What do you do when just one touchscreen won’t do? You get two, of course, as is the case with the newly announced Samsung SCH-W2013. This is a flip phone with a regular numeric keypad, but it also has a pair of 3.7-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen displays: one on the front cover and one inside. To make things even more interesting, it gets a 1.4GHz quad core processor (possibly Exynos 4412) to go along with its Android 4.0 ICS platform.

Running through the rest of the specs, we find 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, microSD expansion, 8MP camera, 1.9MP front camera, and an 1850mAh battery. Oh, and there’s dual SIM support there for CDMA2000 800/1900 and GSM 900/1800/1900. That’s because it’s being offered by China Telecom and it’s endorsed by none other than Jackie Chan.

It’s highly unlikely that this phone will ever see the light of day outside of China, but it’s still an interesting concept for people who can’t decide if they want a flip phone or a touchscreen phone. It’s going to be for China’s elite, though, as pricing is estimated to be in the US$3,000 range.

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High-end specs usually come at a high-end price, but it looks like you can circumvent that problem by going with a less recognized brand. Case in point is the newly announced Xiaomi Phone 2, an Android Jelly Bean smartphone boasting a 4.3-inch 720p IPS display and Snapdragon S4 Pro quad core processor. The thing is that it sells for just $310 outright. That’s about half the price as a Galaxy S III or new iPhone.

Even though Xiaomi may not be a household name, the Xiaomi Phone 2 comes packed with some respectable names inside. As mentioned, the processor is courtesy of Qualcomm. And you know that IPS display? It’s a Sharp panel. You also get an impressive 2GB of RAM to go along with the fairly standard 16GB of storage capacity. The rear camera is a bright and wide 27mm F/2.0 8MP shooter, whereas the front-facing camera is a 28mm 2MP unit.

Android Jelly Bean has been overlaid with Xiaomi’s MIUI ROM, which adds such features as enhanced security, phone finder, a Chinese voice assistant (Siri’s Android-flavored Chinese cousin?), 5GB of cloud storage and interactive themes. It looks like one of these themes, based on the images provided, is “inspired” by Angry Birds.

The Xiaomi Phone 2 is set to launch with China Unicom and China Telecom in October for an outright price of about $310, though they’ll likely offer subsidized pricing on contract too. The interesting thing is that while this won’t be made officially available in North America, the Xiaomi Phone 2 does support WCDMA 850/1900/2100, so it should work with AT&T if you unlock it. If you’re willing to go through the import process and chance it with an unrecognized Chinese brand, this phone looks like it’s quite the beast for a pretty amazing price.

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It may not be completely fair to say that China is still an emerging market. I’d say that it has already emerged, having just overtaken the United States in smartphone usage. Yes, China is now the largest smartphone market in the world and it has one billion mobile subscribers in total if you could non-smartphones too.

Considering that the total population of China is estimated at about 1.4 billion people, that’s almost one cell phone for every citizen. China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology says that the total number of mobile phone subscribers in the country is growing at a rate of 1.18% each month. You do have to factor in that many of these citizens still live in rural communities or in poverty, so it’s more likely that some of the wealthy folk have more than one phone, but it’s undeniable that China is a market that should not be ignored by the marketing efforts of companies like Apple.

According to Catalyst, China’s smartphone market has grown a substantial 81% year-over-year, compared to just the 5% growth experience in the United States over the same time period. The rise is largely attributed to the availability of the iPhone 4S through China Telecom, helping to push China into accounting for 22% of worldwide smartphone shipments in Q1 2012. The United States was 16%. To be fair, China has about four times the population.

It’s likely that the next iPhone, whatever it’s called, is going to be available through China Mobile, the country’s largest carrier. That should increase sales and penetration even further, even though two-thirds of smartphones shipped in Q1 2012 to China were Android.

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