Chinese electronics manufacturer Desay has unveiled its latest promotional video for the Magical Mirror X5.
The new high-end smartphone touts an innovative feature many Apple fans were disappointed not to see in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus: sapphire screens.
The state-controlled company's new video shows the five-inch sapphire display smartphone sitting with a bunch of chestnuts being roasted over fire without breaking, cracking, melting, or receiving any form of damage whatsoever. This, the company says, is proof that it has built an "unbreakable" smartphone. Sapphire, also known as corundum, is second only to diamond as the second hardest naturally occurring substance in the world.
Despite its use of a premium material, Desay has priced the Magical Mirror X5 at 999 yuan, which is approximately $160. Customers can pre-order the smartphone through the state-owned China Mobile, the largest mobile carrier in the world in terms of the number of subscribers.
For its low price, customers get a smartphone equipped with a 13 MP rear camera and a 5 MP front-facing shooter and a quad-core mobile processor from MediaTek. It is 6.95 millimeters thick, which isn't so bad, considering Apple's iPhone 6 is 6.9 millimeters and the iPhone 6 Plus is 7.1 millimeters.
Because of the phone's extremely competitive price, analysts believe Desay could be offering the device in very limited quantities. Gene Cao, analyst at Forrester Research, says it is very difficult for a fairly unknown company to make money off a high-end phone for a very low price.
"It's a smart marketing campaign to promote its nascent brand," Cao said. "But I doubt if all of its Magical Mirror X5 phones would actually feature sapphire screens as customers cannot tell the difference between a hardened glass and a sapphire."
Desay, whose Shenzhen Desay Battery Technology supplies batteries for Apple, began building its own brand in 2013. Previously, the Huizhou-based company focused on supplying automobile, power management, and mobile communications devices and components to clients the likes of Ford Motors.
Last year, the use of sapphire as a material for smartphone screens became a topic for discussion when Apple announced a partnership with GT Advanced Technologies to build a sapphire-manufacturing facility in Arizona, fueling speculations that Apple would use sapphire for the displays of its upcoming new iPhones. However, the new iPhones came out with "ion-strengthened glass" instead of the anticipated sapphire displays when GT Advanced Technologies was reportedly unable to produce the amount of sapphire to meet Apple's demand.
Other smartphone makers have also introduced their own sapphire screen smartphones, including the rugged outdoor Brigadier phone from Kyocera and the limited sapphire edition of Huawei's Ascend P7.
