The upcoming Meizu E3 is up for another round of leaked images, this time presenting the phone in the color black and revealing a portion of the display, which appears to accommodate a gesture-based software Halo Button, similar to the Meizu M6s which was introduced earlier in January. In fact, at first glance one could easily mistake one device for another, however, there are clear design cues that separate the Meizu E3 from the M6s in these photos, including, but not limited to the fact that the alleged Meizu E3 appears to feature wider speaker grills.
The first clue indicating that the smartphone captured in these leaked images is not the Meizu M6s lies in the location of the lower antenna band, where this stripe is closer to the bottom edge on the supposed Meizu E3. Secondly, while the speaker grille on the lower edge of the M6s has five fine-drilled holes, the E3 has six. Next up, the Meizu logo on the E3 is located much lower on the back panel, and finally, the E3 seems to make use of a USB Type-C connector, whereas the Meizu M6s has a standard microUSB port. It’s still unclear where the Meizu E3 would accommodate a fingerprint recognition sensor but assuming that it has one, it should be fitted on one of the side edges as it’s clearly missing from other areas of the phone. In any case, the smartphone seems to adopt the same version of the proprietary Android skin as the Meizu M6s, and the software appears to provide the same Halo Button as before. It acts as a standard home button but also supports gestures such as swiping left or right to switch between apps, swiping up for multitasking and more.
Although the upper part of the Meizu E3 is unseen in this latest photo, the previously leaked image revealed a dual camera setup complete with a circular LED flash. The smartphone should be wrapped in metal and arrive in at least two color options – gold and black – and as a direct successor to last year’s Meizu E2, it should be equipped with better and newer hardware, at least in some areas. As yet it’s unclear when the device will be announced but either way, it seems to be on track for a market release in the first half of the year.