Meizu teaming up with MediaTek to create the 'best facial recognition technology on smartphones'

Meizu's facial recognition technology will be debuting sometime next year.

With fingerprint sensors now ubiquitous in the smartphone segment, brands are exploring new options for unlocking devices. Facial recognition is the obvious choice, and currently we have two very different implementations available: Samsung's iris scanning on the Note 8, and Apple's Face ID on the iPhone X.

The iris scanning feature on the Note 8 is meant to be an alternative to the fingerprint sensor, but Face ID is the default way to unlock the iPhone X. There are key differences in the way both companies approach the feature, but the premise is the same: using your face as a password to unlock your phone.

And now Meizu is looking to join the club with its own facial recognition tech. According to the company's head of global marketing Ard Boudeling, Meizu is partnering with MediaTek to create the "best facial recognition technology on smartphones:"

We're working together with @MediaTek to create the best facial recognition technology on smartphones. We hope to show you in 2018. http://pic.twitter.com/lYnFXMtblL

— Ard Boudeling (@ArdCB) October 30, 2017

The Chinese manufacturer is a relative unknown in Western markets, but Meizu has several firsts to its name. The company was the first to launch a phone with 128GB of internal storage, which it did all the way back in 2013 with the MX3. Then there's the Pro 6, the first phone in the world with 10 cores.

This year's Pro 7 Plus has a secondary display at the back that comes in handy when you're tring to take photos using the rear camera. We'll have to wait until 2018 to see what Meizu has in store for us.