We weren't expecting to hear anything about the Meizu MX so soon, but as always, CEO Jack Wong loves surprises. Earlier today, our main man quietly mentioned on his forum that his upcoming 4-inch Android phone will now be unveiled in China at the end of September (around the same time as the next iPhone event?), meaning we won't have to wait till the end of the year to see all the goodies. What's even more interesting, though, is that there will be two MX variants: the 16GB version comes with a dual-core chip, while the 32GB version will sport a quad-core beast.

While it all sounds dandy, we're not entirely sure which quad core chip gets to cuddle with the MX next month, as Samsung (a known buddy of Meizu), Qualcomm and even ARM aren't expecting quad core chips until 2012 the earliest, whereas NVIDIA's Kal-El is due to debut in tablets only this month. Well, we shall find out in a few weeks. As for the rest, Jack also confirmed that the MX will still have a removable back cover, though it'll now sport a micro-USB port instead of the aging mini-USB socket -- a bold move in a country where the latter is still commonly used. Anyhow, for now, enjoy the latest batch of MX patent drawings in the gallery below.

Update: At the time of writing this, we were assuming that the MX will be launched at the announcement event (Jack's wording was something along the lines of "release" and "announce"), but given the M9's pre-launch pattern last year, it looks like the MX's end-of-year launch still stands. But hey, at least we'll probably still find out what this mysterious quad core chip will be at the unveil event next month.