Xodiom: an affordable and impressive OnePlus competitor emerges

xodiom phone
Is the xodiom phone the real deal?

The market for affordable but powerful phones may be about to get even hotter.

Currently the OnePlus One has the lead, but Chinese phone maker Xiaomi might join in early next year with a new flagship at CES 2015.

And now another new competitor has appeared: a company called "xodiom."

Xodiom just launched a phone totally out of nowhere, and it looks like it might be a serious contender.

"Wink"

The xodiom phone is powered by a 2.7GHz Snapdragon 805 chip with a 5.5-inch QHD super AMOLED display, 3GB of memory, a 16-megapixel rear camera with optical image stabilization, a 5-megapixel front camera, and a 3200mAh battery.

It runs Android 5.0 Lollipop with a custom UI called "xOS" and is scheduled to launch January 5, 2015.

And the price? just $329 (about £210, AU$390) for a 32GB model and $379 (about £240, AU$450) for 64GB.

The company even takes a dig at OnePlus when you go to buy the xodiom phone, showing a message that reads, "to buy the xodiom you DO NOT need an invite, hooray for freedom," complete with a winking smiley face.

What's the catch?

If there's a catch here, it's not evident - unless the whole thing turns out to be a scam.

It's not every day that a totally unheard-of company announces a brand new, almost-too-good-to-be-true smartphone. And for some reason they're only accepting payments via Bitcoin and wire transfer (seriously?).

Either way, we'll know in January, right?

Via Phone Arena

Michael Rougeau

Michael Rougeau is a former freelance news writer for TechRadar. Studying at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Northeastern University, Michael has bylines at Kotaku, 1UP, G4, Complex Magazine, Digital Trends, GamesRadar, GameSpot, IFC, Animal New York, @Gamer, Inside the Magic, Comic Book Resources, Zap2It, TabTimes, GameZone, Cheat Code Central, Gameshark, Gameranx, The Industry, Debonair Mag, Kombo, and others.

Micheal also spent time as the Games Editor for Playboy.com, and was the managing editor at GameSpot before becoming an Animal Care Manager for Wags and Walks.