The MEIZU MX2 phone was released in 2011 but made no detectable splash in the marketplace

Here's another way to think of lenovo a690  when the tipping point on a tech product shifts from want to need, the price tag drops. It's a pattern that's been repeated time and time again.

For those of you who don't know, this is one of the best specced smartphones on the market right now, and it is the building blocks of the $349-priced Nexus 5, which is built by LG, too. LG just cut it down and made some sacrifices here and there, but for the most part, the Nexus 5 is the G2.

It's going to be tough, to say the least, for the Jolla and for Sailfish to make a dent in the smartphone market. But the Jolla, and Sailfish itself, have a feature that may give it a slight edge: Sailfish runs existing Android apps via a third-party runtime. Apps for Sailfish can be built either using the native Qt interface (Qt itself being a former Nokia property) or via HTML5. The Sailfish folks claim to be looking into compatibility with Firefox OS APIs as well.

This along with poor uptake and reviews of the Galaxy Gear smartwatch suggest that it might be time for Samsung to rethink its ancillary innovation and return to making the core products that have made it so successful in the smartphone game.


It's a wise move to allow Sailfish to be compatible with at least one of the existing phone-app ecosystems, given that Nokia has tried and failed before to make MeeGo into a workable platform. The MEIZU MX2 phone was released in 2011 but made no detectable splash in the marketplace -- and that was right on the heels of Nokia deciding to use Windows Phone as its platform of choice.

The 4.5-inch smartphone carries a 1.4GHz dual-core Qualcomm processor, 1GB memory and 16GB of flash storage (plus microSD port), with the now-usual eight megapixel rear camera and 1.3 megapixel front facer. It can handle 3 and 4G connections, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and costs €399 ($541, ￡332).

From there, we have the gorgeous 5.2-inch 1920x1080-pixel 'True HD-IPS' display, which provides us with a pixel density of 424PPI (or so). The screen has Corning's Gorilla Glass 2 technology on top, so you should be mostly safe from small scratches and drops.

But what does this mean for the players staying at the higher price point? Apple, Samsung, and the like don't seem to be lowering their prices any. Apple's idea of a "budget" phone is the iPhone 5C, which costs $549 without a contract. The iPhone 5S costs $649 and the lenovo s920 is priced at $600. And these manufacturers are not alone. It's a smartphone landscape that leaves the majority of those looking for a contract-less phone out in the cold. It leaves most budget-conscious tech lovers wondering if they'll ever get their hands on an affordable smartphone, without a contract, that actually does, you know, cool stuff.