Pixel 4 and Meizu Zero win iF Gold Awards, even though only one of them exists

iF hands out a lot of design awards – a lot. It covers just about every consumer product category under the sun, from smart fridges to baby strollers to water bottles. And phones, so many phones.

Google walked away with one of only two Gold Awards, won by the Pixel 4 and 4 XL duo. The company earned a few design awards too for the the Pixel 3a and 3a XL and even accessories like Pixel 4 cases. The Nest Mini speaker scored a design award as well.

Samsung’s entire 2019 Galaxy A-series got an award in the Product category, the Galaxy A80 and Galaxy A8s were singled out specifically. The latest user interface on the Galaxy Watch Active2 got the nod as well.

HMD’s Nokia feature phones proved popular with the jury as well, especially the KaiOS models – Nokia 2720 Flip and 800 Tough. The simpler Nokia 110 and 105 were honored too. The Nokia 7.2 Android smartphone also scored an award.

Xiaomi isn’t walking away with empty hands either (Mi 9, Mi 9 SE, Mi Band 4), nor is Motorola (One Vision, One Action and One Zoom). The OnePlus 7 Pro won an iF Design award too. HTC was recognized for its activities outside smartphones, the 5G Hub and Vive Focus Plus VR headset.

This just leaves us with the most confounding honor – the second Gold Award, which was won by the Meizu Zero. That’s the “non-porous” concept that did away with the USB port, headphone jack and even hardware buttons. There were no holes or protrusions, instead the phone was supposed to rely on wireless charging (18W) and data transmission, along with mSound 2.0 screen sound tech.

However, this never made it out of the prototype stage – Meizu never released the Zero to stores (even though the iF website lists “Date of launch: 2019”). The company tried to launch the device through a crowdfunding campaign, but that failed spectacularly.

It’s not even a unique concept, vivo showed the Apex 2019 in January last year, which had a similar design (but used pogo pins on the back so it still supported wired charging). There was even a working unit, which impressed with the full screen fingerprint reader.