The Meitu T8 is now available in China, and it’s being marketed as the perfect selfie phone. The downside for U.S. users is that they won’t be able to buy one any time soon, if ever, although the good news is that some of the phone’s features are available in the U.S. via standalone apps.
Perhaps reviews on this selfie phone will even serve as vehicles to drive the popularity of Meitu’s apps higher. Some of the company’s apps have already gone viral, but if you haven’t heard about them and the T8 selfie phone interests you, then you might want to check them out.
Meitu T8 packs powerful selfie hardware
In a review posted on PC Mag, Angela Moscaritolo said her overall impressions of the T8 were positive. It certainly sounds like the company is going entirely for vanity and looks, as the box is eye-catching in copper and black, and the handset itself was a metallic orange color that changes depending on how the light hits it. The other color options are rose gold, black, gray and blue.
The Meitu T8 selfie phone has a 12-megapixel dual-lens camera on the front and a 21-megapixel camera on the back. The phone’s camera app has a number of effects and filters built in, so it’s not necessary to have another app to edit your selfies in most cases. The T8’s editing features are powered by artificial intelligence and can even detect genders and ages and then apply effects based on those readings. For example, the phone will smooth out the skin more on a senior citizen than it will on a child. On men, it will cover bags under the eyes but not facial hair.
There is a variety of filters similar to those found on Instagram and several “beautification” features such as “auto face-lift,” “dark circles,” “anti-acne,” “tooth whitening” and more. Users can disable or keep the features on each photo and adjust the levels of application for each of the features.
The Meitu T8 gets good reviews in terms of taking low-light selfies, which is something even the iPhone 7 Plus struggles to do. The only catch is that users must remain absolutely still while taking photos in low light, or they will end up looking blurry.
Meitu’s apps can help your phone be a selfie phone
Those who aren’t in China can’t buy the T8 selfie phone, but Meitu does offer some apps to enhance the selfie-taking experience. For example, MakeupArtist Plus provides filters and tools enabling the user to try different looks, including everything from foundation to hair color, blush, eyebrow shapes, contacts, and even full-face makeup. When saving photos, the app makes both the original and the edited selfie available in the gallery so that it’s easy to compare the two side by side.
Meitu’s BeautyPlus app offers a lot of the beautification features the T8 has, such as smoothing out skin and removing wrinkles, adjusting skin tone, brightening eyes, covering acne and bags under the eyes, and more. The app actually goes beyond what the T8’s camera app does, however, as the editing features are much more detailed.
