At the beginning of the year, Meizu announced in a high-profile manner that it would stop its traditional smartphone project and release its first "AI terminal", the Meizu 21PRO. At the press conference, Meizu brought Li Nan and Yang Yan to enter the exclusive AI world of Meizu under the guidance of these two "senior Meizu friends".
However, the actual performance of the Meizu 21 PRO as an AI terminal did not satisfy the Meizu friends, especially the actual landing of the AI function, which seems to be a little different from the publicity at the press conference. Just when people thought that Meizu's "ALL IN AI strategy" might be coming to an end, its official account suddenly announced the arrival of three new AI products on May 6.
(Source: Meizu)
Combined with the information leaked earlier, the biggest highlight of this press conference is Meizu's new mid-range model, the Meizu 21 NOTE, which is also the first time that Meizu has placed the "NOTE" suffix on the main brand model, and its performance is expected. In addition, Meizu also officially announced the arrival of Flyme AI, which means that although Meizu is about to release a mid-range machine, AI is still its core theme.
Since Meizu's return to the public eye, almost every product release has been controversial, especially after the complete shift to AI, the brand's positioning and strategy have changed, which has attracted a lot of skepticism. Whether Meizu can rely on this press conference to achieve a perfect counterattack is exactly what we are looking forward to.
Flyme AI,先把大饼填上
At the press conference at the beginning of the year, Meizu pushed the Meizu 21 PRO and the new Flyme to a certain height, such as "open AI terminal", "Raspberry Pi in the AI era" and other solgan bombardments in turn, making the market's expectations for it higher and higher.
But the reality is more like Meizu has drawn a perfect pie for everyone, in this "pie", those AI secretaries, AI applets, and open platforms almost only exist on the PPT of the press conference, not in the Meizu 21 PRO in the hands of users.
Flyme AI（新 Flyme for New Generations）要做的，就是把年初画的大饼给具现化。
At the bottom of the system, Meizu believes that most AI phones on the market only provide a GPT-like tool on the mobile phone to help users with the help of this app, while Meizu wants to do a real "AIOS", that is, let the mobile phone know how to help users achieve functions. For example, Meizu has mentioned "AI Secretary", which is an automated tool that can replicate user behavior, and when you order the same dish from the same takeaway with the same app multiple times, Flyme AI can automatically help you complete a series of operations, achieving true hands-free.
(Source: Meizu)
The core of understanding, analyzing, and learning the user's operation logic, and completing each step according to the intent, lies in the support of the large language model behind it, and Meizu advocates opening this part to more third-party platforms. Although the flame is high, Meizu's current problem is that it has not been able to achieve a breakthrough from "0" to "1", which is relatively difficult.
In terms of application, Meizu also took into account the part of the AI ecology and put forward a plan for AI mini programs. In fact, the AI applet is our common "agent", also known as Agent, which is equivalent to a professional small model tool that handles the work requirements in different scenarios. Although the development of AI Mini Programs is not difficult, limited by the installed capacity of Flyme and the number of developers, the response to this plan after its announcement does not seem to be very enthusiastic.
(Source: Meizu)
Flyme AI can be said to be one of Meizu's most interesting "new products" this year, and only one of the features has been officially announced: live notifications. Live notification is a dynamic notification reminder similar to iOS's Dynamic Island and Honor's Dynamic Capsule, which is a popular feature nowadays. As for whether Flyme AI can implement the AI functions and plans announced at the beginning of the year, it remains to be officially revealed.
The pre-installed Flyme AI is naturally the Meizu 21 NOTE, which will be equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile platform, with a display size of 6.8 inches, and also has a white bezel version. In fact, the configuration of this model is indeed not too eye-catching in 2024, and how Meizu can make the new Flyme AI play a greater role in this mid-range model may be what Meizu friends are concerned about.
「ALL IN AI」战略，魅族成了吗？
Although Meizu is not the first mobile phone manufacturer to propose an AI strategy, it is the most thorough mobile phone manufacturer to turn to the AI track, starting with the Meizu 21 PRO, all of its products will be endowed with "AI" characteristics. Of course, judging from market feedback, Meizu's "ALL IN AI" is indeed a bit thunderous and rainy.
Meizu 21 PRO is Meizu's first AI terminal, and its own product performance is actually at the mainstream flagship level, such as the performance is supported by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile platform, and the peripheral configuration of the fuselage also has mEngine motors, ultrasonic fingerprints, etc. HOWEVER, IF IT IS CLASSIFIED AS AN "AI TERMINAL", THE MEIZU 21 PRO'S PERFORMANCE IS RELATIVELY AVERAGE.
(Source: Meizu)
In terms of function, Meizu 21 PRO can only achieve AI assistant, AI screen recognition and AI image processing, etc., among them, the AI assistant also had the wrong answer to the question in the early stage: some netizens asked the Aicy assistant "How about OnePlus 12", but the answer it gave was"Equal to 3", which is ridiculous. Although Meizu has optimized this kind of problem in subsequent updates, it has also left a bad impression on consumers.
(Source: Meizu)
OF COURSE, WHETHER IT IS AI ELIMINATION, AI EXPANSION OR AI ASSISTANT AND OTHER AI FUNCTIONS, IT IS NOT UNCOMMON ON MOST NEW MOBILE PHONES, XIAOMI, OPPO, HUAWEI AND OTHER BRANDS OF NEW PHONES, BASICALLY CAN USE SELF-DEVELOPED LARGE MODELS TO EMPOWER, PROVIDE SIMILAR AI FEATURES, WHICH LEADS TO MEIZU ALTHOUGH SHOUTING THE SLOGAN "ALL IN AI", BUT FAILED TO MAKE A BIG ENOUGH DIFFERENTIATION.
However, Meizu's advantages are also not available to other brands, such as the field of virtual reality or the field of car machines, which can complete the transformation from intelligence to AI driven by Flyme. In the promotional animation of Flyme AI, it was revealed that Meizu seems to be preparing a 65-inch LED TV to enter the AI home appliance market.
(Source: Meizu)
It can be said that in the initial stage of the AI mobile market, Meizu is indeed the one that has taken the biggest step, and the results brought by the early stage are not as great as everyone expected, perhaps because Meizu's Flyme has always been a leader in the customization system in the past, and Meizu friends naturally have higher expectations for its debut after entering the AI field, which is why there are some gaps that do not match expectations. Market data shows that the initial sales of Meizu 21 PRO are about 2-3 times higher than that of the previous generation Meizu 20 PRO, and the former has also won the first place in sales at the same time and at the same price, and the performance is still in line with expectations.
AI mobile phone war, can Meizu turn the tables against the wind?
Counterpoint Research, a market research agency, pointed out in the latest "Generative AI Mobile Phone Industry White Paper" that AI mobile phones will enter an explosive period in 2024 and may break the 1 billion mark by 2027, accounting for more than 50% of annual shipments, and are in the mainstream position.
Perhaps seeing the change in the direction of the mobile phone market, since 2023, most mobile phone manufacturers have followed the trend of AI and launched "AI mobile phones", and in this "AI mobile phone war", Meizu can be said to be the most unique player.
Compared with other manufacturers, Meizu's mobile phone business has not been too eye-catching before the Meizu 20 "returns" to the market, especially after many rounds of reshuffle, there are few mainstream manufacturers left in the mobile phone market, and Meizu wants to change the track, and the pressure is still very high. At the launch of the Meizu 21 PRO at the beginning of the year, Li Nan also said frankly that the reason why Meizu wants to be a "Raspberry Pi in the AI era" is the ecological niche of a small brand in the era of large models.
(Source: Produced by Lei Technology)
Meizu's "AI device" positioning is more inclined to platform-level AI, which means that Meizu needs to continue to roll out hardware and improve software services so that more developers can join it. This may explain why Meizu mentioned at the press conference at the beginning of the year that some AI functions are still not open, but in fact, it is still waiting for the arrival of the new Flyme AI.
In addition to the arrival of the first mid-range AI model, the Meizu 21 NOTE, there will also be other new products such as Flyme AI and AI TVs to jointly build Meizu's AI ecosystem. At that time, it is not too late for us to judge whether Meizu can usher in a turnaround in this AI mobile phone war.
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During the auto show, Lei Technology's new media tram of "pay attention to electric vehicles and understand intelligence better" sent a luxury reporting group to Beijing to conduct a systematic front-line professional in-depth report, with a total of 8 videos, 8 in-depth analysis and massive short content, the whole network received millions + readings, and won a number of WeChat 100,000+ explosive models (real traffic), which attracted great attention in the professional media of the industry.