Meizu Pro 7 Plus Hands-On: This Phone Changes How You Take Selfies

Meizu Pro 7 Plus Hands-On: This Phone Changes How You Take Selfies

Ben Sin , Contributor

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Ben Sin

The Meizu Pro 7 Plus has a secondary display on the back of the device.

The smartphone industry has been saturated and overcrowded for a few years now -- seemingly every other week, there's a new device, from the dozens and dozens of phone brands that exist. At least in the beginning, you could still tell the difference between a "premium" phone from a "big name" brand like Apple and Sony from the budget Chinese brands. But around 2015 Chinese manufacturers began to get really good at building hardware that felt equally premium (likely due to a maturing supply chain and dropping component prices). That led to a flood of metal unibody phones hitting the market. While that was good news for consumers, it was getting really tough for tech writers and reviewers to come up with new ways to write about these phones when they all look and behave the same.
Luckily, smaller Chinese phone brands seem to have realized that to stay afloat in the market, they must differentiate. So in recent months, we've been getting phones with a unique feature, like having four cameras or a battery that can last an entire week. It's like what Falcon said to Bucky in Captain America: Civil War, "everybody's got a gimmick now."
So it is not surprising that Zhuhai-based Meizu's 2017 flagship, the Pro 7/Pro 7 Plus, has a very distinctive feature: it has a secondary display on the back of the device.
Now the idea of having a second screen itself isn't new: that's been a stable of LG's V series since 2015 (though there are rumors suggesting LG has done away with the extra display for the upcoming V30). Having a display on the back of a phone has also been done, most notably by the YotaFone, which has an e-ink display. But Meizu's new device is different because the rear panel is a full LCD touchscreen that can do several things, most interesting of which is it allows you to change the way you take selfies.

How it works is simple: a swipe down on the secondary screen brings up the camera viewfinder (this action works even if the main display is off), showing what the device's dual 12-megapixel lenses see. Tap on the secondary screen and the device will snap a photo using the dual cameras. This means your selfie is captured with the phone's main camera on the back, not the selfie lens on the front.

Ben Sin

The camera in action.

Why is this useful? A phone's rear camera is usually the stronger set-up, so you're essentially taking a higher quality selfie. And because the Pro 7 has two cameras, it can, of course, do that bokeh effect that's all the rage these days. Below is a sample of the effect in action, taken with the secondary display on the Pro 7 Plus.

Ben Sin

The bokeh effect in action.

Notice the photo focused on the subject (in this case the phone and tripod) and blurred the background (me) in a natural manner. This isn't quite as good as the OnePlus 5's effect, but it sure beats phones like the Gionee S10. When not helping you take photos, the secondary display displays notifications, relevant information like battery percentage (if you're charging the phone), step count from the phone's built-in pedometer, and weather. It can also display a wallpaper of your choice.

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The pedometer works as advertised. I checked the count with my Fitbit and it was close.

Ben Sin

You can place a wallpaper on the second screen of the Meizu Pro 7 Plus.

On the front, the device is similar to previous Meizu devices, sporting the company's innovative "mBack" hardware/software button set-up (which essentially combines Android's "home" and "back" buttons into one).
Now you may be wondering, "so what is the point of the second screen other than allow me to take selfies with the main camera?" Meizu's designers came up with the secondary display because they believe many young people tend to place their phones face down in social gatherings, which leads to missed notifications. The secondary display, according to Meizu's theory, offers a discreet way to keep tabs on your phone without leaving it face up.
I'm not sure the second screen will be useful to me in a day to day setting (because I don't take selfies), but I do think it's innovative. Even without the hardware change, Meizu's phones have always been very solid devices that offer great value. Meizu's Flyme software is one of the better Chinese software offerings, bringing legitimately useful additions.

Ben Sin

The Meizu Pro 7 Plus.

Ben Sin

A photo sample taken with the Pro 7 Plus.

The specs this year looks great too. In addition the dual 12-megapixel camera (Sony's IMX386 sensors with 1.25 um pixels), the device runs on the newest MediaTek chip, the Helio X30, which is said to be on par with the newer Snapdragon chips. The 5.7-inch quad HD display on the Pro 7 Plus is a gorgeous AMOLED panel that pumps out deep blacks and a wide color gamut. I've only tested the camera briefly but it is a strong improvement over previous Meizu devices, and appears to be better than the shooters on most Chinese smartphones not named Huawei. The Pro 7 Plus is, however, pricier than previous Meizu phones too. The device will retail for around 3,380 yuan/$500 (for the standard Pro 7 with 4GB of RAM and 1080p display) and 4,080 yuan/$600 (for the Pro 7 Plus with 6GB of RAM and a quad HD screen)

I'll be back with a full review of the Meizu Pro 7 Plus in about a week.