BEST SMARTPHONES TO BUY IN DIFFERENT CATEGORY!! (2020)

 In the year 2020, we got some really interesting phones but there are only few phones which get all the boxes ticked and hence become the best in their respective price point.

We will take different price brackets and i will give you the best devices which you can get right now.

 CATEGORY ONE - 5 TO 10K PRICE.

1) Redmi 9 prime -

In this price range, we don't get that good phones which can play pubg at 40 fps but this price segment offers some phones with really great battery life. This according to me is the best you can get . Its got a helio g80 which is a decent performer and combined with miui 12 , it will work fine. However i don't think you will get android 11 before Q3 2021 so be ready for that.

2) Nokia 2.4 - 

Don't buy it if performance is your priority. Just get it if you want clean  and for android updates. It's a good phone which can be gifted to your grandparents, as they don't do that much heavy tasking. The battery life is great and can easily last one to one and half day. To get the exact specs i will link GSMARENA site where you will get the exact specs for the phone.

Also in this price we get the realme narzo 20A but i would say give 1k extra and get the redmi 9 prime, it is just far more better .

CATEGORY 2 - 10K TO 15K

This price range is too crowded and it is very difficult to give any one of the best devices so i will give you a list of 3-4 devices which are the best you can get for the price.

1) REALME 7-

This device is available for around 14k and it is one of the best device you can get right now. It's got a helio G95 which is capable of handling heavy tasking and will run flawlessly for day to day usage. Also its got a 90HZ smooth LCD display punch hole display which is one of the best we can get in this price range.

2) POCO X2 -

This phone was launched quite a while ago but still i think it has aged well and can still be considered before buying a new phone. It's got a snapdragon 730G which performs fine and can do some heavy tasking. Coming to display it's got a 120HZ display which is a feature a lot of premium midrangers are also not giving. The main concern has to be software updates but if you are ok with that then this device can be the one you can get.

SOME DEVICES WHICH CAN ALSO BE CONSIDERED-

3) Samsung M31/M21

4) Redmi note 9 pro / max

5) Micromax in note 1

CATEGORY 3 - 15K TO 20K

1) REALME 7 PRO - 

This is by far the best midranger in this price range. It's got a comparatively small 6.44 inch display, the technology used is super amoled and has a single hole punch display, however the refresh rate is 60HZ. It's got a good 64MP quad camera and the sensor is sony IMX 682. Coming to the performance front it's got the snapdragon 720G which is great for day to day usage and some heavy tasking.

2) Samsung galaxy m31s

This samsung phone won't be recommended by many people but i would if you mainly use your phone for professional work and get many calls and use the phone outside with full brightness and don't do that much of gaming then this phone is for you. It's got a beautiful S-amoled display with a punch hole for camera. The battery is a HUMONGOUS 6000MAh cell which will easily last you one day whatever you do on your phone. The camera's are the best under 20k and are comparable to the one's shot on realme's 7 pro. The processor is not that powerful but it is fine for regular tasks.

SOME DEVICES WHICH CAN ALSO BE CONSIDERED-

3) Motorola one fusion plus.

4)  Samsung A51

CATEGORY 4 - 20K TO 30K

1) ONEPLUS NORD

This is by far the best midranger you can get in this price. Get the 6+128 version if you want . It's got a great 90HZ amoled display, Good built quality and a clean software experience. It's got a snapdragon 765G which is great for multitasking and gaming. 

However if gaming is top priority then get-

2)REALME X3/X3 SUPERZOOM-

This phone is a performance champ, it's got a snapdragon 855+ and paired with realme ui it should perform better than oneplus nord however the display is a LCD display with 120HZ refresh rate. The display quality is just ok for the price . The thing which concerns me is the update situation on realme phones and the longevity of this phone might not be as good as Nord even though it has better processor. If you are into rooting your phone then this might be the best option you can have.

3) SAMSUNG M51-

If you want a great display paired with the best in class battery and a average performer, then this is the phone to go for. The main highlight of this phone is the battery, this phone packs a 7000MAh cell. It's got a snapdragon 730G which paired with one ui, will perform well and you won't feel any lag in the ui. One downside of this phone is the thickness of this phone . I have held the phone and it feels unusually heavy in our hand but maybe after using it for sometime it may fit in your hand.

SOME DEVICES WHICH CAN ALSO BE CONSIDERED-

4) If you prefer buying phones offline then VIVO V20 PRO is also a great option.

5) moto g 5g

CATEGORY 5 -  PREMIUM FLAGSHIPS

1) IPHONE 12 PRO MAX - 

If budget is not an issue then according to me, iphone 12 pro max is the best phone which you can get. The processor is miles ahead of the counterpart . To compare , the last generation A13 bionic chip is more powerful than the snapdragon 888 which is going to be the flagship processor for the android part.

The camera's might not have that crazy 108MP camera but these are the most consistent camera's you can get.

2) SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 20 ULTRA

The best android can offer you is the samsung galaxy note 20 ultra. It has one of the best displays any smartphone has. The camera's are also great. The big benefit we get is the SPEN. The exynos version is not that great in battery life but still it can last anyone one day.

CONCLUSION AND MY THOUGHTS ON BUYING A NEW PHONE

2020 was a great year for the smartphone industry we saw some really interesting and innovative phones like the ZTE axon A20 5G Extreme edition . If you are considering buying a phone right now then i would suggest you that if it can be postponed then you can wait for 2-3 months as many midrangers from every brand like samsung,realme,mi all are coming up with midrange 5G phones which are going to be good value. 

If you are considering to buy samsung A51 then wait as it's successor A52 5G is just going to be unveiled in 2 months or less. But if it is important then you have to prioritise 5G as it will come in 1 year or so.

PRO TIP-

For example if you want a phone in the price range of 25000 then you have oneplus nord right? 

Well i would suggest you to get an older generation flagship (maybe second hand or refurbished)like the Oneplus 7T which you can get for around 26-27K. It will definitely perform better. It will get one less update but you still have the option to root your phone.

I hope this article gives the answers you want. If you have any doubts do ask me in the comments. Its anonymous so don't be scared of asking any type of questions.

AFTER APPLE NOW MI WILL NOT INCLUDE CHARGER IN BOX!!

 Apple with their iphone 12 series took a daring decision to not include a charger in the box. Everyone was shocked with the decision apple took, but as we all know apple is known to take such daring decisions and then the other OEM's also follow apple. 

This year is no different, apple removed the charger and now other companies are also removing the charger from their box and the reason given is that it will reduce the plastic waste which is true.

XIAOMI CEO , today on his weibo account confirmed that the next flagship that is the mi 11 will not include a charger in the box.

Also reports suggest that the next samsung flagship will also exclude the charger.

The irony is that when Apple removed the charger everyone mocked at them for this decision and now they are on the same path apple took. The same happened when apple ditched the 3.5mm headphone jack, first the android counterpart targeted apple for this later they also removed the jack.

 

Also the box for the mi 11 was leaked and the thickness look the same as the box of iphone 12 series.

MY OPINION ON THIS DECISION

Actually i am okay with the decision to ditch the charger from the box as everyone already has a charger. But the thing which concerns me is that what if the phone only supports fast charging from the companies particular charger? 

Take an example of oneplus, the phones only support 30/65 W charging from the charger provided in the box. So if a company claims 65W charging support so do we have to buy the charger separately?

A realme 50W charger costs 1500 rupees in india which is equivalent to around 22 dollars, so eventually you have to buy a charger separately and this just makes more profit for OEM's .

Well that's what i think about this decision, let me know in the comments what do you think about this decision. 

SAMSUNG'S EXYNOS IS BACK AND MAYBE IT WILL BEAT QUALCOMM!!

 As we all know samsung every year launches their flagship s and note series with 2 models for specific markets. For the chinese and american market the phones are powered by the qualcomms best 8 series processors and for the asian and european markets you get the samsung's own exynos chips . 

Actaully, in the early years of exynos which was present in S6 series, exynos was better than qualcomm, but with time qualcomm improved their technology and overtook exynos with a huge margin.

For the chip manufacturing, mainly there are 5 manufacturers -

1) Apple - They make their own chips only for iphones.

2) Mediatek - The processors are good but have heating and battery drain issues, so these are not used in flagships.

3) Huawei - They make their own kirin series of processor specifically for huawei or honor phones and are great in terms of performance.

4) Qualcomm - 90% of the android phones let it be flagships or midrange phones, all use qualcomm's chips. These are the best in terms of optimization and battery health in android world and are therefore the best option for the companies manufacturing phones. 

5) Samsung - Samsung makes their own chips for their phones but recently other manufactures like motorola and vivo have partnered with samsung for the use of their chips.

EXYNOS VS SNAPDRAGON

As qualcomm was the only chip manufacturer for android, all brands were dependent on it, and qualcomm could any for whatever money they wanted for their chips. To break this monopoly samsung came up with their EXYNOS series. But as we say its was not on power to the qualcomm counterpart and hence people were not happen with the their exynos phones and wanted qualcomm ones with better battery life and performance.

Hopefully this wont be an issue in the year 2021, where samsung flagships are going to be powered by either snapdragon 888 or the exynos 2100.

The GEEKBENCH 5 scores for the snapdragon 888 and exynos 2100 were leaked and the results look really promising for the exynos 2100. Have a look at the same-

The left most is the score of mi 11 which is going to be powered by QUALCOMM snapdradon 888.

The middle one is the score of EXYNOS 2100. Also just for reference, i have added the score of A14 BIONIC.

According to the scores, exynos is on power to the snapdragon in the single bench and is behind in the multi core score, but this could be due to less ram on the model tested. Mi 11 has 12gb ram whereas exynos verson s21 has 6 gigs of ram, so we could consider the score of exynos to be on power to the mi 11 if not better.

The qualcomm snapdragon 888 is a octa core processor which is divided on the following cores-

1*cortex-X1 clocked at 2.84GHz

3*cortex A73 clocked at 2.42GHz

4*cortex-A55 clocked at 1.8 GHz (for power efficiency)

whereas, the exynos 2100 is also a octa core processor but we are not confirmed on the confirmed specifications but according to the tipster, Roland Qandt , exynos 2100 will have the following breakdown - 

1*ultra high performance core clocked at 2.9 GHz 

3* high performance core clocked at 2.4 GHz

4*power saving cores clocked at 2.4 GHz

If we compare the cores and their clocked speeds, exynos might beat snapdragon but there are many other factors like storage type, ram and many more. As this will be used in the samsung flagship, we hope to get the best samsung to give the best they can. 

According to ice universe , the scores might go as high as the ones found on 888.

CONCLUSION

Next year we might see exynos giving neck and neck comparison to the snapdragon processor but we hope samsung also works on the battery issues and thermal throttling issues which everyone faces in exynos processors. 

  

UPDATE- 

The date for the launch of exynos 2100 is 12th january 2021. So our confusions will get cleared after that. 

 

MI 11 TO GET SNAPDRAGON 888 AND TRIPLE CAMERA SETUP

 The renders which are spreading around tell us that mi 11 will be the first phone to get the Snapdragon 888 5G. Also the CEO of XIAOMI , confirmed this in this video which was taken during the snapdragon summit in which the all new Snapdragon 888 5G was launched. Do see the video - 

In this video, Lei jun told us that Mi 11 is in progress and it will be the first to get the all new snapdragon 888. Also leaks tell us that this phone will be launched in the later part of December. 

Some renders of the phone have come out and here are what we were able to gather-

Also the product manager of Mi , Wang thang thomas on his weibo confirmed the design of mi 11 and it proves the renders to be correct. Here's a screenshot of the same - 

As for the specs for the mi 11 , as for now we don't have that much of confirmed information but what people have told us is -

1. It will get a periscope lens 

2. It will get a flagship snapdragon 888 5G 

3. It will get a 3 camera setup (2 big sensors and 1 small sensor and a led flash light)

4. The pricing id going to be almost the same as mi 10 that is around 50k in the indian market which i think would be great.

5. Coming to the front, it will get a single punch hole in the left.

As of now we don't know that much about these phones , some renders say that there will be 2 phones, the vanilla mi 11 and the mi 11 pro. As we get updates regarding the specs of the phone we will update you with that . 

  

ZTE CAME UP WITH THIS FUTURE TECH IN A MIDRANGE PHONE

 2nd december 2020,

  ZTE, a Chinese company has launched 2 new midrange 5G phones and here is the special one -

 ZTE axon A20 5G Extreme edition

This is the new ZTE axon A20 5G extreme edition. It sports a 6.92" FHD+ oled display. But the main highlighting factor of this display is that it holds a selfie shooter which is truly an in-display camera. The tech used here is very high tech and now our dream of a display with no hole punch , no waterdrop seems to come true.

Coming to the performance front the phone is powered by the qualcomm 765g which we have seen in the oneplus nord and it performs fine. 

Coming to the camera's , the smartphone has 4 camera's on the rear having configuration of 64+8+2+2 MP. Yes, actually we can say that it has a 2 camera setup with 2 extra camera's just to make it "QUAD" camera . But the 64 MP camera seems promising. Also the front camera is a 32 MP camera which is embedded inside the front glass panel. 

BATTERY AND OTHERS-

The phone packs a 4220 mah cell which can be charged in just around an hour with the 30W charger provided in the box. As the display tech is OLED,ZTE also provided us with a under display fingerprint scanner. Coming to software front, it runs ZTE's mifavor 10.5 based on android 10. They should have given android 11 considering it has been 2-3 months of it being launched but it is what it is.

This special edition has a leather like back just like the one we say in oppo  find x2 pro. It comes in 12 GB ram variant retailing in China for CNY 3498 ( $532 OR INR39420).

MY OPINION AND THOUGHTS ON THIS PHONE-

Looking at the specs the phones seems to be a good value phone which will mostly sell because of its unique and segment first feature that is a truly under display camera. I know i am being quite picky but i expected this phone to have a slightly better processor, i know 765G is a pretty good processor but at a price point of 40000 INR we can expect phones to have 855 or even 865, keeping in mind we get 765G at 25k with the oneplus nord or rather they could have given the snapdragon 768G . Also i don't understand why companies have to give 2 fake camera's , they are just making it heavy and investing in the wrong department. Anyways keeping all the things aside this phone looks really a very solid offering and i hope ZTE extends their market and comes to the indian market as well.

THANKS FOR READING 

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WE ARE GETTING 3 ONEPLUS 9 PHONES

 Oneplus has probably changed their strategy and next year they are launching 3 oneplus 9 phones instead of 2. These include the regular oneplus 9 , 9 pro and now a new Oneplus 9E.

According to the tipster Max Jambor, in his tweet it shows the phones 9,9 pro, and the 9E.

Source- https://twitter.com/MaxJmb/status/1333366693301784576?s=20

All you need to know about the new redmi note 9 series launched in china.

 On 26th of november there was a event held in china for the launch of the new redmi note 9 series while will eventually come as note 10 series in the rest of the word.

REDMI NOTE 9

3 PHONES WERE LAUNCHED -

1. Redmi note 9 4G-

The 4G model sports a 6.53" FHD+ LCD display .Powering this display is a Snapdragon 662, it is an octacore processor and will be able to handle day to day tasks easily. This phones comes in three options having 4/6/8GB of ram paired with 128/256GB of internal storage which is a UFS 2.2 type. The phone comes with triple camera array at the back having resolution of 48+8+2MP and it has a 8MP selfie shooter embedded in the waterdrop notch .It has a humongous 6000 mAH battery which can be charged with the 18 w charger provided within the box. As the display tech is ips, the fingerprint is a side mounted one embedded in the power button. The phone was loaunched with android 10 on top of miui 12.

2. REDMI NOTE 9 5G -

The 5G variant of the note 9 has a 6.53" FHD+ LCD display but this one a punch hole display rather than the waterdop in the 4G one. The main difference between this and the 4G one is that this one has a much powerful MediaTek Dimensity 800U which obviously supports 5G. Coming to the ram and storage options it has 6/8GB ram paired with 128/256GB of UFS 2.2 storage. The thing which bothers me is the camera setup its the same 48+8+2MP setup as the 4G variant and if anyone is looking just for camera then he/she can just settle with the 4G variant. But there is a 13MP selfie shooter which a upgrade over the 8MP on the regular note 9. The phone sports a 5000 mAH battery which is huge but not “humongous” as the 6000 one on the 4G model. The phone also has a fingerprint embedded in the power button just like the one on the 4G variant.

3. REDMI NOTE 9 PRO 5G-

So this is it the best redmi could have given to their note lineup and believe me its awesome. Starting off with the display its a regular 6.67" FHD IPS grade display but with 120Hz refresh rate with 240Hz touch sampling rate. So scrolling through app ui and social media will be butter smooth. For running it smoothly phone should also sport a good processing power right? well redmi has not done cost cutting with the proceseor giving us a Snapdragon 750G paired with 6/8GB of ram with 128/256GB of storage. Performance should not be an issue on this phone. So has redmi done cost cutting in the camera’s ? well.. definately not. why? because it gets a huge 108+8+2+2MP sensor which will ensure you get the most detailed photos ever in a smartphone. In the front we get a 16MP shooter. On the battery front we get a 4820mAh cell which can last you 1 easy day credits to the 8nm tech on th 750g . Also if you want to top up your battery you get a 33W fast charger which will charge your phone really quickly. The device weighs a hefty 215 grams with 9mm of thickness.

PRICING-

The redmi note 9 4G is priced at 999 yuan for the base 4/128 variant.

The redmi note 9 5G is priced at 1299 yuan for the base 6/128 variant.

And the Redmi note 9 pro 5G is priced at 1599 yuan for the base 6/128 variant.

CONCLUSION-

The phones look to be a great offering from redmi, lets see how they price it outside of china.