image is OK and I’m gon na take a zoom for your money. Is that gon na? Suffice, I think I’d say so now.
Of course it does have a portrait mode. Also I don’t know. If I look at the lines around the hair, you can see it’s pretty good. I told you guys, I’m not a huge fan of this mode. In the first place, there are so few phones that do it well, video mode.
We can go up to 4k 16 by 9, it’s 1080p by default. It also has an HDR functionality, so let’s just give HDR a chance here, also whoo. Of course, we get a little bit more dynamic range with the HDR turned on selfie I mean we got to do it, the beauty mode enabled by default, trying to boot. There’S Jack, not beautiful. Maybe we can work on that anyhow face beauty off. Thank goodness. Ok, cool! Oh ok! I mean we’ve seen some more selfies in here in the studio we’ve seen them, we’ve seen worse Jack, that’s a phone that starts around 360 bucks in some cases, but it’s not the best selfie we’ve ever taken here.
It is by no means the worst need to check out. The speaker is very important. Ok, ok, so they’re doing what a lot of other manufacturers are doing.
Descending sound out of the bottom, as well as the earpiece kind of the high end being represented out of the earpiece as a secondary unit, not quite stereo sound. Even though some companies are calling it that. But you can’t completely block the sound and you get some extra clarity, especially on dialogue by having something forward firing.
So I’m a big fan of this style of implementation, especially when you’re dealing with such a slim bezel to begin with. There’S not a lot of places to put speakers, so this little sliver speaker unit, I mean that’s kind of a good move. This phone is a bit of a surprise. I got to be honest: here’s a good phone for an affordable price. Here’S an incredibly slim form factor: here’s a high screen to body ratio. Here’S uh! We don’t need a knotch, even though everyone else is doing one snapdragon, a four five: here’s eight gigs of ram: here’s 128 gigs of storage.
Here’S a 3000 milliamp hour battery. Here’S an OLED display, that’s six inches F HD, plus you kind of get where I’m going here. Here’S a headphone, jack cuz.
You still want it. Here’S a free case in the box. Here’S a fingerprint magnet! No, they didn’t say that in testing.
But there is a fingerprint sensor in the screen again at that price and functioning the way that this one does that’s a kind of compelling package. Isn’T it an unexpectedly compelling package, I’m starting to understand why you guys were sending me those tweets about this device and in fact you had questions you were like what about this versus the polka phone now, obviously, the polka phone has a much bigger battery. It’S got. Four thousand milliamp hour battery, so we need to take that into consideration, but this trade might be one that some people are willing to make, because here you have what I would consider to be traditionally a more premium build with the glass and metal you have a Slimmer profile, you have a no knotch situation, which I know matters to some. You have a six inch display in probably the most comfortable to hold form factor, maybe that I’ve ever held. Maybe you would be willing to trade a slightly bigger battery for those things. I don’t know – maybe I could get by utilizing this thing. Maybe I could live. They never cease to amaze me what they can deliver at the prices that they’re doing it.
There’S no gimmicks here at the 16th from meizu. I think it definitely deserved some attention from me. If you guys want to see me potentially switch over to this, you can always let me know down in the comments section. I think it’s pretty impressive now that it’s dipped below 400 bucks, that’s my take, but anyhow we’ll tell .