OnePlus gets dose of its own medicine, courtesy of Meizu

Continuing its tradition for marketing excellence, last week OnePlus created a new ‘contest’ that asked users to trade in a Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, or Note 5 for a free OnePlus 2. The tech world instantly took to mocking the deal, especially considering the latter two phones are essentially worth double the price tag of OnePlus’ latest flagship. Now Meizu is firing a shot at OnePlus’ marketing campaign by giving OnePlus 2 owners the chance to trade in their phones for a brand new Meizu Pro 5.

While the OnePlus campaign asked us to “#taketheedgeoff”, the Meizu campaign is asking us to “#taketheheatoff”, a jab at the Snapdragon 810.

Honestly, we think this is pretty genius. There are still a lot of people shaking their heads at Oneplus over the Samsung contest, and this is a great way for a Meizu to get some free publicity. But is this deal any better than what OnePlus was offering? Depends on who you ask.

The design of the Meizu Pro 5 is certainly inspired by the iPhone, which could be an immediate turn off for many folks. And the same goes for the heavily skinned Flyme OS, based on Android 5.1 Lollipop. If you can get past that (and throw a good launcher onboard), the Pro 5 actually sports some killer specs.

At the heart of the Pro 5 is an Exynos 7420 processor, the same chip used in the Galaxy family that OnePlus was asking you to trade away. Other specs include a 5.7-inch full HD AMOLED display, a 21MP Sony IMX230 camera, a 5MP front cam, 3GB or 4GB RAM, dependent on the 32 or 64GB model, a fingerprint scanner, microSD, Type C with fast charging support, and a 3050 mAh battery.

In the long run, we doubt this will bring Meizu very many new fans, but it’s still great to see someone giving OnePlus a taste of their own medicine. And for what it is worth, the Pro 5 is actually listed at a higher price than the OP2, starting at $438.