Behold, a smartphone devoid of buttons and ports

Some call it madness. Others call it the next logical step in smartphone evolution. Meizu calls it, fittingly, the “Zero.” It’s equal parts fascinating and maddening. And while being “totally seamless” with “a truly uninterrupted design” is probably not going to be enough in and of itself to get people to purchase the thing, it’s hard to shake the idea that all handset manufactures are heading in that direction anyway. So good on Meizu for getting there first, I suppose.

So, no Sim card slot, and no charging port — thank goodness for eSIM tech and wireless charging. There’s a fingerprint sensor under the front glass and the physical buttons have been replaced with virtual ones. As for the speaker grilles, those have been replaced by something the company calls “mSound 2.0,” which appears to utilize the screen for sound.

How well that will function versus a more traditional method remains to be seen. Honestly, it sounds like a phone created on a dare, but an impressive feat nonetheless. Other specs include a 5.99-inch AMOLED screen and a Snapdragon 845 processor. The rest of the relevant info, like price and if/when it’s coming to the States, is still very much up in the air.

Mobile World Congress next month seems as good a time as any to announce all of that.