Standing out in the fiercely competitive smartphone market is becoming ever more difficult.
A specs bump just doesn't cut it anymore when phones that are two years old are still performing admirably and there's only so much bigger that the screens can get before we're forced to stop pretending we're not making calls on tablets.
The fact is it's getting boring too. Phones are becoming the same and we doubt we're alone in saying that we're itching for some innovation. But there's no need to wait because there are already some truly innovative and exciting handsets out there, they're just not the big names.
They might one day be though. The smartphone market of the future is going to be a radically different place, where innovation and value trump power and the current big hitters are going to need to adapt or die.
There's already evidence of this change. With the launch of the OnePlus One we're seeing high end hardware delivered at a fraction of the price we're used to, while brands like Yota Devices and Jolla are thinking outside the box to deliver unique experiences.
But even if the spec wars continue, Apple and Samsung will need to watch their backs, as phones like the Xiaomi Redmi Note and the Meizu MX3 are outdoing them with octo-core processors and 128GB of built in storage respectively, while current big name handsets top out at quad-core processors and 64GB of storage.
In short the old guard are in trouble and if you want to be on the front lines of the revolution the following are the companies you should be looking to.
OnePlus
The OnePlus One is arguably the current poster child for alternative flagships. It had very little build up and is made by a new company which isn't well known, or not yet anyway.
In that sense the odds are definitely stacked against it, but the OnePlus One has a few tricks up its sleeve. Firstly it's tremendously powerful, with a 2.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon 801 processor and 3GB of RAM theoretically giving it more muscle than even the Samsung Galaxy S5.
It's not just power that it has on its side either. The OnePlus One also runs CyanogenMod 11S, which is a more tweakable and customisable version of Android and something which no other handset currently runs.
The real reason that Samsung and Apple should fear the OnePlus One though is its price, which at just £229 (US$299, around AU$320) for the 16GB model makes it less than half the price of their flagships.
It suddenly makes it very hard to justify spending £500+ on a phone and if OnePlus can get the word out then it should have a very bright future indeed.
Yota Devices
So far Yota Devices has only made one phone, the appropriately named YotaPhone, but that one phone is among the most innovative handsets on the market.
While every other phone is content with one screen, the YotaPhone has two. There's a standard LCD screen on the front and an e-ink display on the back.
The obvious use for that is as a combined phone and e-reader, but the YotaPhone goes beyond that, by also using the e-ink screen for notifications and reminders. It can also save whatever you were last viewing to it if your battery dies, so you'll still be able to access tickets and maps.
Vlad Martynov, CEO of Yota Devices explained to us what makes YotaPhone different: "YotaPhone is the first game changer in smartphones in a very long time. Since the Apple iPhone debut in 2007, there has been very little innovation in the smartphone industry.
"The form factor basically hasn't changed. Instead, the industry has been in a specs race, focusing on bigger screens, better cameras and faster CPUs.
When Yota Devices first introduced the YotaPhone concept, no one had heard of company nor were they embracing the concept of a dual screen, always-on smartphone. Today, YotaPhone is the benchmark by which all similar products are compared.
YotaPhone has also demonstrated that the future of smartphones and mobile devices belongs to always-on displays, which allow users to stay connected without turning off the real world and disrupting the people around you.
Information hidden behind a black screen is of limited use to us. It creates bad habits - like phubbing, the act of snubbing the people around you for your smartphone. And, technology already exists - namely battery saving electronic paper display - that allows you access to information without sapping your phone's battery.
The company has recently announced the next generation of the handset too, complete with a more stylish design and high end specs, so that it's better able to compete with conventional smartphones. The YotaPhone 2 will be launching towards the end of the year.
Jolla
Jolla isn't just rethinking hardware, it's also making big changes to the software we use on it. The company's Sailfish OS is the result of that. It's open source, has a button free and gesture based interface and supports Android apps.
In the words of Juhani Lassila, Head of Communications at Jolla: "With Jolla and Sailfish OS it's all about the user experience." In practice that seems to mean a focus on multitasking and the aforementioned gesture based UI.
The one and only Sailfish phone currently available, the Jolla, is a bit different too, with swappable smart covers which change not just the look of the hardware but can also change the software theme, with new colours, wallpapers and sound effects.
It's available to order now from Jolla's site for €399 (about £327, US$555, AU$593).
Launching a whole new OS is a brave move and convincing users to ditch the tried and true experiences of Android and iOS could be a tough job. But on the other hand it injects a burst of fresh energy into an environment which hasn't changed much in the last few years.
Plus in supporting Android apps it makes the transition for users as painless as possible. Though unsurprisingly there's no access to Google Play, so you'll have to rely on third party app stores.
Jolla believes that usability is key, as Lassila told us that "the heart of Jolla and Sailfish OS is in the user experience, not in the specs. We aim to provide a better, faster, effortless UX. The specs will never be our most important competing factor."
It's an ideology that makes sense. As with most of the world so focused on specs the best way to stand out is surely to take a different approach. Which in this case primarily means an intuitive and fully gesture based interface.
Project Ara
Google itself deserves a mention here as while it's a massive corporation which is already a big part of the smartphone landscape, it's also looking at ways to fundamentally change that environment.
With Project Ara, Google is exploring modular smartphones, where a base handset could cost as little as $50 (about £29, AU$53) and individual components, such as the camera or processor, could be swapped out and upgraded as needed.
So rather than buying a whole new phone every one to two years you could stick with the same one indefinitely and just change the individual parts.
Not only could that work out cheaper for users but it empowers them to create exactly the phone they want. And while its modular nature means that it will inevitably be bigger and blockier than standard smartphones, the size and weight penalty is now at under 25%, so it needn't look like a brick.
If it takes off it could be the biggest disruption yet to the current way of doing things, with new handsets and phone contract renewals becoming rarities.
Project Ara isn't commercially available yet, but the first handset is set to launch in January 2015 for just $50.
Oppo
Oppo might not be a big name in the west, but in China it's a major player, albeit a relatively recent one, and it's likely to start making a dent in the US and Europe over the coming years too.
There's no one thing that Oppo is doing to stand out, but it's a company which isn't afraid to innovate. With the Oppo Find 7 it delivered the first 2K display on a smartphone, while the Oppo N1 has the option to run CyanogenMod and has a swivelling camera, so you can leverage its 13 megapixel lens for selfies and video calls.
Only the latter of those two phones is currently available in the UK though, carrying a price tag of roughly £390 (about US$661, AU$750).
Oppo might never be as big over here as Samsung or Apple but with a few more ideas like that it could certainly make a name for itself.
GeeksPhone
GeeksPhone is perhaps the least well known of all these, but that doesn't make it any less exciting or potentially disruptive.
It's a recent company focussed on building phones for open source operating systems and as part of that it's one of the handful of manufacturers currently supporting Firefox OS.
Its Revolution handset is one of the most powerful Firefox phones around so far in fact, though with a 1.6GHz dual-core Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM and a 4.7-inch qHD display it's still distinctly mid-range.
But it's got more than specs and a fledgling OS going for it, as it can also dual-boot Android, so users have a choice of two operating systems at any given time. The Revolution can be ordered now for €164.46 (about £135, US$229, AU$244) excluding taxes.
GeeksPhone is also involved in the making of Blackphone, a handset with top of the line security features.
Ultimately GeeksPhone is unlikely to rise to the top of the ranks, but it's providing some compelling if niche alternatives for people who want something a bit different.
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