Tin Mok on the past, present and future of Meizu

In November, a presentation of the new Meizu MX2 smartphone took place in Beijing, and a day later we managed to interview one of the key employees of the company. Tin Mok, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, agreed to answer our questions. Ting has been with the company for a long time, knows the founder personally, and is actively involved in many aspects of Meizu's development.

Ting, hello, tell us a little about the history of the company. How did you get the idea to create your own brand? Who was the founder of the company? What inspired him? What products were originally released?

The founder of the company was Jack Wong. Mr. Wong was originally engaged in the production and sale of OEM products, but even when selling OEM devices, he tried to make them look individual, adding some of his own "chips" related to design or performance.

After some time, Mr. Wong realized that selling OEM devices would not get you far, and besides, they did not allow him to reveal his full potential as a developer and designer, so he decided to start his own company. The word "Meizu" is composed of two Chinese words, Mei is a person who is "in trend", interested in new technologies, Zu is a group of people. In fact, literally Meizu can be translated as "a group of geeks."

Mr. Wong was not only a developer, but also a designer, so even such a thing as a logo was given maximum attention. First, look at how Meizu is spelled in Chinese:

And here is a picture of the logo designed by Wong:

As you can see, Wong “converted” ordinary hieroglyphs into a fancy pattern.

The first model released under its own brand was an mp3 player - Meizu ME. After it there was a whole scattering of players from Meizu: E2, X2, E5, X6, E3, MiniPlayer.

But the company gained real fame in the Russian market thanks to the Meizu MusicCard player. We sold it under the Ritmix brand (RF-7400). Thanks to this model, at one time Ritmix players were considered to be of high quality in terms of sound.

After some time, Mr. Wong realized that the market for mp3 players is gradually decreasing, and multifunctional "combines" - smartphones - are coming in their place. Therefore, Meizu decided to refocus on the release of smartphones. (The first model to be released was the Meizu M8, which wowed users with its well-thought-out shell, against the backdrop of stock Windows CE 6.0).

It is important to note here that most models at that time worked on Windows Mobile, and Windows CE was installed mainly in any navigators or players (for example, Cowon Q5W).

The difference between Windows Mobile and Windows CE is best represented by the following example: Windows CE is a kind of toolkit from which a developer can "assemble" his own OS, while Windows Mobile is a "semi-finished product" already created from Windows CE.

Let me remind you that Meizu M8 had its own shell, which can rather be called practically its own OS, because literally everything was worked out in it in detail: from the desktop to all the settings menu items. All that was in the M8 from Windows CE was support for programs for this OS. Otherwise, it was a unique shell, made at the level of modern HTC Sense and MIUI.

Why did you stop producing players after the start of sales of smartphones?

Firstly, smartphones began to gradually replace the players, and secondly, Mr. Wong believes that it is necessary to concentrate on one direction, and not be scattered into several niches.

When and why did the company decide to make the Russian market one of the key ones? As far as I know, you even came to Russia yourself to get to know the partners who represent your company here?

Yes, we really came to Russia for this purpose. We understand that the Russian market gives the company a huge potential. In addition, we know that Russian users are interested in our products, and at one time they even ordered them from China. Also, the Russian market allows us to show that we are interested in brand development not only in China.

Whose merit is this?

Interest Ask. Vadim (Vadim Koliukh) played a huge role in establishing relations with the company. In addition to negotiating with us and representing Meizu in Russia, we are pleased to do business with Vadim also because he clearly understands the philosophy of our brand, thanks to which he can correctly position Meizu in the Russian market.

Do you also plan to release tablets?

Let me ask you a counter question: Do you have a tablet? How often do you use it? (Yes, there is, I use it from an hour to two a day). What about a smartphone? added Tin Mok with a smile.

The essence of this issue was that we use a smartphone many times more often than a tablet, so it is more profitable and more promising to produce smartphones. I believe that over time they will completely replace the functionality of tablets, Galaxy Note is only the first sign in this direction.

Is the company planning to release a device like the Galaxy Note?

Not at the moment. But no one excludes such plans in the future.

... in continuation of the question about tablets ..

In my opinion, the best tablets right now are the iPads. This is largely due to the quality of materials, design and, of course, the amount of software. At the moment, Android tablet loses to iOS. We would not like to provide our users with a "raw" product.

I know there were test ROMs for Meizu MX on stock Android, do you plan to release alternative ROMs without Flyme in the future?

In our opinion, stock Android is not perfect at the moment. Take at least their lock screen or on-screen buttons. That is why we are adapting it so that users get the most positive experience. Therefore - no, we do not plan to release firmware for Android without our shell.

Who is involved in the adaptation of the firmware for Russian users?

Our official partners in Russia.

Why did you decide to abandon the memory card slot?

This initiative comes from Google and we support it. If you pay attention, the entire Nexus series does not have a slot for memory cards, in addition, this has a positive effect on power consumption.

The most popular question from our readers is about the price, why is there such a big difference between the price in Russia and in China?

Many factors play a role here. Firstly, there is high competition in China, so we set a minimum markup for our Chinese users. Secondly, here we have our own sales channels, we sell our smartphones ourselves, and not through intermediaries, this also explains the low price. Thirdly, you must understand that the delivery of smartphones to Russia is also not free, plus VAT, because we sell officially, plus after-sales service, all this affects the price.

Many of our readers write that they would rather order a smartphone from China and save.

Of course, they can do this, but, firstly, they will have to wait for his arrival, and secondly, it is not a fact that the smartphone will reach them. In addition, if something happens to their phone, they will not be able to contact a service center for free diagnostics and repair in Russia, but will be forced to repair it for money or send it for service to the country (shop) where they purchased .

Why choose Samsung processors for your smartphones?

Let's take a look at the CPU market in general: MTKs are cheap CPUs that we can't use in our flagship. Qualcomm is certainly good, but only when it comes to supporting various communication standards. NVIDIA Tegra - no thanks. At the moment, Samsung is the leader in the production of processors, let's not forget that until recently, even Apple products used processors from Samsung, which is very significant.

Recently, more and more smartphones have appeared, the main feature of which is FullHD resolution, does the company plan to release such smartphones?

We are thinking about it. For the time being, we are unable to comment.

Do you plan to install more capacious batteries in your devices?

The main problem with power consumption is related to the operating system, not mAh capacity, which is why we are focusing on technologies related to optimizing battery life. This direction is also important for us. In the future, with the use of new processors, the situation will improve even more.

What is the reason for adding support for the FLAC format? Will there be a difference between FLAC and MP3 in regular headphones?

Don't forget that initially we were dealing with players, and part of our audience (albeit a small one) is people who use high-quality headphones and hear the difference between MP3 and FLAC. Despite the fact that there are few such people, they are also our loyal users, so FLAC support was made just for them. Of course, the average user listening to music on $20 headphones is unlikely to hear the difference between FLAC and MP3.

Tin, our interview has come to an end, maybe you want to say a few words to our readers in the end?

We are glad that our Russian users care about the fate of Meizu and ask questions. The official entry into the Russian market is an important achievement for us. Thank you for your interest in our company!