Meizu & The Tragedy Of The M7.

I was in another forum discussing the new player from from SmartQ which will feature a touch screen and wifi and sadi to dropping soon for 899RMB and it brough up some interesting ideas about the M8 and the ill fated M7. Thought I would share them...

When the M8 was first announced the concept was very interesting and appealing, but with some features removed, a lack of expertise, poor time management plus problems with chinese connectivity restictions has meant that the M8 is esentially 'half cooked' and has become far less apealing for international customers than when it was first announced. As has been mentioned many times before, to be paying so much for a device with many FW issues (although i'm sure will get better), no connectivity, no support etc seems like a bad deal for the international customer. The problem is that in the current cell phone climate, most touch screen phones are poorly implemented and show none of the user friendliness or internet experience you get with the iphone. This is why apple has shifted so many despite it's pretty average spec and why the M8 was so appealing initially because it was attempting to adopt many of the chracteristics that make the iphone great (capacitive screen, multitouch, strong browser, wifi etc) but with less restrictions and increased file support. Unfortunately it has not turned out to be the phone it had once had the potential to be.

However I think that if Meizu had focussed on creating an 'M7' type device with wifi web browsing (like what SmartQ are doing now) ,to rival the ipod touch, at the time when they started work on the m8 and implemented it well they could have posed a serious threat in the both the western and chinese markets as at that time wifi on pmp's and dap's was very uncommon and expensive. Many people were (and still are) also looking for a solution that again provided more codec support etc, better sound and less restrictions than apple products too which Meizu had already had experience in as the M6 showed. Meizu also managed to retain a high level of aesthetic appeal with the M6 which they could have translated to the M7 and attracted the style conscious consumers intrested in increased functionality, file support and sound quality. Not to mention the fact they would have been able to avoid the chinese authorities restrictions on wifi and even gained a presence outside of china and solidified their reputation as a producer of quality Mp4 players rather than just another chinese manaufacturer of 'iphone clones'.

It is a real shame in fact that Meizu decided to esentially dessert their core market as they had the potential to become a powerhouse in the field, particularly outside of China as lets face it no one is really doing anything particularly forward thinking or new at the moment in the dap/pmp market. They probably could have brought a device like the M7 to the market a year sooner than the M8 and using elements that were used in the M8 (capactive touch panel, high res display etc) but saving a lot of time by focussing only on media instead of all the extra engineering needed for a phone, by this time they could be selling a more functionally rich device than even the Cowon s9, Samsung p3 and even Sony's latest effort who are Apples main competitors.

After 2 years of the ipod touch being on the maket we have still yet to see hardly any connected (Wifi) pmp/dap to rival it, Cowon's Q5 was overpriced and poorly implemented and the only other competitor (outside of korea) making connected Pmp's are Archos and again we are seeing high prices and fairly average sound/performance/UI.

Now obviously Meizu is very much focussed upon the Chinese market but would it have been such a bad idea to have made a product closer to their comfort zone that could have been focussed on the domestic and international market? after all wifi is allowed on pmp's in china too. I have to this date heard no resaon as to why the ditribution deal with Dane Elec tunred sour, could it be that they were trying to distance themeslves from Meizu and it's controversial M8. I mean a powrful connected pmp/dap being ditrbuted by dane elec could after all have been a tidy little earner for both companies.

What do people rekon?

1. I think mobile phones are gobbling up the MP3 player market exponentially and therefore believe the M8 was the correct move to make for Meizu. Now that they've created one phone, the subsequent phones will be easier.

2. I think people overestimate the overseas market for Meizu. Sure, Dane-Elec may have moved a few units of M6; but Meizu's Chinese market is enormous in comparison.

yeah I agree convergeance devices/phones are taking over and are the future but I think there will always be a market for separate dedicated audio/video devices. All the big names are still putting considerable amounts of money into them and ipod sales have shown little signs of slowing down.

The subsequent phones will certainly be easier to design and produce but they have built a reputation on making mp4 players so to throw that away and take a completely new direction alienating old customers and focussing on a completely different much higher price bracket of product seems a little strange to me. However I suppose they may still produce some more players who knows.

The Chinese market is certainly enormous, but why not be able to sell you products both domestically and overseas? In terms of business this makes far more sense as you can reach even more people.The middle class consumers outside of China in europe/america/asia who could be meizu's potential customers is still a huge amount of people too.

Also from what I have heard Chinas middle/upper classes and those who can afford the M8 usually prefer not to by domestic brands and prefer to buy brands like apple or sony as they have more status attched to them.

I agree on the status issue; not that i am chinese or in china at the moment - but had i not plunked down the cash for the M8, had been prudent and waited i would be the proud owner of a HTC Touch HD right now.

On the other hand, where simple PMP market is concerned now that they have the M8 as a PMP device (more so than it is a smartphone/global phone) and they have excluded the wifi module physically - there would be no theoretical reason stopping them from releasing a PMP with the M8 specs WITH the WIFI module minus the GPRS (phone) module. I am sure they are not using the GPRS module board as the 'motherboard' - though i don't know about the innards of the device; even if they were they could leave out the physical sim connectors and GPRS connectivity and release such a device; but as Error said (and common convention says) convergence is the name of the game.

It is also possible Meizu could go the way of the Delorean... (those of you old enough to remember would get this analogy )

Originally Posted by sere83

All the big names are still putting considerable amounts of money into them and ipod sales have shown little signs of slowing down.

I just read an article in BusinessWeek a few weeks ago about iPod sales slowing down. If I remember correctly, 2008 was the first they that they sold less units than the previous.

I assume it has something to do with the current recession in North America and other parts of the world, since people are more conservative than they were before. You can't deny it, for most people who aren't concerned that much about restrictions/iTunes Store/decent SQ/bad EQ, generally people who don't care about technical details want a low-maintenance player such as the iPod.

Also, Apple's marketing gimmicks are quite good too, such as the useless feature in the new nano that allows you to shake to shuffle. It seems useful at first, but then you notice how much you'd use it. Probably just to show off every now and then.

Originally Posted by Err0r

I just read an article in BusinessWeek a few weeks ago about iPod sales slowing down. If I remember correctly, 2008 was the first they that they sold less units than the previous.

yeah I would say that was probably more to do with the economic situation rather than cell phones taking profits away from ipods, although phones are used by many as their main audio player too.

Loads of people in China use their cellphone as a music player to save money on an mp4 player. It doesn't make sense for them to buy two of the same things. If they cannot afford dedicated for both, they probably can't afford decent audio equipment either, so quality isn't much of an issue.

Personally, I currently use my Sony Ericsson Walkman as my audio player when I'm on the go. I still use my M6 for quality listening at home, since its EQ and output is really good.

Great points all around and I fear that anyone waiting for an M7 is going to have to get used to the fact that Meizu is now a phone manufacturer first and foremost. I imagine that Meizu's next big target is meeting China's rollout of 3G services with the M9. No matter if the M8 was late to the party, now that they have a platform to work from, Meizu has a chance to use their "home court advantage" to grab legitimate sales from other companies in the race to get a great TD-SCDMA phone to market. This time there won't be any comparisons with the iPhone because the iPhone won't even be compatible with the network. Of course, other manufacturers aren't going to ignore TD-SCDMA, but because it's a China-only standard, you could easily envision China getting the "sloppy seconds" treatment as far as handsets go.

I'm also afraid that any arguments from here on out are always going to have a bit of an "us vs. them" ring to them. As others have said, the Chinese market is just too big to ignore and, more specifically, the Chinese mobile market is, and always will be, far bigger than the market for MP4 players. Add in JkPwNsTeR's correct observation that mobile phones in China are the preferred devices for listening to music on the go and Err0r's point that this was the "correct move" for Meizu is clear.

In the end, though, I do sympathize with sere83 in that Meizu is/was the only manufacturer in China that appeared capable of building an MP4 (DAP, PMP, whatever) that could take on the best from Korea and elsewhere. They still are, but an M7 based off the M8 just isn't going to be the same as an M7 bespoke. There is still a market for dedicated devices and a company like SanDisk has shown you can jump in with low (or lower) cost players, sell a lot of them, and build a good reputation among audio enthusiasts. For Meizu, I think it all came down to chasing the biggest piece of the pie in an effort to grow the company...and it just happened that the biggest piece of the pie is in their own backyard.

...and yeah, that was a sterling example of mixed metaphors

Don't think the time is right for a 'do it all' phone - need a 5 fold leap in efficiency/battery storage density before these devices will be worth having...

Smart companies will be listening to what users want now and how they use mobile devices to develop next-gen devices. Perhaps products dedicated to single tasks but which offer seamless inter-connectivity with each other could be a good stop-gap until the technology improves???