Open Thread: What will be the biggest game change in smartphones for 2015?

2015 is well underway and we have seen some important steps that are driving the Chinese smartphone industry forward, but what is going to be the real game change for 2015?

We are almost 3 months in to 2015 and already we are seeing some huge changes from the Chinese phone market. We have seen more Chinese phone makers concentrate on international markets, more manufacturers are offering direct sales, and there have been some shocking technology changes.

Gizchina News of the week

Join GizChina on Telegram

At the time of writing Mediatek have really upped their game and are producing SoC’s that are more desirable than what Qualcomm have to offer. Chinese phone makers such as Elephone, UMi etc are working with developers to launch custom ROM’s and old favourites like Meizu have entered new markets with low-cost devices.

But the real question is what is going to really change the game for the Chinese smartphone market? Do you think Chinese phone makers commitment to alternate ROMs will pave the way forward, or do you think more direct sales options and lower pricing is what is needed?

This is an open discussion so write your ideas and opinions freely below and keep your eyes on the latest Chinese tech news to see if your options and ideas become a reality.

Disclaimer: We may be compensated by some of the companies whose products we talk about, but our articles and reviews are always our honest opinions. For more details, you can check out our editorial guidelines and learn about how we use affiliate links.

About the author
Andi

pdayahoo
March 12, 2015
There was no technological development in 2014 and so will not be in 2015
Everything is standstill no big deals at all.
Muhammad Yasir
March 12, 2015
Obviously , if some new tech that looks good , runs good and is cheap , made WIDELY available …. that could very well be it !

Yash Garg
March 12, 2015
Personally I’d like to see more sensible all-round phones… 2014 gave us a few decent phones but most others were only ‘almost there’, in the sense that there was always SOMEthing that spoiled the rest of the phone. Hoping for that to end this year!
- seven7dust
  March 13, 2015
  still waiting for batteries to catch up , how long has it been ?
  displays get more pixels , SOCs get more powerful but batteries oh batteries , no change since forever.
  all round phones mean huge improvents battery life and addition of OIS in camera IMO.

sai bhagavan
March 12, 2015
I think chinese should start exploring more markets..this will really up the smart phone price game around the world…people will get their hands on technology at affordable prices…and as far as technology is considered Chinese will keep pace with technology…thats what i saw in 2014 and they will for sure in 2015 also…

realjjj
March 12, 2015
I fear the game changer could be a tendency to up prices, Xiaomi appears to have changed course and others might follow.
From a design perspective they need to cut upper and lower bezels instead of doing the opposite just because Apple is stupid.
On the hardware side hard to see what could surprise , the SoCs available are known, 1440p is high end (less is not anymore) and maybe some 4k screens this year. Wifi ah would be nice but only if they also have accessories with it that are useful.
More ROMs are a waste of resources , the focus should be on having one that works very well and only after you have that, you can think about doing more. It would be nice to have at least clean Android as an option.
Small brands should try to offer decent support and better communicate with their customers and the press ,the lack of trust is a major problem. Guess that even goes for some big guys and Mediatek.
Big brands need to think beyond just phones, the tablet market is horrible, outside of China there is almost nothing buyable above the low end.Glasses are a huge deal ,remains to be seen if any china brand can innovate and do something before others show them the way. Watches are not a big deal but the world needs good devices similar to the ones currently selling at 200-350$$ to sell at 50 to 100$. Beyond that we need better form factors than a watch, more appropriate hardware and even UI. But the China guys need to be realistic about watches, if people pay 100$ for a phone, you can’t ask them to pay 100$ for a watch so they need to make really good products but also very cheap. Everybody else is dragging their feet when it comes to watches so someone from China can take the market by storm.
- balcobomber25
  March 12, 2015
  Xiaomi hasn’t changed course the price of components have gone up. The difference in price between the Mi4 when it was launched and the Mi Note when it was launched is about $50 USD. Keep in mind the Mi Note uses a bigger 1080p display, 1 GB more RAM and Gorilla Glass 3 covering the entire phone. Xiaomi still offers their products at very close to cost and they just announced a phone that will sell for about $70.
  - realjjj
    March 12, 2015
    LMAO parts prices have gone up?
    Not true at all, not to mention that the Note is lower high end and the Note Pro is the flagship. The Note is an outdated flagship in 2015 terms. And it’s not just the Note ,it’s pretty much everything they launch now,, including the Redmi 2.
    Parts prices have gone down, screen prices dropped hard, the SD801 is outdated and ofc the price is lower.
    They just didn’t wanted to drop the MI4 to 1499CNY and have the Note at 1799 and the Pro at 1999. like they would have done a year ago.
    Meizu sells the MX4 Pro at 2199CNY and it’s not even the cheapest 1440p device while also including a more expensive cam, the fingerprint sensor and a discrete LTE that leads to higher costs.
    You got 5.5 inch 1080p devices with 3GB of RAM at 999CNY (160$) because parts have gotten a lot cheaper.
    The ZTE Nubia Z7 Mini has been selling at 1499CNY since launch with 5 inch 1080p, SD801, @GB RAM and so on vs the mI4 at 1999CNY.
    1999CNY was the price band Xiaomi aimed for in the past , getting there wasn’t about costs they could have easily done better with the MI4 and the Note Pro, they just chose not to. That is a change in strategy.
    According to DisplaySearch screen prices have dropped 30% since last year. NAND prices are always dropping in a healthy way, camera prices have dropped pretty hard in the second half of 2014 and it keeps going with pretty much every single part.
    - Venci
      March 12, 2015
      Xiaomi Mi Note is one of the best devices out there, but it has really outdated specs. The price is also premium for china phone, but at this point Xiaomi has earned a reputation and that comes at a price.
    - Airyl
      March 13, 2015
    - balcobomber25
      March 13, 2015
      I meant the prices for Xiaomi in relation to their own manufacturing costs. A 5.7 inch phone uses more material than a 5 inch phone, using 3 GB of RAM costs more than 2 GB of RAM. Using an all Gorilla Glass body costs more than a plastic back cover.
    - MaxPower
      March 13, 2015
      Funny how they always bring up the Meizu pro to compare to Xiaomi Note pro and they always says that Meizu is a good deal while xiaomi is overpriced. What they don’t tell you is that they always compare the 16gb version of Meizu with the 64 GB version of the Xiaomi Note pro.
      But someone with intellectual honesty would compare the 64gb version of the Meizu instead, which costs 3099 CNY and the Xiaomi note pro costs 3299 CNY. Now please explain how a phone with a 2013 SoC, is a good deal while the Xiaomi Note Pro at 3299 CNY is overpriced? It costs 28$ more than the Meizu pro but you get a 2015 SoC, DDR4 ram, gorilla glass 4 etc.
      Please let’s not say BS. Nubia mini you said?
      Plastic Metal
      2300 mhA 3050 mhA
      Ram 2gb Ram 3gb
      MSM8974AA MSM8974AC
      13/5 mpx 13/8 mpx
      No glonass glonass
      SD card IR Blaster
      No quick charge quick charge
      Without mention the quality of the camera. And the difference still keeps going on.
      If you compare apple with pears you’ll never going to understand numbers.
      If we talk about price the only company that can compete with xiaomi is OPO but you have to deal with their invite system
  - Angry Mobile Nerd
    March 12, 2015
    You forgot to say you’re Xiaomi’s biggest fan.
    Honestly I was also very interested in the new Mi Note but recent battery tests have revealed very poor battery life and I have a feeling the Note Pro with it’s 2k screen will bomb the battery life even further.
    The Mi4 just sucked, it was stupid of Xiaomi to borrow design cues from the iPhone5 only for Apple to introduce a new redesigned iPhone 6 literally just a couple weeks after the Mi4 started shipping which basically rendered the Mi4 design as outdated by the time it hit the market.
    Xiaomi’s success is attributed to the sales of millions and millions of cheap Redmi phones as their niche is price, not innovation. For this reason alone I don’t foresee myself buying a Xiaomi phone anytime soon even if they make an awesome Mi5. The brand is simply to cheap now, I can’t go into a board meeting and put a Xiaomi phone down on the table even if it is a Mi Note Pro.
    - balcobomber25
      March 13, 2015
      I am a huge fan of Xiaomi but those numbers aren’t made up the Mi4 cost 1999 when it first came out, the Mi Note costs 2299. Are you going to deny the Mi Note has upgraded specs to the Mi 4? Me being a fan of them has little to nothing to do with the pricing of the phone.
      Your opinion is the Mi4 sucked, millions of people and most tech journalists disagree with you. But that is your opinion.
      - Angry Mobile Nerd
        March 13, 2015
        Believe me nothing would make me happier if Xiaomi would release official mi3 and mi4 sales figures. I’m in China 24/7 350 days a year and still see a lot more mi3’s than mi4’s. Anyone who spends as much time in China as me would agree.
        balcobomber25
        March 13, 2015
        Of course you will see more the phone has been out a lot longer and is now significantly cheaper. I see more Iphone 4 and 5’s than I do Iphone 6’s in the US. When I go to South Korea I see more S3’s and S4’s than S5’s. It’s like that with every new flagship.
        
        Angry Mobile Nerd
        March 13, 2015
        Yes and you see more S2’s than S3’s, and more S1’s than S2’s, right?
        Or does this theory only go back 3 generations? So only when Xiaomi launches the mi6 I will see more mi4’s than mi3’s or mi5’s? If I’m not understanding it correctly please explain to me at one point in time I should see more mi4’s than any other mi flagship phone before or after?
        My bullshit detector is beeping steadily.
        (and the iPhone6 launched in China well after the mi4 but I see a lot more iPhone6’s, A LOT more.)
        
        Airyl
        March 13, 2015
        No because anything beyond the S2 is too outdated to be used these days. And no, it doesn’t only apply to the third generation, it’s pretty obvious from his sentence.
        Your bullshit detector is broken.
        I see a lot more Mi3’s, Redmi’s and Zenfone’s in Malaysia compared to iPhones.
        Angry Mobile Nerd
        March 13, 2015
        Ok you dolt, you tell me at what point in time will we start seeing more mi4’s than other mi flagships?
        Waiting for your answer.
how about li fi tecnology.
10nm chips possably
koss_x_treeme
March 12, 2015
4k displays.. in 2016.. 🙂

MaxPower
March 12, 2015
I personally think that the multi ROM is a good idea. Some people might not feel comfortable downloading ROMS from needrom or some Chinese website without knowing who developed that. Smartphones have substitute PCs and we all use them to but online or dealing with sensitive data.
- desponent
  March 14, 2015
  If you have a chinese phone, downloading 3rd party roms should be the least of your worry if you’re the type who mind that kind of things lol.

Paul Sleight
March 12, 2015
The two principal rules of business –
1. Never disclose your secrets.
2. See 1 above…
Unfortunately many Chinese manufacturers tease us with leaks, breaking rule 1, then disappoint us by not coming up with the goods ; OR at least taking months after the promised release date.
Addicted as I am to this stuff, I need the leaks and teasers, I just wish they came to fruition sooner, and that the actual products looked like the renders, rather than being thicker, more plasticky, wider bezels, fake camera and battery specifications,… oh I could go on – boring!

Bruce S
March 12, 2015
Biggest game changer in smartphones? The “smartphone” market is already saturated so the emphasis for manufacturers will have to be on churn; i.e. offering bigger, better, faster at an attractive price point just in an effort to maintain or indeed increase revenues. We’ll see increased competition amongst manufacturers to attract customers to their offerings; we’ll see more direct sales from the factory warehouses to cut reseller and distribution overheads. I don’t currently see one “silver bullet” that will change or revolutionize the smartphone industry; the industry is in consolidation in the same way the car, TV and PC industries morphed and consolidated in years gone by. One thing for sure though; the winner in 2015 will be the customer!

David
March 12, 2015
Im sure gamechanger will be x86 and Intel with 14nm x86_64 bit chips that run x86 windows and linux with all programs like office, photoshop, autodesk, REAL games not freemium shit

Venci
March 12, 2015
Game changer for me could be Ubuntu phone and Project Ara. The are very different by nature but both can be the next big thing, maybe even together!
Ubuntu phone to replace your PC, laptop and tablet seems like impossible to accomplish in 2015, but its a thing i really dig in to. Well actually it doesn’t need to be ubuntu phone to do it, even a windows or android phone could do that in the near future, maybe windows 10 or android 6, who knows.
I really wish Project Ara launches sooner, i want that kind of phone, but yet again maybe not in 2015.
As of china manufactures, I don’t see things change that much. The phones will get cheaper by the day, availability and popularity will grow, but nothing spectacular in my eyes.
A thing that started to change is the popularity of Mediatek and Intels processors, which is a really welcome change! Also things like “hi-fi” sound, fingerprint scanners, bend screens, will most likely become more of a standart feature to have.
It should be a really great year for smartphone industry.

eliHd
March 12, 2015
The game changer is if chinese companies like xiaomi starts selling their phones directly to international customers and not using resellers like xiaomiworld and others charging $50-100 more than the original price in china. However I doubt it will happen.

Angry Mobile Nerd
March 12, 2015
I don’t predict any big game changers this year. MWC has passed and that’s where most manufacturers show their hands and we get to see if they have a royal flush or not.
I think Google might reverse direction with their next Nexus phone in terms of pricing and screen size and OnePlus might shock the world with the OnePlus Two but the biggest announcement of the year will be the iPhone 6s (or 7) for sure.
EDIT: I’m also looking forward to the MX5, should be very interesting if they go with a high-end Samsung SoC.
TheOracle
March 13, 2015
The greatest innovation in the next year will be the average consumer realizing they can buy kickass phones for less than $300 with 5 day battery life. That’s where the Chinese brands will shine and Asus has started the ball rolling with excellent specs for good prices. Several manufacturers will add to that with more useful every day practical features. We will see some very capable sub $200 phones with great designs and ‘flagship killer’ specs that surpass what OPO, Nubia, Xiaomi and Meizu have done in the past.
- March 13, 2015
  We’re all waiting to see what the OnePlus Two looks like after their strong release of the OnePlus One.

rajnish kumar
March 13, 2015
Mi NOTE brothers- both MI note and MI note pro.

JB
March 13, 2015
Just got my Jiayu S3 w 3g RAM, exceeded all my expectations yet I got surprisingly little joy out of it (was using Jiayu S2 before).
With mid range models being so advanced now I expect phones to go the way of ultra slim notebooks and digital cameras soon – suddenly we would stop drooling over the new models and last year’s phones would seem just as good (or good enough) so we stop buying.
These behavioral shifts tend to be subtle until suddenly when they’d happen all over the place. I suspect 2015 might be the time…
- desponent
  March 14, 2015
  You’re right, even though I’m drooling over some of the newer phones I know that I don’t really need them since my needs are already fulfilled with what I have now and I’m finding it hard to justify “upgrading for the sake of upgrading”; I’d rather use the fund toward other hobbies.

Airyl
March 13, 2015
What’s going to change the game in smartphones? Meh, I don’t know. Nothing really surprises me anymore, and the stuff that does is usually underwhelming in the end (Oppo N3). The one thing that might change the Chinese smartphone game is the rumoured Huawei Nexus, which if pulled of correctly could change people’s receptions on Chinese phones. Aside from that, everything’s at a standstill.
Mikey
March 13, 2015
Personal i think they schould put extra sensors in it. But they need to develop them to make them small enough to put them in one phone. With sensors i mean,… Smoke (fire alarm), CO2 sensor, infrared temp sensor, night vision, laser
- Rob
  March 13, 2015

Manish
March 13, 2015
Drop China = Clone mentality. Most of them are clones. That leads to undercutting and takes a hit on the sales of the actual devices and also being low specced than the originals are soon discarded in disgust adding to landfills.
Promote innovation in design, materials, internals, specifications. Many are doing just that and reaping benefits.
ROMs should have the needs of the customer as their prime focus instead of bells and whistles. I think instead of modular phone, we should have modular ROMs, so that a missing / desired feature can be added to my ROM as an upgrade.
….

Rob
March 13, 2015
I would like to see phones with good quality cameras (not just in bright sunlight) without fake mp ratings like we currently get with good quality large aperture lenses.
I also want the speakers to be improved, am fed up with the rubbish sound we get thrust upon us. I’m talking speakers where you can actually detect a faint hint of bass, doesn’t sound horrifically tinny and doesn’t distort at high volumes. We also need better ROM’s (only need the 1 if it’s good) and good build quality.
Phones don’t need to be thin as a sheet of paper, make them a couple of mm thicker and put a decent battery in there with an optimised ROM to improve battery life.
In other words JUST GET THE BASICS RIGHT!!
saor
March 13, 2015
I would like to see phones come with stock ROM and the option to switch to the manufacturer ui in the home settings. Simple really.

Gizchina News of the week

Andi

Today in Home