Xiaomi may be the Chinese handset maker that’s getting all the love from Western media outlets today, but before they even existed there was Meizu. Meizu started out as an MP3 player maker, but their current flagship phone, the MX3, stands toe to the toe with the best devices out on store shelves. Powered by Samsung’s own octa-core Exynos processor, the 5.1 inch MX3 looks a lot like Apple’s iPhone. That’s probably intentional. They’ll probably have to rethink their design language, however, since they’ve just announced that they’re going to enter the US smartphone market.
That’s right, according to Engadget, Meizu will be at the Consumer Electronics Show next month to talk about their plans for an American invasion. Now just to set some expectations, Meizu heavily skins Android, to the point where you’re not going to be able to recognize their operating system. This can be seen as either good or bad, depending on how stable their ROM is and how compatible it is with existing Google apps.
Do these guys stand a chance? That MX3 I keep on mentioning, the base 16 GB model is on sale in China for roughly $400. That’s $50 more than the Nexus 5, despite delivering nearly equal specs. And that’s the problem with the United States. If you want to enter a market where nearly no one buys an unlocked phone, selling an unlocked phone that costs more than the Nexus 5 is just asking for trouble.
