Best budget laptops 2024: top cheap laptops for university students
Here's our pick of the best affordable laptops that you can buy in 2024, including models from HP, Acer, Microsoft, Lenovo and more.
If you're looking for the perfect laptop for school or university, or you just want to pick one up for a good price, then we've got the perfect list for you. These laptops are available at a snip, with a range to suit every user. You don’t have to spend a fortune to get a great laptop in 2024, and in this round-up we’ll show you some of the best options between £200 to around £500. These are great options whether you need a quick replacement or you're a student looking for a new laptop. Many of the major laptop brands – including HP, Acer, Asus, Microsoft and Lenovo – have affordable models alongside their more premium computers, and there’s never been more choice if you're hunting for solid specs at a pleasing price point. If you can’t afford a new model, you may be better off buying a second-hand or refurbished laptop, although there are some decent Chromebooks available from under £200. Much like when shopping for phones or tablets, buying a new device in a lower price category is all about being willing to compromise on premium specs or features – and it can certainly be overwhelming if you have no idea where to begin. So that’s where this guide comes in. We have compiled a list of the best affordable laptops in 2024. Alongside our expert breakdown, we have some advice on what to look for in a new laptop and, perhaps more importantly, what you should avoid. If you're still working from home you may also need a new printer, so don't miss our guides to the best printers in 2024 and best budget printers in 2024. Also, check out the best laptop deals for this month and the top university essentials. Plus, have you heard Samsung has announced the Music Frame release date and a free Samsung Galaxy S24 offer when you pre-order a new Samsung TV? Jump to: Best budget laptops at a glance Best cheap laptops to buy in 2024 How to choose the best budget laptop Best cheap and budget laptops to buy in 2024 at a glance Best all-round affordable touchscreen: Lenovo Flex 3 Chromebook, £299 £279 (save £20 or 7%) Best shoestring Windows 11 buy: Asus E210, £249 £149 (save £100 or 40%) Best budget convertible: Microsoft Surface Go 2, £298.72 (no keyboard) Best budget performance buy: Lenovo IdeaPad 5i 14, £449 Best low-cost ultraportable: Acer Swift 1, from £399 Best cheap 15.6-inch option: Dell Inspiron 15 3000, £369 Best for high-end performance: Dell Inspiron 14, £549 Best Chromebook deal: Chromebook Plus CX34, £479 Best cheap and budget laptops to buy in 2024 Lenovo Flex 3 Chromebook, £299 £279 Great all-round affordable touchscreen laptop Pros Lightweight and compact 2-in-1 design Touchscreen Cons Lagging battery life Storage limited to 64GB eMMC If you're looking for an affordable laptop that minimises what you miss out on, take a look at the Lenovo Flex 3 Chromebook. It has a lightweight and portable design, making it perfect to bring to work or school, with a battery life of over eight hours to get you through the day. It boasts a responsive 12.2-inch touchscreen, which is exactly what we want. It may not be as vibrant or sharp as an OLED panel or larger high-res screen, but it's great value for money, given the price point. It's also a 2-in-1 design, meaning that that you can flip and fold the screen from laptop to tablet mode with ease. Lenovo puts extra effort into the port selection too, which is great for charging and connecting other devices. It boasts a USB-C port doubling as a power jack, a USB 3.0 Type-A connector, an audio jack, a microSD card slot, USB-A port and an HDMI monitor port— whew! There are some drawbacks to this model, which is to be expected given its lower price point. While the Flex 3 Chromebook's performance isn't bad, it certainly couldn't be described as good either, so if you're after a high-performing laptop, this may not be the one for you. Buy Lenovo Flex 3 Chromebook for £299 £279 (save £20 or 7%) at JD Williams Asus E210, £249 £149 Best shoestring Windows 11 buy Pros Decent battery life Very low cost for a Windows laptop 180-degree hinge Cons Pixelated screen Polarising “NUM" touchpad Fairly dim screen Asus calls this a “Cloudbook”, but don’t confuse that with a Chromebook. This is a Windows laptop, but it only has 64GB of storage. Asus is saying, “you’d better use cloud storage as there’s not much to go around here”. It has a compact 11.6-inch display but note that the 1366 x 768 resolution will look more pixelated than the Full HD kind we’ve recommended elsewhere in this article. The display is fairly dim, too, so it will look best indoors. The Asus E210’s Celeron processor is only going to get on well with basic jobs, but we’d happily use it for writing articles or essays and web browsing. However, that low-power CPU also means the battery tends to last a full day of work. You’re probably getting the idea by now. The Asus E210 is a fairly basic laptop. But it does have a quirk or two. Its screen hinge folds back 180-degrees, letting you share what’s on-screen more easily. The touchpad also doubles as a NUM pad, although we don’t love the numerals printed into the pad itself. In a pricier Asus laptop, you sometimes get a light-up NUM pad on the touchpad, but there’s no budget for that sort of tech here. Buy Asus E210 laptop for £249 £149 (save £100 or 40%) Microsoft Surface Go 2, £298.72 (without keyboard) Best budget convertible laptop Pros Great screen Slick design Can be used as a tablet Cons Low performance Keyboard costs extra, and isn’t cheap The Surface Go 2 is perhaps the slickest budget laptop around. But is it even a laptop? Search for this computer online, filter by lowest price and what you’ll see is just as much an iPad rival. It’s a sleek magnesium-body tablet, but one that runs Windows instead of iPad OS or Android. However, buy it with the clip-on Surface Go 2 Type Cover, and you have a laptop more portable than just about anything else on this list. It has an excellent, if a little small, 10.5-inch touchscreen that is sharper and more vibrant than just about any low-price traditional laptop. Want the downsides? This is among the weakest laptops in this round-up. Only buy one if you just need laptop basics. Microsoft makes a more powerful version, but that costs so much more that it doesn’t really qualify as a budget laptop option. Buy Microsoft Surface Go 2 at Amazon for £298.72 at Amazon Lenovo IdeaPad 5i 14, £449 Best budget performance buy Pros Good performance for the money Relatively refined styling Full HD IPS screen Cons Plastic casing Lenovo makes a stack of laptops in its IdeaPad range. Today’s recommendation for the budget buyer is a specific one, which you can pick up for under £400. Hunt down the Lenovo IdeaPad 5i 14 with a trusty 11th Gen Intel Core i3 processor, a 128GB SSD, 4GB RAM and a 300-nit 14-inch Full HD screen. We think this will offer the majority of people a great experience for little money, with enough power to go beyond the basics and even play some moderately taxing games. We chose this laptop because it’s a classic no-nonsense, good value Windows machine. This is the kind of computer we often end up recommending to friends and relatives. Lenovo’s design style helps too. There’s something classy and slightly reserved about Lenovo’s budget laptops that we appreciate. The shape of the keys, the slim screen borders and the layout of the keyboard surround give off an impression that won’t make people assume you bought a cheaper laptop. Lenovo makes several versions of this same model. Those called IdeaPad 5 rather than IdeaPad 5i have AMD processors instead of Intel ones. Buy the latest models, and you can’t go wrong with either, so shop around to find the best deals. The most important step-up upgrades are to 8GB RAM and 256GB storage, which we’d recommend if the budget will stretch that far. You get more room for apps and can run more of them without the thing starting to struggle with the workload. Buy Lenovo IdeaPad 5i 14 for £449 at Very Acer Swift 1, from £399 Best low-cost ultraportable Pros Decent screen Slim and light Attractive metal casing Cons Limited performance in entry-level version Check out the Acer Swift 1 if you want a slim, light and relatively stylish laptop for portable use. It has a metal casing, which provides that MacBook-like vibe for much less money. And at 1.3kg, it’s the sort of laptop we’d be happy to carry around all day, every day. The Acer Swift 1 also has a 14-inch Full HD screen. It’s a fairly large display and just as sharp as those of laptops that cost twice as much, although colours aren’t nearly as vibrant as the Surface Go 2’s. If you want a laptop that feels a bit like MacBook but costs far less, the Swift 1 will do the trick. However, we don’t recommend the entry-level model with an Intel N6000 CPU if you need to do more than word processing, web browsing and movie streaming. While the SSD storage will make the basics feel slick enough, this brain isn’t made for serious number crunching. Look into the step-up Acer Swift 3 if you need more power. While most versions aren’t quite “budget”, you can currently pick up a well-specced Ryzen version for £530 online. That’s a good buy. Buy Acer Swift 1 laptop: Shop Acer Swift 1 laptop at Amazon Dell Inspiron 15 3000, £369 A top cheap 15.6-inch screen option Pros Lots of connection types Big screen Uses Intel Core CPUs Cons Somewhat drab plastic build/design Dell’s Inspiron 15 3000 is a great choice if you need a larger laptop. It has a 15.6-inch screen, which gives apps more room than the other models here. You’ll appreciate that if you plan to work all day from the laptop’s own display, rather than plugging in a monitor. Our recommended spec has 8GB RAM, a 256GB SSD and an Intel i5-1135G7 processor. This is going to offer a satisfying experience in a whole bunch of ways. You get ultra-fast storage, with enough room to install a bunch of apps or games and store a lot of files. Its general performance is excellent, and the Intel Xe graphics hardware can handle challenging games like The Witcher 3, Fortnite and GTA V remarkably well. Get this version, and you have the same amount of power as some laptops over £1000. The design is practical rather than flashy, decked out in grey plastic, and weight of 1.8kg may get a little heavy on the shoulders after carrying the Inspiron 15 3000 in a rucksack for a while. Screen brightness won’t dazzle either. But if you plan to use a laptop as a desktop PC-replacer, it’s a good bet. It also has a full-size HDMI port, SD card reader and Ethernet port: practical features that mean you don’t have to worry about adapters for plug-in peripherals. Buy Dell Inspiron 15 3000: Shop Dell Inspiron 15 3000 at Studio Dell Inspiron 14, from £549 Best for high-end performance Pros Reasonably upmarket design Very powerful in this class Cons Lacks high screen brightness of the step-up 7000 model If you like the sound of the Dell Inspiron 15 3000’s power but find the design a bit heavy and stodgy, consider the Inspiron 14. It has a smaller 14-inch screen, but this helps to bring the weight down to around 1.4kg. That’s much better for portable use, and the Inspiron 14’s footprint is smaller too. You also get a design upgrade. It has a metal lid and keyboard surround for a touch of class that makes it seem less like an affordable laptop. We may be testing the budget here. You’re looking at around £550 for the version with an Intel Core i5, 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM. But with that kind of power on tap, the Inspiron 14 is going to feel fresh for years. With the same budget, you can also pick up the AMD Ryzen 5500U CPU version. They are fairly evenly matched, each winning in different situations, but the Ryzen is technically more powerful and handles some games better. There’s also a 2-in-1 version with a 360-degree hinge Inspiron 14, but this drops you down to 4GB RAM and an Intel Core i3 unless you’re willing to spend more. Buy Dell Inspiron 14 laptop for £549 at Dell Asus Chromebook C523, £479 Best Chromebook deal Pros Low cost Metal lid 1080p screen Cons ChromeOS is more restrictive than Windows Don’t rule out a Chromebook when shopping for a budget laptop. These are often the most sensible buys if the alternative is a very low-spec Windows computer. Why? Laptops like the Asus Chromebook C523 have lower overheads because the core software is simpler. As a result, they feel faster with a low-power CPU. The software they do run, ChromeOS, still lets you do plenty. You get Google services like Docs and Mail baked in, and they can run Android apps. There are versions of the Microsoft Office suite apps available for Chromebooks, for example. Our favourite Chromebook deal at the time of writing is for the Chromebook Plus CX34, available for a reduced price of £279 (from 429). Stand-outs here include a 180-degree hinge and three-sided NanoEdge screen design to maximise screen space. It's also got a stylish, lightweight and durable design and runs for up to 10 hours on a single charge, making it the ideal option for a heavily reduced and easily portable budget laptop. Buy Chromebook Plus CX34 for £ 479 at Very How to choose the best budget laptop Buying an affordable laptop isn’t always straightforward if you aren’t sure about specs and features associated with the tech, so here’s some handy tips: Don’t buy a laptop with a hard drive Years ago, all laptops had hard drives used to store data, documents and other files. However, any laptop that runs off a hard drive feels annoyingly slow these days. A laptop with an SSD drive is ideal, but the even more affordable eMMC [embedded Multi-Media Card] storage is better than a standard hard drive. The large amount of storage hard drives offer may seem irresistible if budget is tight, but we recommend buying a laptop with smaller-but-faster storage. You can always pick up an external hard drive for cheap file archiving further down the line. Avoid TN screens if possible Look at the specs page of a laptop for a mention of this. It may also be called SVA, which some manufacturers use to signify standard viewing angle. Instead, you should aim to get a screen described as IPS or WVA (wide viewing angle). This basically tells us it doesn’t have a TN (twisted nematic) screen. Why the TN hate? Unfortunately, these displays look pretty bad unless you view them straight on, and even then just don’t look as good as IPS/WVA displays because they tend to have very low contrast. The TN screens in budget laptops do, anyway. These are your two red alert messages. Avoid hard drives and TN screens, although the latter may be unavoidable if you’re looking to spend as little as possible. Know your laptop processors There’s more to consider but it all largely depends on your budget. However, if you want great performance, be sure to look for a laptop with an 11th generation Intel Core series processor or a 5th generation AMD Ryzen. These are solid. You don’t tend to find them in ultra-cheap laptops, leaving you with Intel Celeron and Pentium processors. These will do the job just fine for simple work, like writing documents, web browsing and video streaming. But if you want to use Photoshop, edit videos or play games, it’s worth saving a bit more for a powerful laptop. Most of the laptops here use Windows. We’ve also included a Chromebook, which is a fantastic option if you want to spend £200-300. Basic navigation in Chromebooks tends to feel a little faster than in Windows 10 when dealing with a low-end CPU, and while they can’t run Windows apps, you can download Android apps for them. Want affordable tech? Read our guides to the best budget smartphone, best budget tablet, best budget wireless earbuds and best budget smartwatch. Plus, you can save on the latest gadgets with the best Samsung Galaxy S24 deals.
The Moto G50 is Motorola’s cheaper route to a 5G life – here's what our experts had to say.
You should consider a Motorola Moto G50 if you want a 5G phone but don’t have lots of money to spend. It is one of the cheapest 5G Androids around at the moment. Battery life is great too. That is where the truly notable stuff ends: 5G, long battery life, low price. If you want a killer camera or the sharpest screen £200 can buy, you should look elsewhere. But most of the compromises here aren’t too glaring in real-world use. The Moto G50 is a good fit for the classic Moto G audience, normal folk who don’t stress over the specs and just want a fairly reliable, easy-to-use, and affordable phone. Jump to: What is the Motorola Moto G50? How much is the Motorola Moto G50? Motorola Moto G50 features Motorola Moto G50 battery Motorola Moto G50 camera Motorola Moto G50 design and set-up Our verdict Where to buy Motorola Moto G50 review: summary The Motorola Moto G50 will likely not immediately appeal to the tech obsessive who cares about processor power and dreams of 10x zoom cameras. But it does get you 5G for relatively little money, the battery lasts ages, and the screen is large enough to do justice to Netflix and Android’s more involving games. Price: £179.99 (£199.99 RRP) Key features 6.5-inch Qualcomm Snapdragon 480 5G CPU 5G mobile internet Android 11 64GB storage 4GB RAM 5000mAh battery 48/5/2MP rear cameras 13MP front camera 164.9 x 74.9 x 9 mm 192g Pros Low price for 5G Excellent battery life Decent, if mono, speaker Cons Low-resolution screen Basic camera array It’s not a gaming powerhouse What is the Motorola Moto G50? The Moto G50 is Motorola’s cheapest 5G phone at the time of review. It’s a great choice if you are after a no-nonsense upgrade that lasts a long time between charges. What does the Motorola Moto G50 do? It can use 5G mobile internet for faster downloads and less video streaming stutter The Moto G50 has a dedicated Google Assistant button You can shoot standard 1x photos and close-up macro photos Its large screen is surprisingly good for Netflix streaming A loud mono speaker is handy for podcasts You can plug in wired headphones, no Bluetooth set required How much is the Motorola Moto G50? The Motorola Moto G50’s original price was £199. However, at the time of review, it is available for £179 online at Amazon. This discount sounds minor but helps bring the cost down below that of some of the very aggressively priced Xiaomi alternatives. You'll find the most competitive prices listed directly below. Is the Motorola Moto G50 good value for money? The Motorola G50 is good value at its original £199 price and seems even better at £179. It cost that much at all the major retailers at the time of review. If you can only find the phone for around £200, we might suggest you also consider the Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite. Its price jumps between £200 and around £220 and has a significantly better screen than the Moto G50. However, at £180, this phone is hard to beat and bests the Samsung Galaxy A32 5G for value. That Samsung costs around £50 more and is not significantly better in most areas. Don’t care about 5G at all? You should also consider the £200 Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC. It has double the storage, a better screen and a better camera array. But it only has 4G mobile internet. Motorola Moto G50 features The number one job of the Moto G50 is to bring you 5G mobile internet for not too much money. A 4G phone isn’t suddenly going to become obsolete in a few years, but if you like to keep your Androids for a good 3-5 years or more, 5G is a sensible feature to have. It means faster download speeds in 5G areas and less congestion once the networks’ 5G infrastructure extends a little further across the country. 5G and attractive pricing are the Moto G50’s two big “features”. Oh, and battery life, which we’ll cover later. The rest sees Motorola tread water and try not to be too badly outclassed by more expensive Androids and 4G ones at a similar price. It does a mostly fine job, too. The Moto G50 has a 6.5-inch screen. This is a sort of middle-of-the-pack size, good for video streaming and playing games if you don’t mind a reasonably large phone but don’t want an outright whopper. You also get a highly capable and popular processor, the Snapdragon 480. This is a budget 5G chipset, but Qualcomm has made sure these latest models have enough power to handle pretty taxing games. Fortnite runs, for example, but you will see some obvious jerky frame rate dips. Everything else we tried plays nicely, mind. The big gamers should probably buy a Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro instead. It’s far more powerful but doesn’t have 5G. The Moto G50 also has a fairly loudspeaker that does not sound thin. However, unlike some other Moto phones, this one has just a single mono speaker, not a second one on the front. We love it for podcasts, but those stereo movie/game soundtracks will sound better with headphones. Screen resolution is one of the most obvious cuts to keep the Moto G50’s cost low. It’s a 720p LCD screen with a teardrop notch, not the 1080p “Full HD” you get with the only slightly more expensive Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite. The big question: will you notice the difference? Small text looks a little less pristine on a lower-resolution screen like this. And switching from a high-res one, we do notice within the first three seconds. But we always get used to it within the first day or so, and it affects reading articles or social media feeds much more than Netflix movies. It’s the opposite of what you might guess. Given the relatively low-spec screen resolution, there’s a neat surprise here. The Moto G50 has a 90Hz refresh rate. This means the screen can refresh its image up to 90 times a second rather than the usual 60. It makes scrolling through web pages, and your app screen looks smoother, which is nice. Other Moto G50 points to note include that it has a decent rear-mounted fingerprint scanner, a headphone jack, and — most important of all — good general performance. The number one thing we ask of a budget phone is that it is not frustrating to use. No such problems here. Motorola Moto G50 battery Battery life is a Motorola Moto G50 highlight. It has a 5000mAh battery like loads of phones in this class but, perhaps thanks to its power-saving processor and lower-resolution screen, it seems to last for ages between charges — longer than most. We tend to use our phones at least a little more heavily than the norm and still find we often end up with a 40% charge or slightly more by the end of the day. This is an excellent result. It should last a full two days for many people. Charging speed is not as good, though. It supports up to 15W charging and only comes with a 10W charger in the box. This thing is very slow and takes a good two-plus hours to get you from flat to 100%. We always recharge the Moto G50 overnight because it just doesn’t have the charging speed to make quick occasional top-ups an attractive alternative. Motorola Moto G50 camera The Motorola Moto G50 has a more basic camera setup than you might guess from a quick glance. There are three lenses on the back, but you don’t get an alternative field of view, an ultra-wide or zoom lens. Ultra-wides are pretty common in cheaper phones, and they add fun and versatility to a phone camera. So what do the other two lenses do? The Moto G50 has a 5-megapixel close-up macro camera and a depth sensor used for the Portrait mode. This blurs out the background. While the macro camera is miles better than the 2MP ones you often get in £180-250 phones, we’d trade it in for an ultra-wide in a heartbeat. We just don't use macros that often. The main camera is OK, but little more than that. We had a chance to compare the Moto G50 directly with a bunch of phones, including the Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC, Mi 10T Lite and Pixel 4a. The Moto was the weakest of the bunch. Photos look a bit scruffier up close, and fine detail is marginally worse. Low-light photos aren’t great either, even if you use the dedicated Night mode. However, it’s our job to look for weak points in phones, and we still have a good time shooting images with the Moto G50. It has solid image processing to keep 95% of your shots looking well exposed, and there’s only minor shutter lag, which is where it seems the phone takes its sweet time to actually capture a photo. There was always going to be a compromise or two to fit 5G in at this price in 2021, and while they do hit the camera, Motorola has balanced things out rather well here. We used the way more expensive Sony Xperia 10 III before the G50, and it has far more significant camera problems than seen here. Motorola Moto G50 design and set-up The Motorola Moto G50 design is very similar to that of other recent G-series phones. That means the back is intended to look a bit like glass, which was used in Moto G phones a few years ago, but is plastic. Its sides are plastic too, but this is now the norm for virtually every phone available at under £200. The Moto G50 has a light reactive finish, which creates metallic-looking lighter patches across its back as you turn it around in your hand. However, there’s nothing too ambitious or polarising going on here. It doesn’t have the slightly juvenile style of some Xiaomi and Realme alternatives. You also get a simple silicone case in the box, so there's no need to buy any accessories. A screen protector wouldn't be a bad idea, though. Motorola does not apply one in the factory, and the phones do not use Gorilla Glass, the most popular kind of scratch-resistant glass in phones. This glass is still toughened, but we’ve managed to put a couple of light scratches in it after a few weeks of use. We don’t think there's much of the learning curve to the Moto G50. It has a Motorola interface on top of the core Android 11 software, but it’s very similar to the default Google style in most respects. You'll be asked to log in to your Google account on setup, and as part of the start-up guide, you can make the phone install all the apps present on your current phone. Our verdict: should you buy a Motorola Moto G50? The Moto G50 is a solid, no-nonsense Android for someone keen on having 5G in their next phone but who is otherwise more concerned about long battery life than other tech frills. It doesn't have a particularly advanced camera or a Full HD screen, but we think it’s a good buy for the non-tech obsessed crowd, particularly if it's available for £180 (rather than its original price tag of £200) when you come to buy. General performance is solid, long battery life is something we always appreciate, and a speaker that doesn’t sound thin and weak is great for the podcast fans out there. The Moto G50 is no revolution, but it’s certainly a sensible budget buy. Rating: Features: 4/5 Battery: 5/5 Camera: 3/5 Design/set-up: 5/5 Overall rating: 4/5 Where to buy the Motorola Moto G50 You can buy the SIM-free Motorola Moto G50 handset at a number of retailers, including Amazon, John Lewis and Currys PC World. Take a look below for the best offers out there right now. There are a number of different Motorola Moto G50 contracts to choose from at Carphone Warehouse. undefined Don't miss our wider pick of the best Motorola phones to buy in 2021.
Xiaomi Mi 11 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: which should you buy?
We pit these two high-end Androids against each other. But does the Xiaomi Mi 11 come out on top or will the Samsung Galaxy S21 win?
The Xiaomi Mi 11 and Samsung Galaxy S21 are cutting-edge Android phones. They offer high-end tech for less money, and a smartphone experience not that far removed from £1000-phones in many respects. If you want the most features and the highest quality build you can get for your money, buy the Xiaomi Mi 11. It feels like a real enthusiast phone, has a more desirable processor, and is better value when you break it down. However, it is not the best choice for everyone. The Samsung Galaxy S21 is a much smaller phone, perfect if you’re tired of smartphones that bulge out of pockets. Its camera is a little more versatile too. Still unsure? Read on for a full breakdown of each phone's best features. Samsung has revealed its new foldable phones, read our first-look Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 review and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 review. Jump to: Key differences at a glance Specs and features Price and storage Battery life Camera Display 5G capability and connectivity Design Xiaomi Mi 11 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: which should you buy? Xiaomi Mi 11 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: key differences at a glance The Xiaomi Mi 11 has a much larger, higher-resolution screen Samsung’s ultra-wide and selfie cameras are better The Xiaomi relies on its very high-res main camera for zoom images while the S21 has a dedicated zoom lens We prefer the Xiaomi Mi 11’s Snapdragon processor to the S21’s Exynos one The Galaxy S21 is a much smaller phone The construction of the Xiaomi Mi 11 is higher-end, using curved glass on front and back Xiaomi Mi 11 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: in detail Xiaomi Mi 11 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: specs and features These phones may have much more expensive “ultra” siblings for the buyer willing to spend mountains of cash on their next phone, but there’s no power or performance sacrifice involved here. The Samsung Galaxy S21 has a Samsung Exynos 2100 CPU, just like the Galaxy S21 Ultra. Xiaomi’s Mi 11 has the Snapdragon 888, arguably the very best Android processor available at the time of the phone’s launch. Which is better? We have to give this one to Xiaomi. While Samsung’s Exynos processors improved quite dramatically this year, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon line is still ahead for gaming performance and efficiency. Right now we don’t think you’ll notice the difference all that much. The Samsung Galaxy S21 and Xiaomi Mi 11 will still handle today’s Android games just fine, but a little extra juice may appeal if you tend to hold onto your phones for as long as you can before upgrading. Xiaomi Mi 11 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: price and storage The official prices for these phones are quite similar. But if we go by what you can get them for at their manufacturers’ online stores, the Xiaomi Mi 11 is a bit cheaper. It costs £649 with 128GB storage, or £699 with 256GB storage. You’ll pay £769 for the 128GB Galaxy S21 direct from Samsung, or £819 for the 256GB version. That said, the price disparity disappears if you expand your search. At the time of writing, the Samsung Galaxy S21 is available for £649 (128GB version) from Amazon. So, if price is your main decided, it might be a tough one since the Xiaomi Mi 11 and Samsung Galaxy S21 cost roughly the same amount. Skip to view the pay monthly prices Xiaomi Mi 11 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: battery life Neither of these phones is the obvious choice if you want two-day battery life. Samsung and Xiaomi both produce longer-lasting phones, like the Galaxy S21+ and the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro. The day-to-day experience will be quite similar in both. Have a heavy day of YouTube-ing, or a long commute during which you play a game? The Samsung Galaxy S21 and Xiaomi Mi 11 may need a top-up if you plan on going out in the evening and will use your phone to listen to a podcast on the way home. They will last a full day for most people, but don’t quite have that ultra-reliable longevity we value so highly. Why? The Samsung Galaxy S21 is quite a small phone, and has a just-ok 4000mAh size battery to match. Similarly, the 4600mAh battery of the Mi 11 is not huge considering its very large, very high-res screen. Xiaomi likely had to cut down capacity slightly to keep the phone thin and slick-looking. The Xiaomi Mi 11 has the advantage for real-world use, because its charging is very fast indeed. It comes with a 55W charger that will take the Mi 11 from 0% to full charge in under and hour. Samsung’s Galaxy S21 doesn’t come with a charger at all, and only supports 25W charging. If you don’t have a 25W Samsung charger lying around at home, you’ll have to buy one to get the best recharge speed. The Xiaomi Mi 11 also has superb wireless charging speed. At 50W, it works at twice the rate Samsung manages using a cable. It’s an eye-opener. Still, Qi wireless charging pads and stands that powerful can cost £70 or more, so we’d probably advise sticking to a good old wired charger. The Samsung Galaxy S21 does support wireless charging, but only at a rate of 15W. You can get a dock with that kind of power for under £15 online, so it might make a nice accessory for your work desk. Xiaomi Mi 11 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: camera The Xiaomi Mi 11’s camera might make your eyes pop out if you don’t follow phone tech too closely. It has a 108MP main camera, which sounds far more impressive than the Samsung Galaxy S21’s 12MP camera. However, after considering every piece of the camera puzzle, of which there are many these days, we think the Samsung Galaxy S21’s array is slightly better. It’s mostly about flexibility. The Samsung Galaxy S21 has a better ultra-wide camera than the Xiaomi Mi 11, a better selfie camera and a better zoom. It uses a 64-megapixel sensor with a 1.1x lens for zoom shots: hardly worthy of a wildlife photographer. But it then crops into this camera’s view to produce more detailed images than the standard 12-megapixel camera. When you use the Samsung Galaxy S21 you always feel there’s a whole bunch of useful options at your fingertips, which lets you get more creative with how you shoot images. It also scores a win on the image quality front. The Samsung Galaxy S21’s photos tend to exhibit noticeably better dynamic range than the Xiaomi Mi 11’s. That means you’ll see fewer blown highlights, where the brightest parts become panes of white, and more details in the darkest spots. Dynamic range is one of the most important aspects of photography, arguably more important than detail in phone cameras. The Samsung Galaxy S21’s win is a marginal one, though, and the Xiaomi Mi 11’s cameras are excellent. Normal 1x zoom images will sometimes be more detailed than Samsung’s, handy if you think you might want to blow up holiday images to put on a wall. And it has an unusual secret weapon: a telemacro camera. This is a camera for close-up photography with a zoom-style lens designed to let you focus on subjects incredibly near to you. It’s mostly used for nature photography. We first came across one of these in the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro, and it is a lot of fun to play around with. While its resolution is only 5MP, it’s enough to bring out detail the average phone camera could not. Heck, it can see things our eyes can’t. Xiaomi Mi 11 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: display Here’s where we get to the part that reveals why the Samsung Galaxy S21 and Xiaomi Mi 11 aren’t all that similar, if you forget that their prices are neck and neck. The Xiaomi Mi 11 has a very large 6.81-inch screen. The Samsung Galaxy S21 has a relatively small 6.2-inch screen. We’ll cover the benefits of “going small” in the design section of this comparison. But in a pure screen vs screen fight, Xiaomi wins. The Xiaomi Mi 11’s large display is a great canvas for games and streamed video, and the tech used is really quite stunning for the price. It’s an ultra-high resolution 3200 x 1440 pixel display, and still looks pin-sharp despite the large screen area. The Samsung Galaxy S21 has a lower-resolution – 2400 x 1080 pixel panel – although it still looks sharp despite being small. This one’s all about size. They also share several impressive elements. The Xiaomi MI 11 and Samsung Galaxy S21 have OLED panels, which have light-up pixels for effectively infinite contrast. Samsung’s display arm most likely produced both of these screens. They have a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz, for incredibly smooth scrolling, and extremely high brightness for good visibility on sunny days. The Xiaomi Mi 11 is a step up, but size is the only difference everyone will notice. Xiaomi Mi 11 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: 5G capability and Connectivity Do these phones have 5G? Of course they do. We’d find it hard to recommend phones this expensive to UK buyers if they did not have 5G at this point. In other senses, though, they are more limited than some of the much cheaper 4G phones we still like and recommend in 2021. Neither lets you plug in a pair of wired headphones without using a USB-C to 3.5mm socket adapter. You can’t slot a microSD card in, so have a think about how much storage you’ll need before choosing between the respective 128GB or 256GB versions. This is standard stuff for high-end phones in 2021, though, and the Xiaomi Mi 11 and Samsung Galaxy S21 both have advanced wireless standards like Wi-Fi 6. You may have come across this if you upgraded your home internet router recently. It’s faster, and works more effectively if your home internet is congested with stacks of devices. Xiaomi Mi 11 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: design If we were to remove all questions of personal preference from this comparison, the Xiaomi Mi 11 would win this “design” section. It has a great curved glass back and a luxurious curved glass front, where Samsung uses plastic on the Galaxy S21’s back in order to save some money. This may pick up scuffs more easily, and doesn’t feel quite as expensive. However, this category is a lot more complicated than that. We are fans of the style of Samsung’s S21-series phones. They are distinctive and eye-catching, stylised in a way that seems made for the cover of a glossy magazine. The Xiaomi MI 11’s look may seem like that of a very expensive phone, but it is more anonymous, and could be confused for phones lower down in Xiaomi’s (admittedly excellent) Android line-up. Xiaomi wins for quality of construction. Samsung wins for style. Ultimately, you’ll have to decide which size of phone suits you best. The Galaxy S21 is 12.6mm shorter and 3.4mm narrower than the Xiaomi Mi 11. That may not sound like a lot, but means these two belong in totally different size classes. The Samsung is a small phone, the Xiaomi Mi 11 a large one. Sure, the Xiaomi isn’t quite as brick-like as the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, a tech-packed powerhouse. It’s actually relatively small for a 6.81-inch screen phone thanks to its tiny display borders. But some readers may prefer to live with a smaller phone like the Galaxy S21. It doesn’t ask for finger gymnastics and will fit into pockets more easily. Plus, it makes ill-advised scrolling through social media while in bed less likely to end with the phone falling flat on your face. Best Xiaomi phones Xiaomi Mi 11 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: which should you buy? If the question here is which phone gets you the most for your money, the Xiaomi Mi 11 is the winner. It has a bigger, higher-resolution screen, build quality we’d usually associate with an even more expensive phone, and a slightly better processor. The Samsung Galaxy S21 is not far behind, though. It is also more stylish, easier to handle and the camera array is a bit more versatile thanks to its higher-quality ultra-wide and selfie cameras. A dedicated zoom camera helps with 3x and 5x shots too. Buy the Xiaomi Mi 11: Amazon Vodafone | from £33 a month and £29 upfront Three | from £40 a month and £19 upfront Buy the Samsung Galaxy S21: Amazon Samsung Vodafone | from £33 a month and £29 upfront EE | from £47 a month and £100 upfront O2 | from £44.21 a month and £30 upfront (includes Disney Plus subscription) Still deciding? Don't miss our iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21 comparison. Or, head straight to our best mid-range phone guide.
The new OnePlus Nord CE 5G is now ready to pre-order, but how does it score in our review?
The OnePlus Nord CE 5G “sell” is it offers the core OnePlus experience for less money than you’d pay for a OnePlus 9. That means you get 5G, a bold OLED screen, fast charging and good day-to-day performance. CE stands for Core Edition. The name fits the mission statement. Mission complete. However, the OnePlus Nord CE 5G isn’t as powerful as the OnePlus Nord and isn’t quite as well-made either. And at the time of writing that phone does not cost much more. You can get similar results in terms of real-world display, camera and gaming performance from some cheaper phones too, particularly those of Xiaomi, Realme and Oppo. The OnePlus Nord CE 5G is a good Android phone but does not set the standard for value in the way some OnePlus phones of the past have. Jump to: OnePlus Nord CE 5G review: summary What is the OnePlus Nord CE 5G? How much is the OnePlus Nord CE 5G? OnePlus Nord CE 5G features OnePlus Nord CE 5G battery OnePlus Nord CE 5G camera OnePlus Nord CE 5G design and set-up Our verdict Where to buy OnePlus Nord CE 5G review: summary The OnePlus Nord CE 5G is a good buy for someone who wants a relatively light and thin 5G phone, but there are compelling alternatives out there for the bargain hunter crowd. Price: From £299 Key features: 6.43-inch 2400 x 1080 90HZ OLED screen 128/256GB storage 8/12GB RAM Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G CPU Android 11 OxygenOS interface 64/8/2MP rear cameras 16MP front camera Pros: Good OLED screen Relatively petite and light Classy appearance Good general performance Cons: Plastic back and sides More expensive than several key rivals Not as powerful as the first Nord You can buy the OnePlus Nord CE from Amazon for £299. The step-up 256GB version is also available from Amazon for £369. What is the OnePlus Nord CE 5G? The OnePlus Nord CE 5G is a somewhat affordable 5G phone, a lower-cost alternative to the OnePlus 9 and the original Nord. What does a OnePlus Nord CE 5G do? The OnePlus Nord CE 5G can shoot video at up to 4K resolution You can plug in a pair of wired headphones There’s lots of room for apps and photos as the base model has 128GB storage The OLED screen is perfect for dark room movie/video viewing Fast charging lets you recharge from flat in just over an hour You can choose from a normal or ultra-wide view when taking photos How much is the OnePlus Nord CE 5G? The OnePlus Nord CE 5G starts at £299. This is for the base model, which has 128GB storage and 8GB RAM. There’s a step-up phone too, for £369, which has a massive 256GB storage and 12GB RAM. Both are available in blue or black, while the more expensive Nord CE 5G also comes in silver. Latest Deals Latest Deals Is a OnePlus Nord CE 5G good value for money? The OnePlus Nord CE 5G is reasonable value for money but doesn’t have the usual OnePlus charm. For years the appeal of its phones was you got top-end specs and good design for hundreds less than you’d pay from Samsung or another rival. This is a more affordable 5G phone with entry-level components, or ones just a level or two above that. You can get phones that fit the description for up to £100 less, most obviously in the Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite. The OnePlus Nord CE 5G has a nice OLED screen and lots of storage and is still arguably significantly better value than the cheaper Samsung Galaxy A32 5G. But it is not a highlight of OnePlus history in the value stakes, and the original OnePlus Nord is better at £329 — its price at the time of review direct from OnePlus. OnePlus Nord CE 5G features The OnePlus Nord CE 5G’s prime feature is right there in the name — 5G mobile internet. This is not OnePlus’s cheapest 5G phone; that’s the £220 OnePlus Nord N10. But its job is to get you the essentials of the classic OnePlus experience for less cash. That’s why the “CE” tells us. It’s short for “core edition”. Screen tech is another of these “core” elements. The OnePlus Nord CE 5G has a 6.43-inch OLED screen of 1080p resolution. That means it’s sharp, bold, and its colour is comparable to that of a OnePlus 9. The cheaper OnePlus phones have LCD screens, ones not quite as high-end. OLED screens have light-up pixels, which makes screen blacks look much deeper if you watch Netflix under the covers. In other, more normal, situations an LCD can look just about as good, though. And when we took the OnePlus Nord CE 5G outdoors on a sunny day with the Oppo A54 5G, the Oppo’s screen was actually marginally brighter. We only get a single speaker here, not a stereo array. But it’s a pretty loud little unit, great for listening to podcasts while you’re in the shower or boiling the kettle. It’s loud enough to compete. The OnePlus Nord CE 5G also has a headphone jack, which you won’t find in the more expensive OnePlus phones. However, there’s no microSD slot here, used to expand the storage. We don’t really mind because even the cheaper version of this phone has 128GB of storage. The step-up model, costing £70 more, has 256GB. We think most people will be happy with either. Both versions use a processor called the Snapdragon 750G, a mid-range chipset. It makes the OnePlus Nord CE 5G feel quick and responsive, particularly as it has a 90Hz refresh rate screen. This boosts the maximum frame rate to smooth out scrolling web pages and menus. However, gaming performance is not in the same league as the first OnePlus Nord. It’s much closer to the other phones in the £200-250 range, and some of the most demanding Android games like Fortnite will restrict the graphics settings you can use. If you play Android games a lot, we’d recommend the OnePlus Nord or the 4G Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro instead. OnePlus Nord CE 5G battery The OnePlus Nord CE 5G’s battery is a lot like that of the other OnePlus phones, including the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus Nord. That comes with pros and cons. On the positive side, charging is pretty fast. The OnePlus Nord CE 5G has a 30W charger that gets you from flat to full in a few minutes over an hour. That is twice as quick as some of the slightly cheaper 5G alternatives. However, we did find phones like the Motorola Moto G50 and Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro last longer. We love it when we test a phone and, on some days at least, we end up with coming up for 50% charge left by night-time. That never happened with the OnePlus Nord CE 5G. And while we only had to give it an evening top-up once, it is the sort of phone you might want to plug in for a while before a big night out. The good news is that thanks to the Warp Charge charger, you won’t actually have to plug it in for all that long. OnePlus Nord CE 5G camera The OnePlus Nord CE 5G has three cameras on the back, one camera upfront. If you go by numbers alone, it might even sound like an upgrade from the OnePlus Nord. This primary camera has a 64-megapixel sensor, not the 48-megapixel one used in several other OnePlus phones. It is not really an upgrade, though. While the OnePlus Nord CE 5G can take lovely pictures during the day, it bears some of the hallmarks of an upper entry-level camera. Details and textures in the darker parts of an image might look fuzzy or be flattened to nothing through noise reduction. OnePlus does make the most of the limited hardware, though, as the OnePlus Nord CE 5G has NightScape. This is a mode for night-time photography, one that merges a bunch of shots to get you reasonable results when shooting handheld in the dark. It does fairly well. Not at the level of the OnePlus 9, of course, but it does mean you won’t avoid shooting photos at night because they all end up looking like trash. The ultra-wide camera is a further step down in quality but performs perfectly well in a class where virtually every secondary camera is no masterpiece. It’s always nice to have another field of view option when you are out taking photos. The OnePlus Nord CE 5G’s third camera is mostly here to make up the numbers because these days, almost all affordable phones have three or four rear cameras. It’s a 2-megapixel monochrome camera apparently only used in one of the several black and white filters you’ll find if you dig deep into the camera app. We wouldn’t be surprised if many OnePlus Nord CE 5G buyers never actually end up using it. You can shoot video at up to 4K resolution, 30 frames per second, and the OnePlus Nord CE 5G uses software to smooth out motion when you shoot something handheld. And for the price, this is exactly what we are looking for. Boxes ticked. The OnePlus Nord CE 5G’s 16MP selfie camera is a solid performer too. It handles lower light pretty well and backlit scenes. It uses HDR processing to make sure your face doesn’t look too dim and that the background isn’t totally blown out. This phone is no photography star, but it does enough to keep us happy. The one part we’d like to see change is that when you go to look at a photo you just took, the OnePlus Nord CE 5G will actually kick you out of the preview because the image is still processing. It feels kinda clunky. OnePlus Nord CE 5G design and set-up The OnePlus Nord CE 5G is dressed up to look a lot like the original Nord, particularly if you get the signature blue version. However, it’s actually quite a big downgrade in a substantive way. Where the OnePlus Nord has a glass back, a glass front and plastic sides, the OnePlus Nord CE 5G has a plastic back and plastic sides just like the 5G phones that cost £50-100 less. To be fair to OnePlus, it still looks great. The back has a matt finish, we love the blue colour, and the OnePlus Nord CE 5G is free from the attention-grabbing gaudy look common among Xiaomi and Realme phones. The OnePlus Nord CE 5G is also smaller, thinner and lighter than many. A lot of your 5G options under £300 hover around the 200g mark. This phone weighs 170g. It’s good news if you are after a smaller phone, although we tend to find we get used to size changes — aside from the truly huge phones — in a few days. And several times during testing, when we took OnePlus Nord CE 5G out of a pocket, we couldn’t help but note the plastic construction does make it feel an awful lot like some of the cheaper alternatives. OnePlus delivers the phone with a factory-applied screen protector, and you get a basic but rather good silicone case in the box. We used the OnePlus Nord CE 5G without the case to feel the full benefit of the lower bulk, slim design, but have already managed to put a little dent in the plastic surround. Using a case is always a good idea. There are no real difficulties when you set up. OnePlus offers a couple of different ways to bring your apps and data from other Android phones, and we didn’t feel the need to customise OnePlus’s OxygenOS interface at all. It is one of the better third-party Android software skins and is rather fetching. Our verdict: should you buy a OnePlus Nord CE 5G? If you’re looking to spend around £300 and the original OnePlus Nord is still available for £329, we recommend that over the OnePlus Nord CE 5G. It has a lovely glass back and a processor that handles challenging games better. Xiaomi’s 5G and 4G phones from the Redmi, Mi and Poco ranges are also arguably better value, and most are significantly cheaper at the time of review. However, if you don’t want to spend any more and find those Xiaomi models too large, the OnePlus Nord CE 5G could be the perfect fit. While none of the stuff inside it truly stands out at its price, it is a thoroughly pleasant phone and less bulky than many. Rating: Features: 4/5 Battery: 3.5/5 Camera: 3.5/5 Design and set-up: 3.5/5 Overall rating: 3.5/5 Where to buy the OnePlus Nord CE 5G Both the 128GB and 256GB versions are available to pre-order at Amazon. Latest Deals Latest Deals Comparing affordable handsets? Don't miss our best budget smartphone round-up.
The Oppo A54 5G is a no-nonsense affordable 5G phone that offers more for your money than the latest rivals
The Oppo A54 5G is a sensibly priced 5G Android phone. This was what we were waiting for when 5G became a thing. Most of us can’t afford to spend £1000-plus on a phone, and you could argue 5G hasn’t really got up to speed until the average buyer can get on board. At around £220, many would be happy to buy this Android contract-free. So, is the Oppo A54 5G great in other ways? The battery lasts for ages, the screen is good, its cameras are fun to use, and its performance is rock-solid. It’s one of the most accessible 5G buys around. In this review, we’ll look at some ways the Oppo A54 5G is better than its Samsung and Motorola rivals. And why some of you should also consider the great Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite. Jump to: Oppo A54 5G review: summary What is the Oppo A54 5G? How much is the Oppo A54 5G? Oppo A54 5G features Oppo A54 5G battery Oppo A54 5G camera Oppo A54 5G design and set-up Our verdict Where to buy Oppo A54 5G review: summary The OPPO A54 5G is a great phone for those who want to try 5G without spending a fortune. It offers more tech per pound than the Samsung or Motorola alternatives, although bargain hunters should also consider the Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite. It has a slightly more advanced screen and a more powerful brain. Price: The Oppo A54 5G is available to buy for £219 from Amazon, Currys and Argos. Key features: Snapdragon 480 CPU 4GB RAM 64GB storage 6.5in 1080p 90Hz screen 162.9 x 74.7 x 8.4 mm 190g 48/8/2/2MP rear cameras 16MP selfie camera 5000mAh battery Pros: Low price for a 5G phone Nice sharp screen Long battery life Solid primary camera Cons: Plastic build - typical in this class Weak secondary cameras Mono speaker What is Oppo A54 5G? The Oppo A54 5G is a sensibly priced 5G Android phone, a good low-alternative to phones like the Pixel 4a 5G, Samsung Galaxy A32 5G or Oppo Find X3 Lite. What does Oppo A54 5G do? You can unlock the phone with your thumbprint It receives a 5G mobile internet signal for faster downloads You can shoot ‘normal’ or ultra-wide photos It can capture Full HD, but not 4K, video with its camera You can slot in a microSD card for more storage How much is Oppo A54 5G? The Oppo A54 5G is available to buy for £219 from Amazon. This makes it £20 more than the rival Moto G50, but £20-30 cheaper than the comparable Samsung A32 5G. Is Oppo A54 5G good value for money? Scanning around online for Oppo A54 5G prices and those of its rivals, it seems solid if not mind-blowing value. It’s around £20 more than the Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite and Motorola Moto G50. And £10-30 less than the Samsung A32 5G. However, only the Xiaomi is close to a like-for-like rival as the Oppo A54 5G has a nicer screen than either the Motorola or Samsung. This alone is enough to bump it up from “OK” value to “pretty darn good”. Oppo A54 5G features 5G is the most important feature of the Oppo A54 5G. It sits in the early waves of phones that offer this next-level mobile internet for around £200. Right now, 5G may not seem an essential feature. 5G coverage is still largely restricted to larger cities, and most of us can get on just fine with a solid 4G signal, right? However, we still think it’s a good feature to have if you like to keep your phones for a decent number of years before upgrading. Oppo hides the cuts it has had to make to fit in 5G very well. For example, the A54 5G still has a very sharp Full HD screen with a modern-looking punch hole, pleasant colour and enough brightness for clear visibility outdoors. The Samsung Galaxy A32 5G and Motorola Moto G50 both drop down to a 720p display. They still look crisp enough but don’t have the high-end look of the A54 5G. Still, the Oppo has the same processor, the same brain, as that Motorola rival. It's called the Snapdragon 480, an upper entry-level chip designed to further bring down the cost of 5G phones. We’re more than happy with how it runs day-to-day. The Oppo A54 5G has no major lag – you don’t have to wait for an age for photos to process after taking them. But how about gaming? The vast majority of games will run well on any £200 phone, so we like to dig into tricky ones like Fortnite and Asphalt 9 when testing Android mobiles. Fortnite runs OK on the Oppo A54 5G, but you can only run it at up to “Medium” detail, and there are still big frame rate dips if when you turn around quickly to reveal new areas the phone has to render. Big gamers should consider the Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro instead. It has far power graphics power but does not have 5G. The Oppo A54 5G also only has the minimum storage we expect for the money, 64GB. Some 4G phones around this price have 128GB or even 256GB. Still, the phone will take a microSD card, so this need not be a deal-breaker. Oppo A54 5G battery The Oppo A54 5G has a 5000mAh battery, just like the Motorola, Samsung and Xiaomi phones at this level. However, it outlasts the several comparable Motorola phones we have used recently, as we might expect from an Oppo phone. On one day that started at around 7am, we still had 40% charge left by 11:30pm. And that day included an hour of GPS run tracking plus 40 minutes spent browsing for a Netflix movie to watch. This is the kind of stamina we’re after. You can use the Oppo A54 5G carelessly and still be more or less certain it won’t run out of juice before you go to bed. Companies like Oppo manage to squeeze out this above-average stamina by keeping careful control over what app processes can happen in the background. But as long as we don't notice they’re happening, we don't mind. It's a shame the Oppo A54 5G does not have faster charging, though. You get a 10W charger in the box, where the rival Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite has an excellent 33W charger. Oppo A54 5G camera The Oppo A54 5G has five cameras. It sounds like a great haul, right? Only one of them can actually take great photos. That’s the primary one on the back, of course. The others are a fairly poor 8MP ultra-wide, which captures images with far less detail and a much lower dynamic range. This means the darker parts of the picture end up looking pretty dim, particularly if there are bright clouds up top. Oppo put a basic 2MP macro camera on the back for ultra-close images. But the poor quality of this camera means you’re unlikely to shoot anything worth sharing. The Oppo A54 5G’s last bonus camera is a depth aid for the Portrait mode that blurs out the background. We are glad it’s here because depth photos can look great, particularly those of people. But it’s another ‘junk’ sensor in quality terms. The main 48-megapixel camera is the Oppo A54 5G’s one camera highlight. And the first positive we noted has nothing to do with image quality: this camera feels responsive. There's no big delays with focusing, or between the moment you hit the shutter button and the point the A54 5G actually takes a picture. This has a huge part in making a phone camera fun to use. And Oppo has nailed it. The app even has presets for 2x and 5x zoomed pics but don’t be fooled. There’s no zoom camera here, and while the Oppo A54 5G can just about get away with 2x shots, 5x ones look rubbish. Standard view photos, though, are very nice considering the phone’s cost. There’s lots of detail, and the images tend to skew slightly warm, which is always easy on the eye. We had a chance to directly compare the Oppo A54 5G with the Moto G 5G, Moto G50 and Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro, shooting the very same scene. The results bring good news for Oppo. The Oppo A54 5G beat the Motos for texture detail and image integrity at the corners of the frame. It roughly matches the Redmi Note 10 Pro, which is a 4G phone — and therefore might be expected to do better (as 5G tends to lead to budget-related compromises elsewhere). We also have a lot of time for the phone’s “AI scene enhancement” mode. These usually just ramp-up colour. The Oppo A54 5G does do this but also brightens up the darker parts of the picture. You trade away some realism but end up with larger than life images that are sure to get you more likes on Instagram. For sunsets, dramatic cloudy skies and landscapes, AI enhancement is a hit. The Oppo A54 5G is less impressive for video because it can only shoot at up to 1080p resolution. There's no 4K mode, not even at 60fps mode at 1080p. Video quality is fine, though, and there’s at least some stabilisation. Around the front of the Oppo A54 5G is a 16-megapixel selfie cam. This is probably the second-best camera on the phone, but we don’t think its images are anything more than ‘fine’. Oppo A54 5G design and set-up All current 5G phones at this level have a similar scent to their design. They are all plastic and have mid-size screens. You don’t tend to get ultra-large budget 5G mobiles or remotely small ones – sorry, folks. The Oppo A54 5G comes in two colours, and we’re using the more subdued silver one. It’s a gradient, light grey at the top and dark grey at the bottom, with a glossy metallic look throughout. There’s a reactive layer in here, too, one that brings up purple highlights as it catches the light. It’s rather nice, and there’s a purple-green Oppo A54 5G finish if you would like something more punchy. Other parts are very similar to the competition. The A54 5G has a good side-loaded thumb/finger scanner for passcode-free unlocking, there’s a headphone jack and just the one speaker down at the bottom. We’d much rather have a stereo array, particularly for movies and games. But this one is at least loud enough to let you listen to podcasts or streamed radio while cooking. The initial setup process is very similar to that of other brands. You’re taken through a wizard that lets you log in to your Google account to auto-install the apps you have on your current phone. You can cull ones you no longer use at this point too. We did find we wanted to make a few more tweaks to the interface than in other phones, though. The Oppo A54 5G has an interface called ColorOS that sits on top of Android. It is not the prettiest around, and it doesn’t have an app ‘drawer’ — a dedicated app library area — as standard. Its fonts and icon style all look slightly stiff too. All of this can be tweaked within a few screen taps, presses and swipes, but you do, of course, have to know where to look for these options. For the latest news and expert tips on getting the best deals this year, take a look at our Black Friday 2021 and Cyber Monday 2021 guides. Our verdict: should you buy Oppo A54 5G? The Oppo A54 5G is a no-nonsense, affordable 5G phone that offers more for your money than the latest rivals from Motorola and Samsung. These include a sharper screen and a better primary camera. Battery life is very good, and performance is sound, as long as you aren’t big on high-end mobile gaming. Oppo has nailed the basics. Xiaomi arguably offers even more in the Mi 10T Lite, and there are some better options if you don’t care at all about 5G. But it seems sensible to buy a phone with 5G rather than without for most at this point. Rating: Features: 4/5 Battery: 4/5 Camera: 4/5 Design and set-up: 4/5 Overall rating: 4/5 Where to buy Oppo A54 5G £219 at Amazon £219 at Currys £219 at Argos Available from EE | from £27 a month and £10 upfront Available from O2 | from £16.99 a month undefined For more reviews, product guides and the latest news, head to the Technology section. Looking to upgrade your contract? Here are the best SIM-only deals.
The Moto G30 is a low-cost Android phone that sits one step above the entry-level G10. Is it worth your money? Here's our verdict.
The Motorola Moto G30 is the kind of phone someone not keen on researching gadgets too much might buy. Reliable brand? Check. Low price? Check. Enough techy bits and bobs? Sure. But you’re reading this, so you must be up for a little legwork. How does the Moto G30 really stack up? It’s a sound deal. The Moto G30 is not perfect, but there are some surprising extras here considering it costs just £160. It has a 90Hz screen and 64-megapixel camera – big numbers. We’ll get onto what they actually mean later. The Moto G30 lacks a little of the surface-level shine of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 9. Its screen resolution is slightly low, colour isn’t as vibrant, and the camera is on the slow side. But to see a significant step up in quality, you need to spend an extra £40-50. We imagine you want a Moto G30 because £50 means a lot; rather than just being a marginal extra cost that you can shrug off. Jump to: Motorola Moto G30 summary What is the Motorola Moto G30? How much is Motorola Moto G30? Features Battery Camera Design and set-up Our verdict Where to buy Motorola Moto G30 review: summary The Moto G30 is a sensible buy for someone after an affordable Android, someone who doesn’t demand a lightning-fast camera or ultra-vivid display. Price: £159.99 (RRP) Key features 6.5-inch 1600 x 720 pixel LCD screen Snapdragon 662 CPU Pros Good enough gaming performance for the money Solid battery life Low cost Cons The camera feels slow Display doesn’t pop like those of the best budget phones No 5G mobile internet The Moto G30 is available from Motorola for £159.99. The handset is available on Amazon in Smoke Black (£134.40), Dark Pearl (£179.92) and Pastel Sky (£158.99). What is Motorola Moto G30? The Moto G30 is a budget Android phone that sits one step above the entry-level Moto G10. What does Motorola Moto G30 do? It can take 16-megapixel photos with its 64-megapixel camera You can shoot video at 1080p resolution There’s a macro camera, but it’s not very good You can shoot ‘blurry background’ portrait photos The Moto G30 can be unlocked with the rear fingerprint scanner The Snapdragon processor handles most Android games perfectly well How much is Motorola Moto G30? The Moto G30 costs £159.99 with 4GB RAM and 128GB storage. You’ll pay an extra £20 to increase the RAM to 6GB. That seems a sound deal when you look at the upgrade prices of more expensive phones, but it also takes you a little too close to phones around £200 that are more capable all-round, like the Poco X3 NFC. Is Motorola Moto G30 good value for money? Value for money is the Motorola Moto G30’s whole reason to exist. It’s the kind of Android you might buy to escape from long, expensive contracts. There are a few compromises, but the savings over a top-end or even mid-range Android are immense. We think you get even better value from some Chinese brands like Xiaomi and Realme, but there’s not a great deal in it. Motorola Moto G30 features The Moto G30 has two surprising features, given how little it costs. These are the 64-megapixel camera and a 90Hz screen. We’ll deal with the camera in its own section later on. What’s special about a 90Hz screen? Most phones, including all iPhones, can change what their screen displays 60 times a second. The Moto G30 cranks this up to 90 times per second, which works wonders on the scrolling app drawer. It just looks much smoother here than in just about every other 60Hz phone close in cost. A high refresh rate is the cherry on top of a super-powered phone, one that adds significantly to the sense of slick immediacy. The Moto G30 isn’t one of those super-powered phones, though. There are little pauses when, say, you open up an app or bring up the settings menu. Still, it’s nice to have that extra hit of scrolling smoothness even if the entire phone is not flawlessly fast. The Moto G30 uses a rear fingerprint scanner to let you unlock the phone securely without a pin or password. Again, this is not lightning-fast like the scanners of the best £500 phones, but it is pretty reliable. What should you take from this? We settled into the slightly slower pace of the Moto G30 within 48 hours. But if you are switching from a flagship phone from 2-3 years ago, you may find the G30 slightly slow. But only slightly: this is still a big performance upgrade over the cheaper Moto G10. Its performance is in line with the price, and this stands for gaming too. You can play some rather high-end games very well, like racer Asphalt 9. Fortnite, which is one of the toughest Android games to run well, is more of a struggle for the Moto G30. At least you get loads of space for games. 128GB is an excellent amount for a cheap phone. There are a few compromises in display quality too. This is a 6.5-inch 720p screen, not as sharp as the 1080p kind you get in a Realme 5 Pro or Xiaomi Redmi Note 9. Colour is slightly subdued, and maximum brightness is just OK, as is to be expected when you spend a bit less. We could still see the preview image clear enough when out shooting photos, but the Moto G30 isn’t as bright as most phones from one class up, despite that fancy 90Hz refresh rate. Despite good contrast, the difference between the darkest blacks and the brightest whites, this screen doesn’t ‘pop’ quite as much as a good 1080p screen. Motorola Moto G30 battery The Moto G30 has a 5000mAh battery, like most of the other recent G-series phones. This is quite large, designed to ensure you get a full day’s use at the very least. You can get that too, often with at least 30% charge left, as long as you keep the screen to 60Hz refresh rate or use the Auto mode. With the screen at 90Hz 24/7, we found it was a little too easy to nearly drain the battery completely in a day. To be honest, we set it to that mode accidentally. There’s no real benefit to making the screen work harder all day long. Bought a Moto G30 already? You can check your current mode in Settings > Display > Advanced > Display Refresh Rate. Motorola says the Moto G30 has fast charging, but it’s not tremendously quick. A 30-minute charge gets you from flat to 30-odd percent, well below the 55-65%, you get with the fast-charging Xiaomi phones at around £200, like the Poco X3 NFC. Motorola Moto G30 camera We don’t love using the Moto G30 camera compared to some other £150-200 phones, and the reason has nothing to do with photo quality. The Motorola Moto G30 often suffers from a bit of shutter lag. This is where the actual image capture happens a short while after you press the button. It slows down the experience and may mean you get a blurred shot if you’re not careful. However, this may happen because the Moto G30 has a pretty advanced camera for something this affordable. It’s a 64-megapixel sensor that combines four pixels in the camera to make one in the image. This happens every time you take a picture, so the phone has to do a fair amount of work to construct each picture. And it doesn’t have an ultra-high-end ‘brain’ to do the work. We noticed this, particularly when capturing photos in lower light. Head straight to the gallery, and you’ll have to wait for a bit while the Moto G30 prepares its masterpiece. These delays become less noticeable in phones at around £200 and up. So, are the Moto G30’s photos masterpieces? They pack in a lot of detail, as you’d hope, given the phone has such high-resolution hardware. Day-lit shots even hold up pretty well when you zoom right down into the pixels. Not bad for £160, right? In dim lighting, the Moto G30 does its best, but you just don’t see the same kind of fine detail and texture detail as a great £200 phone like the Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC. And while there’s a mode made specifically for night photography, called Night Vision, this still leaves images looking fairly soft. We don’t expect anything else at £160. The Moto G30 performs just fine for the money and will net you some lovely images if you take the time to compose them properly. The second camera is an 8-megapixel ultra-wide. Details that look sharp through the main camera become quite fuzzy through this camera’s eyes, but all budget phones show a drop in quality from the main camera to the secondary one. And, like so many sub-£200 quad-camera phones, the Moto G30’s two other cameras are poor. A 2MP macro takes close-up shots, but image quality is too crude to bring out the fine detail we’re after. The last camera is used solely to work out how close or far objects in the scene are. The Portrait mode uses this information to help it blur out the background. A low-quality depth sensor means the Moto G30 often blurs out parts it shouldn’t in more complicated scenes. But there is a real benefit. You can take blurred images of anything, where it would probably only be able to handle faces without the depth camera — using face/head recognition software. Video capture is basic. You can only shoot clips at Full HD resolution. There’s no 4K option here. And while you have a choice of frame rates, 30 or 60 per second, stabilisation is only available at 30fps. Without stabilisation, your videos will look juddery. Is the Moto G30 camera good enough considering its cost? Yes, we just wish it felt a bit more nimble in use. Motorola Moto G30 design and set-up If you are a long-standing fan of the Moto G series, we have some bad news. While Motorola used to put lovely curved glass backs onto these phones a few years ago, they are all plastic these days. Aside from a lightly glistening, almost petrol-like finish, there’s nothing too ambitious to see here. Motorola hasn’t tried to make the Moto G30 look like a glass phone. It’s a single-layer, mostly matt finish, one that sparkles purple at most angles and a blue-ish green in a few oblique ones. The phone also has a teardrop notch, a design rarely seen in higher-end phones these days. Tight little punch hole cameras are the preferred style in 2021. But it only matters if you don’t like the look of the smooth little display cutout at the top. We think it looks just fine. Don’t come expecting a small phone either, which may seem the congruent thing at £160. The Moto G30 is a mid-size Android. Like other Moto G mobiles, it’s slightly thick at 9.1mm, and the 75mm-and-change width isn’t ultra-svelte. We think this is only an issue if you like small phones specifically, though. The Moto G30’s software is extremely easy to bed into. We didn’t feel the need to dig into the Settings to make even a single interface tweak, and Motorola deliberately keeps things vanilla-looking. Its main addition is Peek Mode, which makes ‘recent notification’ icons appear when you pick the G30 up while it’s locked. Setup is a cinch too. The process takes you through logging into your Google account and restoring apps from your current phone if it’s an Android. For the latest news and expert tips on getting the best deals this year, take a look at our Black Friday 2021 and Cyber Monday 2021 guides. Our verdict: should you buy Motorola Moto G30? The Moto G30 is a sound, no-nonsense budget phone. Its performance in every area is solid, even if there are little issues to deal with in each. It can play most games well, but general navigation isn’t quite as nippy as that of phones one step up. The main camera is detailed but does feel a little slow to capture images. Its screen is of a good size and has an unusually high refresh rate. You just have to put up with less than stellar colour and sharpness. Add it all up, and what do you get? A good phone for someone after an affordable Android who doesn’t expect their £160 phone to feel exactly like a £500. And that’s fair enough, although if you are tempted by the slightly more expensive £180 version of the Moto G30, we’d suggest a jump to a different £200 phone. It’s likely to feel more responsive and should have a more punchy display. Rating: Features 4/5 Battery 4/5 Camera 3/5 Design/set-up 3/5 Overall rating: 3.5/5 Where to buy the Motorola Moto G30 Available upfront at Amazon £158.99 Available upfront at Motorola £159.99 Available upfront at Argos £159.99 Available upfront at Very £159.99 For more smartphone reviews and the latest news, head to the RadioTimes.com Technology section. Still hunting for a low-cost handset? Check out our reviews of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro, Moto G 5G Plus and the Nokia 3.4.
The Nokia 3.4 is one of the cheapest Androids around, but how does it score in our review?
The Nokia 3.4 is one of Nokia’s cheapest Android phones. Selling at around £120, and seen for as little as £99 online, it’s a sensible buy for someone who just wants a phone for the basics. Elements like the cute little punch hole camera and a fairly good-looking screen mean the Nokia 3.4 does not look all that cheap too. We wouldn’t recommend it to the bargain hunters who like phones, rather than considering them a grim necessity. The Nokia 3.4 is often quite slow and, in its cheapest version, has very little spare storage for apps and photos. You get a little more for your money from one of the top Chinese brands like Xiaomi or Realme. Never considered these before? They are household names in other parts of the world, nothing like the no-brand phones you’ll find on Amazon if you filter by cost. Try our round-up of the best Xiaomi phones to find out more. Jump to: Nokia 3.4 review: summary What is the Nokia 3.4? How much is a Nokia 3.4? Nokia 3.4 features Nokia 3.4 battery Nokia 3.4 camera Nokia 3.4 design and set-up Our verdict Where to buy Nokia 3.4 review: summary The Nokia 3.4 is a low-cost Android phone but comes with some stark compromises to consider before you buy. Price: £119 Key features: 39-inch 1560 x 720 IPS LCD screen 161 x 76 x 8.7 mm 180g Android 10 13/5/2MP rear cameras 8-megapixel selfie camera Snapdragon 460 CPU 32GB storage 3GB RAM 4000mAh battery Pros: Low cost Clean software Cons: Slow performance Limited storage Uninspiring camera quality You can buy the Nokia 3.4 from Amazon. What is the Nokia 3.4? The Nokia 3.4 is a cheap Android phone for someone who just wants to do the basics and would either live contract-free or with a very low-cost monthly deal. What does a Nokia 3.4 do? The Nokia 3.4 can stream video at up to 720p resolution It can shoot video at 1080p resolution You can plug in a pair of wired headphones as there is a 3.5mm socket It can bring up Google Assistant at the press of a button You can unlock the Nokia with a finger using the rear scanner How much is a Nokia 3.4? The Nokia 3.4’s recommended price is £129.99. It can commonly be found for between £105 and £120 online. Skip to view the deals Is the Nokia 3.4 good value for money? The Nokia 3.4 is a little cheaper than Samsung's direct alternative, the Samsung A02S. That is good news. However, you can get more phone for the same amount of money from companies like Realme and Xiaomi. The Nokia 3.4 is OK value, but it’s at this level compromises in the tech start to become more apparent in some phones. Including this one. Nokia 3.4 features You can’t expect mind-blowing features in a phone that costs £100-120. But there are two notable parts to the Nokia 3.4. The first is its screen. This is a 6.39-inch 720p LCD display. It’s not ultra-sharp or huge, but we think it comes across fairly well in person. The Nokia 3.4’s colour tone is surprisingly pleasant, with a slightly warm look we tend to prefer to the cool blueish tone some cheaper phones have. It holds up pretty well in bright sunlight too. We half expected it to look dim out in the sun. Nokia’s use of a punch hole is neat too. Android phones either use one of these holes cut into the display to fit the front camera or a ‘teardrop’ notch at the top. Punch holes are generally considered a class above, even if it’s mostly because all the more expensive Androids have one. Android One is the Nokia 3.4’s second notable feature. This means it’s guaranteed two years of Android updates from the date of its release. You’d hope for that anyway, but Android One phones also use a very clean version of the Android software. There are no ‘bonus’ apps installed that you don’t want, and the interface has a pleasant purity to it. Nokia hasn’t fiddled with what Google’s designers made. It’s a good job the Nokia 3.4 uses Android One software because there’s barely any space to house extra software. Our version has just 32GB of space, and you’re left with much less than that to actually use. After restoring our WhatApp image library and installing the popular PUBG game, we only have 4.5GB left. The Nokia 3.4 isn’t the phone for you if you like to use a lot of apps and games or store loads of photos. This phone doesn’t have enough power to play console-like 3D games well anyway. It has the budget Snapdragon 460 processor, and the Nokia 3.4 flat-out refuses to run Fortnite. More importantly, the Nokia 3.4 is a poor multi-tasker. Even streaming audio in the background can slow basic navigation down significantly, and apps take a while to load at all times. If you just use your phone to message people, the Nokia 3.4 will do the job just fine, but we found its sluggish feel frustrating. The Nokia 3.4’s speaker is quite weak-sounding too. It’s a classic thin phone speaker, where some of the best phones from one class up can actually sound fairly decent for podcasts and streaming radio. Nokia 3.4 battery The Nokia 3.4 has a 4000mAh battery. This may sound a lot if you upgrade from a phone many years old, but it is a bog-standard size in 2021. It has no trouble lasting a full day, but heavy use may see it drain away to near-empty by night-time. We tend to end up with around 15% charge left at the end of the day. Most people will need to charge the Nokia 3.4 every day. But given we think this phone is only really a good fit for people who don’t actually want to spend hours glued to their phone screen, that is probably no major issue. There is, unsurprisingly, no fast charging here. The Nokia 3.4 does use a USB-C socket to charge and supports 10W charging, but you only get a 5W charger in the box. This is extremely slow and takes several hours to take you from flat to full. We’d suggest hunting the house around for a higher-powered charger at home if you own several other USB-charged gadgets. Nokia 3.4 camera Nokia doesn’t try to pretend the Nokia 3.4 is a tech tour de force in most areas, but it still put three cameras on the back. These are a 13-megapixel primary camera, a very basic 5-megapixel ultra-wide camera and an even simpler 2-megapixel depth camera. Image quality is a clear step below some of the 48-megapixel phones you can get at around £150. Fine detail looks crackly up-close, and sunny skies shot with the main camera tend to appear an unnatural gradient of blue tones rather than the more consistent colour you see with your eyes. However, this doesn’t mean you won't see some clear improvement if you upgrade from a similarly affordable phone from several years ago. Even though the Nokia 3.4 is cheap, it still benefits from some of the progress we’ve seen in phone camera image processing made over the last few years. For the latest news and expert tips on getting the best deals this year, take a look at our Black Friday 2021 and Cyber Monday 2021 guides. This means you can shoot just about any scene and get a properly exposed photo, not a dull one or a picture with great chunks of overexposure. That’s where the image is too bright, and the lightest parts become solid blocks of white. The same is true of the ultra-wide. You won’t shoot any detail-packed masterpieces, and the lens suffers from flare with bright light sources. But would we send some of these images over WhatsApp or post them on Instagram? Sure. Having a depth camera also means you get a portrait mode, which blurs the background for a more dramatic-looking image. The Nokia 3.4 performs this blurring just as well as phones twice the price. The Nokia 3.4’s selfie camera is pretty disappointing, though. While it can shoot a passable image in good lighting, photos look very undersaturated when taken indoors. Not flattering at all. Video is weak too. You can shoot Full HD clips at 30 frames per second, but there is no stabilisation. Handheld footage looks juddery and amateurish. And we can’t imagine too many people setting their Nokia 3.4 up on a tripod. Nokia 3.4 design and set-up If you’ve already done a bit of research into budget phones, you probably know what to expect from the Nokia 3.4. It’s an all-plastic phone, bar the glass on top of the screen and cameras. No one techy will confuse this for a flagship Android, but there are some reasonably distinctive touches here and there. Nokia uses a round camera housing on the back, and the rear cover has a lightly embossed texture of lines running down its back. This gives it a slightly tactile finish that is a little nicer and more grippy than flat plastic. The Nokia 3.4’s shape sits right in the middle of the road. This isn’t a tiny phone, and it’s not a giant. Nokia is out to appeal to as many budget buyers as possible, so it’s no wonder we end up right at the median. Some of you may find its Google Assistant button annoying, though. This button sits on the left side of the Nokia 3.4 and brings up the Google digital assistant whenever pressed, even if the screen is off. We have accidentally pressed it countless times, pausing music streaming, and you probably will too. This is a side-effect of the Nokia 3.4 being an Android One phone. Still, Android One also helps to pare down its setup. You’ll be asked to log in to your Google account when you get the phone up and running, but you won’t be asked to log into, or sign up to, any manufacturer services. As such, this is one of the easier-to-setup phones for the less technologically confident. Our verdict: should you buy a Nokia 3.4? We would only recommend the Nokia 3.4 for someone who wants a simple phone and does not intend to do anything too advanced with it. The Nokia 3.4 is a good fit for someone who mostly uses a phone to keep in contact with people in their contacts list, through a messenger app, calls or SMS. Those who want to use stacks of apps, play games or take lovely photos are best off spending a little bit more or heading to one of the Chinese brands whose pricing is a little more aggressive than Nokia’s – such as Xiaomi or Realme. You get very little spare storage here, and the phone feels quite slow a lot of the time. Rating: Features: 2/5 Battery: 3/5 Camera: 3/5 Design and set-up: 3/5 Overall rating: 2.8/5 Where to buy a Nokia 3.4 Carphone Warehouse Argos Amazon Available from O2 | from £14 a month Available from Tesco Mobile | from £9.50 a month Latest Deals Looking for other budget-friendly Androids? Try our Realme 8 Pro review or our Redmi Note 10 Pro review.
Want to upgrade to 5G without the price tag? The Moto G 5G Plus might be the phone for you.
The Moto G 5G Plus is one of the cheapest 5G phones. At £229, it would be a good deal even if it did not have next-gen 5G mobile internet. But it does, making it something rather special. You can get 4G phones that look and feel a bit fancier, have slightly better cameras and slightly punchier screens. But there’s actually nothing we actively dislike in the Moto G 5G Plus, considering its very reasonable price. Not fussed about 5G? Be sure to consider phones like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro and Realme 8 Pro, which have other distinct charms, particularly in their cameras. But if you’re after a budget 5G phone, the Moto G 5G Plus may well be your best option. Jump to: Moto G 5G Plus review: summary What is the Moto G 5G Plus? How much is the Moto G 5G Plus? Moto G 5G Plus features Moto G 5G Plus battery Moto G 5G Plus camera Moto G 5G Plus design and set-up Our verdict Where to buy Moto G 5G Plus review: summary The Moto G 5G Plus is a budget 5G phone and was one of the first to open up 5G to those of us who don’t want a spend a fortune on a mobile. Price: originally £299 (now available around £230) Key features: 6.7in 2520 x 1080 pixel 90Hz IPS 21:9 screen Snapdragon 765 CPU 4GB RAM 64GB storage Android 10 48/8/5/2/MP rear cameras 16/8MP selfie cameras 5000mAh battery 20W charging Pros: Low price Has 5G Good gaming power for the price Long battery life Cons: It’s an all-plastic phone You get better cameras in some rivals What is the Moto G 5G Plus? The Moto G 5G Plus was one of the first truly affordable 5G phones. It is a pretty important step for the Moto series. 4G phones get trickier to recommend by the month, but we like to suggest models that will save you some money whenever we can. Thankfully, there are few off-putting parts here if a cheap 5G phone is what you want. What does a Moto G 5G Plus do? It lets you use ultra-fast 5G mobile internet Can shoot 12-megapixel photos with its 48-megapixel camera Has a dedicated macro camera for ultra-close photography Can play high-end games very well for its price class Has a 3.5mm jack for wired headphones How much is a Moto G 5G Plus? The Moto G 5G Plus had an RRP of £299.99 but now costs around £230. It’s still one of the most affordable 5G phones around. You can buy the Moto G 5G outright from Amazon or take out a pay monthly contract at a number of major networks. Skip to view the pay monthly deals Is the Moto G 5G Plus good value for money? The Moto G 5G Plus is excellent value, up there with the best deals from the Moto G range. We’ve recommended Moto G phones to budget buyers since the series started in 2013. It’s one of the best routes to cheap 5G. Moto G 5G Plus features 5G is the Moto G 5G Plus’s most important feature. It will make the phone age much better than most in this class, in at least one respect. 4G phones will work just fine for years, of course, but soon 5G will be the default in virtually all new phones. A phone with 5G also needs a processor, a brain, that supports 5G. And the Moto G 5G Plus benefits from this because its processor is actually noticeably more powerful than those of many 4G phones at this price. Top-end games like Fortnite run better than on most of the Moto G 5G Plus’s competitors. You’ll need to cut down the graphics a little for the smoothest play, but this is a very solid gaming phone for £230. The Moto G 5G Plus only has one speaker, however. Some in the series have two for stereo sound. This speaker sits at the bottom. It provides enough oomph to let you listen to podcasts in the shower but does become a little brash at top volume. And when we say “in the shower”, we don’t mean that literally. The Moto G 5G Plus has splash-proofing to keep it safe in the rain but doesn’t have the kind of full water resistance you see in some much more expensive Android phones. Unlike most of those, the Moto G 5G Plus will let you plug in wired headphones. There’s a memory card slot in the SIM tray too. You may end up wanting to use one as the phone has 64GB storage, which is fairly easy to eat through these days if you like taking photos or playing games. The phone has a 6.7-inch screen, which sounds massive. But it’s not quite as it seems because this is an unusual 21:9 aspect display, one much taller than the norm. It’s a sharp Full HD display with solid colour and enough brightness to look reasonably punchy in direct sunlight. This is a 90Hz screen too, which increases how smooth scrolling looks. Some phones in this class have OLED screens, which look more punchy and usually have better colour than the Moto G 5G Plus. If you want a traditional extra-large display, don’t miss our Redmi Note 10 Pro review. That’s not a 5G phone, but we prefer it in several ways. Day-to-day performance is one. While the Moto G 5G Plus has a punchy processor, we did notice the occasional stutter in Android, and its fingerprint scanner on the side is not all that quick. Skip to view the deals Moto G 5G Plus battery The Moto G 5G Plus has a 5000mAh battery. That capacity has become a sort of gold standard for Android phones and lets the phone last a long time between charges. On several days — most, actually – it is left with around 40% charge by bedtime. And on one day of testing, we didn’t charge overnight, just to see how long it would hold on. The Moto G 5G Plus lasted into the late afternoon on the second. And we didn’t go easy on the phone to try to artificially draw out its longevity. You don’t have to go light on the Moto G 5G Plus to make sure it lasts a full day. It does take a while to recharge, around two hours, even though it has ‘fast charging’. Skip to view the deals Moto G 5G Plus camera The Moto G 5G Plus has loads of cameras. Too many, if you ask us. There are four on the back, two on the front. And we’d rather get rid of a couple of them and have an upgrade to the main camera. The Moto G 5G Plus’s primary 48-megapixel camera can shoot pleasant pictures. If you’re upgrading from an entry-level phone a few years old, you’ll be more than happy. However, side-by-side with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro and Realme 8 Pro, we noticed the Moto has slightly worse contrast and tends to mush up detail more often in trickier scenes. Night photos are decent by the standards of 2019/2020, but other recent phones in this class perform better. You get an ultra-wide camera, but its images tend to look undersaturated and a little soft, particularly in the corners. There is some good news. The Moto G 5G Plus has a 5-megapixel macro camera, one much better than the 2-megapixel cams common in mid-range phones. You may not take a masterpiece worthy of a photography award, but it’s fun to play around with, to take close-up pictures of nature. The last camera is a depth sensor, used in a mode that blurs a background to make images look as if they were taken with a big DSLR camera. It’s the worst camera of the lot but does let you take blurry background shots of anything, not just people. You’re limited to background blur images of people in some phones without a dedicated depth camera. There’s good news on the video front. The Moto G 5G Plus can shoot video at sharp 4K resolution and gets stabilisation at that setting too. This is where the phone smooths out motion, and it’s a must-have if you’ll use the camera while walking around. The Moto G 5G Plus doesn’t have the best sub-£300 camera array out there. But it is solid in most respects. You get two selfie cameras too, one with a wider view than the other. The standard one takes much better images, with plenty of fine facial detail, but the second might come in handy for group pics. Skip to view the deals Moto G 5G Plus design and set-up The Moto G 5G Plus’s reason to exist is to offer lots of tech, including 5G, for not much money. As a result, most elements of the design do not get to suck up too much of the budget. All parts of the phone, bar the glass and camera screen coverings, are plastic. It doesn’t have the cool, hard feel you get with aluminium or glass bits. But these days, only a few phones near to this price have such higher-end parts. The Moto G 5G Plus is also an exceptionally tall phone because of its 21:9 shape screen. There are good and bad sides to this. It means the phone is not too wide, considering it has a 6.7-inch screen, but it makes reaching anywhere near the top of the screen a stretch. This can get annoying in some apps, and we have to shuffle up a bit to drag down the notification bar. It’s a bit of a strange shape. But width, not height, is what makes a phone feel too much to handle most of the time. The Moto G 5G Plus is only as wide as a 6.2-inch screen phone. There’s also a Google Assistant button on the side. This brings up Google’s digital assistant, but we find it more an annoyance than a help, as it’s easy to press accidentally. Our verdict: should you buy a Moto G 5G Plus? You have a lot of great options if you have £200-300 to spend. The Moto G 5G Plus is one of the best if you really want to try out 5G. However, if you’re just fine coasting by with 4G for the next year or two, we suggest considering some of the rivals from companies like Realme and Xiaomi. Their latest phones have better cameras and, in some cases, feel more expensive. We’re not at the point where 5G is a “free” feature. You have to pay extra for it, and Motorola has made the right slight cuts to fit it in. Rating: Features: 5/5 Battery: 5/5 Camera: 3/5 Design and set-up: 3/5 Overall rating: 4/5 Where to buy the Moto G 5G Plus Buy from Amazon Available at Carphone Warehouse | from £23 a month and £29.99 upfront Available at Vodafone | from £30 a month and £19 upfront undefined Looking for more Android alternatives at a similar price? Try our Redmi Note 10 Pro review or our Realme 8 Pro review.
Google Pixel 5 vs 4a 5G vs 4a: which should you buy?
Not sure which Pixel phone to buy? Our head to head comparison pulls out all the most important specs and features to help you decide.
Google makes three Pixel phones at present. There’s the top-end Pixel 5, the Pixel 4a 5G and the Pixel 4a. If you want one but are unsure which to buy, the decision is less simple than it looks. Sure, the Pixel 5 is the flagship, but the other two are far from the same phone with and without 5G. Here’s the takeaway. The Pixel 4a is arguably the stand-out, offering the best camera you can get at £350. However, the Pixel 4a 5G may be worth the upgrade for many of you. It has a second rear camera, more power, better battery life, a bigger screen and, of course, 5G. The Pixel 5 is the right choice if you’re looking for a cheaper alternative to a Galaxy S21 or iPhone 12. But all it has over the Pixel 4a 5G are an aluminium shell and faster screen display rate. Worth it? Maybe, maybe not. And, with the Google Pixel 6 release date confirmed, read our initial thoughts of the new flagship series in our Google Pixel 6 Pro hands-on. Jump to: Key differences at a glance Specs and features Price Storage Battery life Camera Display 5G capability and connectivity Design Verdict and where to buy Google Pixel 5 vs 4a 5G vs 4a: key differences at a glance The Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G have ultra-wide cameras, while the Pixel 4a does not. Want the largest screen? Get the Pixel 4a 5G. The Pixel 5 is the only one with a metal shell. All three have a fab, evenly matched primary camera. The Pixel 4a is the least effective for gaming, thanks to its smaller screen and less powerful processor. Neither are ultra-long-lasting phones, but they’ll do fine for most. Google Pixel 5 vs 4a 5G vs 4a in detail Below we compare the key specs and performance of each Pixel model. For yet more detail, you can also read our in-depth Google Pixel 5 review, in addition to our Google Pixel 4a review. Google Pixel 5 vs 4a 5G vs 4a: specs and features The Pixel 4a and 4a 5G sound like they have the most in common of these three phones. But the Pixel 4a 5G’s insides are actually more like the Pixel 5’s. They both use a Snapdragon 765G processor. This isn’t as nippy as, say, the brains of the iPhone 12, but it makes the Pixel 5 and 4a 5G feel slick day-to-day and handles games like Fortnite well. The Pixel 4a isn’t quite as powerful. It still feels good in use can play all the same games but may benefit a little more from toning the graphics down slightly — in the games that let you do that, anyway. Most people probably wouldn’t notice the difference. 5G is the main reason not to stick with the cheaper Pixel 4a. This faster kind of mobile internet is gradually spreading across the country, and even if it’s not in your town yet, it’s a good feature to have if you like to keep phones for several years. We actually like the cheaper Pixel 4a and Pixel 4a 5G more than the Pixel 5 in one sense because they have the headphone jack the more expensive phone lacks. Not everyone has upgraded to Bluetooth headphones yet, after all. All three have 128GB storage, enough to keep us happy. And that's a good job because none of these phones let you stick in a memory card. Google Pixel 5 vs 4a 5G vs 4a: price Google likes to keep things simple. We have three phones, three prices. The entry-level Pixel 4a costs £349. There’s a fairly big leap to the Pixel 4a 5G at £499. We wish it were a little smaller, enough to make the upgrade a no-brainer. But the series of upgrades arguably justify the higher cost. Google’s flagship Pixel 5 costs £599. That is significantly lower than the Samsung Galaxy S21 or iPhone 12, which is all part of the appeal of a Pixel this year. Latest Deals Latest Deals Skip to view pay monthly prices Google Pixel 5 vs 4a 5G vs 4a: battery life Google’s phone design mantra seems to be all about paring things down to the essentials. It’s not show-off stuff, and the Pixel 4a, 4a 5G and Pixel 5 batteries aren’t nearly as large as some of the mid-range phones from Samsung or Xiaomi. The specs made us worry these phones would pass out at 7 pm, but, happily, they don’t. These phones should last a full day for most people; however, they probably won’t leave you with anything like 50% charge, which some larger phones with giant batteries can do. In our experience, the Pixel 4a lasts slightly less long than either the Pixel 4a 5G or Pixel 5. The Pixels don’t have ultra-fast charging either, but it matters less because of their smaller batteries. Only the Pixel 5 has wireless charging, which makes sense given it is the flashy one of the bunch. Google Pixel 5 vs 4a 5G vs 4a: camera Camera quality is the best reason to buy a Pixel phone, particularly the cheaper Pixel 4a. It really sets the standard at £350. All three use the same core hardware, a 12-megapixel sensor with optical stabilisation. That compensates for movement, leading to better video and less chance of a blurry photo in lower light. You get the same Google benefits across all three: photos with excellent image processing that keeps colours natural, brings out detail in the shadowy parts of the picture and lends real punch to your pictures. The impact of this is most effective in the cheaper phone because at £500/600 we are getting closer to the similarly great iPhone 12 mini and Samsung Galaxy S21. But the Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 5 also have a second rear camera, an ultra-wide. This lets you get more of a scene in the image without moving. All three take excellent night-time pics. But none of them has a zoom camera. Google does improve results using clever image merging tech, but it’s not a real replacement for a good optical zoom. The Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 5 have a slight advantage for video too. They can shoot at ultra-sharp 4K resolution at a smooth 60fps frame rate. 30fps is the max in the Pixel 4a, presumably because its processor rules out this faster capture rate. All three share the same 8-megapixel selfie camera, which has a neat portrait blur feature but doesn’t capture as much detail as some of the top phones, including last generation Pixels. Skip to the deals Google Pixel 5 vs 4a 5G vs 4a: display Google mixes things up a bit with the Pixels’ displays. The Pixel 4a has the smallest screen, at 5.81 inches. No surprise there. However, the mid-price Pixel 4a 5G actually has the largest screen, at 6.2 inches. The Pixel 5 sits between the two at 6.0 inches. It’s enough of a difference to make the Pixel 4a 5G the best choice for gamers and Netflix-on-the-go fans. Still, the Pixel 5 does have the most advanced display tech. Its screen has a refresh rate of 90Hz, meaning the image can be changed 90 times a second. It makes scrolling through web pages, your Twitter feed and the app drawer look significantly smoother. The Pixel 4a and Pixel 4a 5G both have 60Hz screens. All three use an OLED panel too, which has light-up pixels for perfect contrast. These OLEDs offer great colour too, and they are similarly bright. A Galaxy S21 is brighter in direct sunlight, but all three get by just fine on sunny days. Skip to the deals Google Pixel 5 vs 4a 5G vs 4a: 5G capability and connectivity As we’ve already mentioned, the Pixel 4a is the odd one out in that it does not have 5G mobile internet. It’s getting harder to recommend expensive 4G phones, but the Pixel 4a doesn’t cost all that much, so it gets by just fine with 4G in our book... for now. The Pixel 4a 5G and Pixel 5 have 5G. None of the Pixels accept a memory card, and only the two more affordable phones have a socket for wired headphones. Google seems to think that Pixel 5 buyers will already be on board with Bluetooth pairs. Read our best 5G phones guide to help you compare. Google Pixel 5 vs 4a 5G vs 4a: design Google Pixel phones are made to look ultra-simple. They don’t go in for garish finishes or techy in-screen fingerprint scanners. The back and sides are one piece in all three phones, zapping the seams you see in other Android phones. However, only the Pixel 5 has what you might call a “high end” design. Its back and sides are aluminium. The other phones use plastic. This means the Pixel 5 is the only one of the three with the hard, cool-to-the-touch feel some of you may be after. That said, the Pixel 4a and 4a 5G feel pretty good for plastic phones. Google has paid attention to the finish to avoid the cheap feel plastic can often have, and all three phones are similarly dense. The drop down to plastic won’t matter if you use a case, either. Sadly, the Pixel 5 is the only phone you can get in anything other than black. “Just Black”, Google calls it. The Pixel 5 is also available in “Sorta Sage”, a pleasant pale green. Google Pixel 5 vs 4a 5G vs 4a: which should you buy? The Pixel 4a is arguably the most important phone here. It sets the standard for camera quality at its reasonable price of £349, and we’ve recommended it to plenty of people since it launched in late 2020. However, if you want 5G, you need to bump up to the £499 Pixel 4a 5G. It may be the best choice for the average phone fan. It offers the same gaming and camera performance as the Pixel 5, plus a bigger screen. The Pixel 5 gains an aluminium casing, wireless charging and a higher screen refresh. Worth it for £100 more? Perhaps, but we tend to recommend to those who might otherwise buy a Samsung Galaxy and want to spend less, rather than Google Pixel fans. We’re pretty happy living with the slight techy compromises of the Pixel 4a 5G. Where to buy the Pixel 4a Amazon Argos Available from mobiles.co.uk | from £18 a month Available from Three | from £29 a month and £29 upfront Available from Carphone Warehouse | from £17.99 a month Available from O2 | from £19 a month and £30 upfront Available from Vodafone | from £30 a month and £29 upfront Latest Deals Where to buy the Pixel 4a 5G Amazon Argos Available from mobiles.co.uk | from £21 a month and £195.00 upfront Available from Carphone Warehouse | from £26 a month Available from Vodafone | from £38 a month and £29 upfront undefined Where to buy the Pixel 5 Amazon Argos Available from mobiles.co.uk | from £21 a month and £299 upfront Available from Three | from £43 a month and £29 upfront Available from Carphone Warehouse | from £24.99 a month and £9.99 upfront Available from Vodafone | from £30 a month and £29 upfront undefined Considering some earbuds for your new Pixel? Read our Google Pixel Buds review. Looking to the future? Check out what we know about the Pixel 6. Still weighing up other flagships? Take a look at our iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy 21 comparison.
iPhone 12 vs mini vs Pro vs Pro Max: which should you buy?
We compare all four iPhone 12 models to help you decide. Will it be the iPhone 12, mini, Pro or Pro Max?
There are a whopping four phones in the iPhone 12 line-up. These are the standard iPhone 12, iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max. It’s enough to make the decision tricky. We’re going to clear up the confusion. The iPhone 12 is the phone we tend to recommend most often. It offers the best balance of features, battery life and value for money. An iPhone 12 mini is one of the few truly small phones, perfect if you long for the days when smartphones didn’t want to be mini computers. The iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max cost a fair bit more but offer zoom cameras. And the iPhone 12 Pro Max has the best battery life and the largest screen of the lot. It’s the obvious choice for the tech fan willing to splash out. But it is not cheap. Read on for an in-depth comparison of specs, price, battery life and more. For our experts' verdicts on two of these handsets, read our iPhone 12 review and iPhone 12 Pro review. Plus, there's always our iPhone 11 vs 12 and iPhone 11 Pro review if you're also interested in the 12's predecessor. How does the iPhone 12 compare to the new iPhone 13? Head to our iPhone 13 vs iPhone 12 guide. Jump to: Key differences at a glance Specs and features Price Storage Battery life Camera Display 5G capability and connectivity Design Verdict and where to buy iPhone 12 vs mini vs Pro vs Pro Max: key differences at a glance The iPhone 12 mini is tiny, perfect if you want a great camera but have little interest in gaming or movie streaming The standard iPhone 12 is probably the best fit for many people All the iPhone 12 phones have 5G All the iPhone 12 phones use the brilliant, ultra-fast Apple A14 Bionic processor The iPhone 12 Pro Max has the biggest screen, the best zoom camera The iPhone 12 Pro is a pricey upgrade but nets you a tougher build and a more versatile camera iPhone 12 vs mini vs Pro vs Pro Max: in detail iPhone 12 vs mini vs Pro vs Pro Max: specs and features Apple approaches its phone families in its own way. You might expect cuts to almost all features as you drop down in price, but some parts are the same throughout. All iPhone 12s, from the mini to the Pro Max, have the Apple A14 Bionic processor. This means they all have the same amount of computing power, and games should run on the cheapest iPhone 12 as well as they do on the top-end iPhone 12 Pro Max. There are slight differences in RAM through the range. This is a kind of memory that acts as grease in the phones’ cogs, but you don’t need to think about that much as all four have enough to run well. It means the iPhone 12 mini is a crazy-powerful micro phone. They all have Face ID, which lets you unlock the phone with your face. They all use a Lightning connector. And all four models have IP68 water resistance. This means they can survive being dunked in water, but don’t test this yourself. iPhones have water damage indicators that will affect the phone’s resale value if triggered. iPhone 12 vs mini vs Pro vs Pro Max: price and storage Apple makes multiple versions of the four iPhone 12 lines. The amount of space they have for games, apps and photos is the key difference. You need to consider this one carefully as, unlike some Android phones, iPhones don’t have a slot for a memory card. The iPhone 12 mini is the cheapest current-gen iPhone. It starts at £599, with 64GB storage. The 128GB version costs £649 and the 256GB one is £769 at Amazon. The iPhone 12 is £100 more, at £699 (64GB), £769 (128GB) and £874 (256GB) iPhone 12 Pros start at £200 more, £999. However, the starting capacity is 128GB, so it’s fairer to say this line is £150 more than the iPhone 12. The 256GB iPhone 12 Pro costs £1,090.50, the 512GB one £1,259. You’ll pay another hundred pounds for the iPhone 12 Pro Max. It costs £1,099 (128GB), £1,188.97 (256GB) or £1,350 (512GB). Thanks to the relatively high cost of Apple's storage upgrades, there’s a massive £751 gap between the cheapest iPhone 12 and the most expensive one. View Affiliate Playlist on the source website Skip to view pay monthly prices iPhone 12 vs mini vs Pro vs Pro Max: battery life The iPhone 12 series’ battery life splits into three categories, passable, decent and very good. Apple’s smallest one, the iPhone 12 mini, has the shortest battery life. Moderate to heavy users like us may find it fairly easy to drain down in the space of a day, giving you little security buffer if you go for a night out without giving it a quick charge beforehand. However, the iPhone 12 mini is not really meant for phone addicts. It’s a great choice if you want to cut back on how much you use your phone, but don’t want a mobile with a rubbish camera. The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro sit in the “decent” category. They should last a full day for just about everyone, and those who don’t hammer their phone every day should have a decent amount left in the tank by the end. Oddly, the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro don’t last as long as their iPhone 11-series counterparts, something to consider if you have a last-generation iPhone. However, this seems to be in part thanks to their 5G mobile internet, which you can disable if you like. The iPhone 12 Pro Max has the largest battery, a full 30% bigger. This more than compensates for the larger screen, meaning longer real-world run time. Excellent. It’s a bit of a workhorse, with a battery big enough to cope with heavy use. All four phones support wireless charging, and you can use almost all third-party charge pads as iPhones use the most common Qi standard. Skip to the deals For even more detail, don't miss our individual reviews and comparisons of the iPhone series: Best iPhone buyer's guide iPhone 12 review iPhone 12 Mini review iPhone 12 Pro review iPhone 12 Pro Max review iPhone 11 Pro review iPhone SE (2nd gen) review iPhone 12 Mini vs iPhone SE iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21 iPhone 12 vs mini vs Pro vs Pro Max: camera Here’s where things heat up. Camera differences are the obvious reason to jump from a ‘normal’ iPhone 12 to one of the Pro models. That said, the iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro all have the same 12-megapixel primary camera. And the ultra-wide is the same across all four. The main camera is a joy to use. It takes fantastic photos day or night, and Apple made noticeable improvements to night shots for this generation. Apple’s iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 only get these two rear cameras, a ‘normal’ camera and one with an ultra-wide view. The iPhone 12 Pro adds a great 2x zoom, a ‘depth’ camera and the ProRAW feature. This is a mode for the enthusiast crowd who want to open up their photos in a professional photo editing app to choose exactly how they want the darkest and lightest areas to look. The zoom is the most important upgrade for just about everyone. We love a zoom, but is it worth an extra £150-200? That is up to you. The iPhone 12 Pro Max gains an even better 2.5x zoom and a completely different primary camera. It has a better sensor, one with sensor shift stabilisation. This means the camera sensor, the main component inside, can move up to thousands of times a second to compensate for motion. It lets you shoot much smoother video when there’s a lot of juddery movements, such as if you strap the phone to your bike handlebars or a remote control car. If you’re willing to do that to a £1,000 phone, you are braver than us. But the iPhone 12 Pro Max’s camera is excellent. Skip to the deals iPhone 12 vs mini vs Pro vs Pro Max: display There are three display sizes in the iPhone 12 family. The iPhone 12 mini has a tiny-for-2021 5.4-inch screen. While its image quality is excellent, with great contrast, brightness and colour, we think it’s too small to comfortably watch a long video on. We prefer a larger screen for console-style games too. That’s why we tend to recommend the iPhone 12. It has a 6.1-inch screen, just like the iPhone 12 Pro. These screens are pin-sharp, and as far as we can tell, there’s no major difference in the hardware inside between iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro. Apple calibrates the iPhone 12 Pro display to offer slightly higher power when maxing out the brightness slider. But both actually reach the same level if you take them outdoors on a bright day, suggesting Apple was looking for a way to make the Pro seem brighter and a more high-end phone as a result. These days it’s tough for high-end phone displays to stand out because more affordable ones are often still brilliant anyway. The iPhone 12 Pro Max is the only one with a truly large screen, a 6.7-inch panel. We love this thing for gaming, for Netflix and for reviewing photos. You pay for it in the actual size of the phone, of course, but it suits the Pro Max’s enthusiast angle down to the ground. No iPhone has the kind of high refresh rate display common among Androids. This makes pages scroll more fluidly. Apple reportedly didn’t add the feature because the effect on battery life was too great, which is fair enough. iPhone 12 vs mini vs Pro vs Pro Max: 5G capability and connectivity Apple finally added 5G to its phones in the iPhone 12 family. They all have it. And while there are reports Apple plans to release a 4G iPhone 12, it would likely be intended for countries where 5G isn’t around yet. All other connectivity features are the same across the four phones too. They have Apple’s long-standing Lightning connector. None of them has a headphone jack, and there’s no place for a memory card in any. iPhone 12 phones also have Apple Wideband, a wireless feature for communication between Apple devices. Skip to the deals iPhone 12 vs mini vs Pro vs Pro Max: design A very distinctive style is used across all iPhone 12 phones. The main characteristics are aggressively squared-off metal sides, flat panes of glass on the front and back, and the display ‘notch’ Apple phones have had since 2017. If you’ve read the ‘display’ part of this comparison, you know what to expect. The iPhone 12 mini is a tiny phone. The iPhone 12 and 12 Pro are mid-size phones, still smaller than most of the Android competition. And the iPhone 12 Pro Max is a giant, probably too large for some. There’s another change you can’t appreciate from pictures alone too. The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini have aluminium sides, upgraded to stainless steel in the Pro phones. Steel is much harder than aluminium, so it will pick up scratches and scrapes less easily. It’s heavier, too, though, which is one reason the iPhone 12 Pro is so much heavier than the iPhone 12. It weighs 189g, to the iPhone 12’s 164g. Still, neither is exactly the phone equivalent of an iron anchor. All four phones have IP68 water resistance. But the colours you can get vary. Here’s the run-down: iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini colours: White Black Blue Green Red iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max colours: Graphite Silver Gold Pacific Blue The lower-end iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini get the most fun colours, where the Pro shades are more subdued. Because ‘Pro’ phones have to be serious, of course. At the 2021 Apple Spring Loaded event, the brand also revealed a new purple colourway available for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini. iPhone 12 vs mini vs Pro vs Pro Max: which should you buy? If you’re wondering which 12-series iPhone to buy, start with the plain iPhone 12. It does not sell at a too-terrifying price but still takes excellent photos, has as much gaming power as any iPhone, and lasts a reasonably long time off a charge. We recommend the iPhone 12 mini to those who want to use their phone less, but the shorter battery life should be a bit of a turn-off for the rest. The iPhone 12 Pro Max is the most technically accomplished iPhone and the clear choice for the digital content fiends. You can’t beat a big screen, after all. But do consider whether you actually want to live with an XL-size phone every day. Where to buy the iPhone 12 mini - from £599 Amazon (SIM-free) Available at Carphone Warehouse | from £33.99 a month and £29.99 upfront Available at Tesco Mobile | from £28.99 a month (36-month contract) Available at EE | from £41 a month and £100 upfront Available at Vodafone | from £47 a month and £29 upfront Available at O2 | from £30.95 a month and £30 upfront Where to buy the iPhone 12 - from £699 Amazon (SIM-free) Available at Carphone Warehouse | from £34.99 a month and £49.99 upfront Available at Tesco Mobile | from £31.99 a month (36-month contract) Available at EE | from £45 a month and £100 upfront Available at Vodafone | from £55 a month and £29 upfront Available at O2 | from £41.37 £37.37 a month and £30 upfront Where to buy the iPhone 12 Pro - from £999 Amazon (SIM-free) Available at Carphone Warehouse | from £49.99 a month and £49.99 upfront Available at Tesco Mobile | from £37.49 a month (36-month contract) Available at EE | from £30 a month and £100 upfront Available at Vodafone | from £71 a month and £29 upfront Available at O2 | from £61.10 a month and £30 upfront Where to buy the iPhone 12 Pro Max - from £1,099 Amazon (SIM-free) Available at Carphone Warehouse | from £67 a month and £29 upfront Available at Tesco Mobile | from £40.49 a month (36-month contract) Available at EE | from £30 a month and £84 upfront Available at Vodafone | for £75 a month and £49 upfront Available at O2 | from £57.10 a month and £30 upfront Want to stick it out for this year's release? Head to our Apple Watch 7 , AirPods 3 release date and Apple event highlights pages for the latest news. Comparing to other flagships? Read our iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21 guide.
iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: which should you buy?
The iPhone 12 and Samsung Galaxy S21 go head to head as we compare their specs, camera, battery life and more.
The iPhone 12 and Samsung Galaxy S21 are top-quality phones that do not seem designed only for people who spend too much time thinking about specs and researching phones online. Sure, you’re reading this, so you’re doing some research. But the iPhone 12 and Galaxy S21 are far from the most expensive phones Apple and Samsung make. They won’t stretch your pocket to breaking point, figuratively or literally. If you already own an iPhone, you’ll probably be drawn to the iPhone 12. That is a fine choice. It has buckets of power for games and apps, more than the Galaxy S21, and it feels great. The iPhone 12 is an all metal and glass phone, where the Galaxy S21 has a plastic back. However, the Samsung Galaxy S21 has a more fun-to-use camera. It takes better zoomed-in photos and better ultra-wide ones. The phone costs less too, and should probably lure at least a few of you away from Apple-land. So, which one should you invest in? We compare everything from specs to battery life and camera performance to help you decide. For a detail look at Apple's fighter in the ring, read our iPhone 12 review. And for more about the various handsets in the 12 range, you can take a look at our iPhone 12 vs Mini vs Pro vs Pro Max explainer, and there's always our iPhone 11 vs 12 article if you're also interested in its predecessor. For a similar comparison of all the phones in the S21 range, read our Samsung Galaxy S21 vs Plus vs Ultra explainer. Jump to: Key differences at a glance Specs and features Price and storage Battery life Camera Display 5G capability and connectivity Design Verdict Where to buy Apple iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: key differences at a glance The iPhone 12 has a glass back, classier than the Galaxy S21’s plastic back Samsung’s S21 has rounded corners, making it more comfortable to hold The iPhone 12 is more powerful, important for gaming fans The iPhone 12 has a bassier stereo speaker, although the S21 is arguably better for podcasts The Samsung Galaxy S21 has a more versatile camera, with a dedicated zoom and superior ultra-wide lens Want to shoot 4K video? The iPhone 12 is better for the job Apple iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21 in detail Apple iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: specs and features Samsung and Apple pack a lot into these relatively small phones. They have the same processors, the “brains”, as the top-end phones in their respective ranges. For the Samsung Galaxy S21, that means the Exynos 2100. The iPhone 12 gets the A14 Bionic. Forget the techy names; this is a clear win for the iPhone. It’s more powerful and more efficient, meaning games look smoother and less battery is wasted. How about their speakers? Both phones have stereo speakers, one on the bottom edge, another above the screen. The iPhone 12’s speaker array has better bass, no contest. However, with the two phones maxed out, the Galaxy S21 has better mid-range, making spoken word stuff, such as podcasts, sound more natural. Still, most of you will be more impressed by the iPhone 12’s added bass. It’s great for music. As great as the built-in speaker of a small phone can be, anyway. What about the rest? The Samsung Galaxy S21 has a fingerprint scanner baked into the screen to stop anyone from just picking up the phone and sending ‘funny’ messages to friends. Apple’s iPhone 12 uses face unlocking instead, which works very well. The Galaxy S21 has face unlock too, but it uses simpler tech that doesn’t hold up quite as well in dark rooms. Software is perhaps the most impactful difference here, though. The iPhone runs iOS, and the Galaxy S21 runs Android. Your current phone most likely uses one of these. We’re not going to sugar-coat it; if you choose to switch sides, it will feel odd for a week or two. How iOS and Android move, operate and are laid out feels quite different, even if they roundly do the same things. We use Android far more regularly, but iOS arguably has the most clearly defined benefits. iOS tends to get new apps and games first. The AirDrop feature, which lets you wirelessly transfer files from phone to phone or to a MacBook, is excellent. Apple’s privacy is better, and you get some excellent software for free. Apple GarageBand is a superb music-maker that almost anyone should be able to get their head around. On the other side, Android is less restrictive. You can plug it into a laptop with a cable and drag off photos or transfer music files onto your phone. Apple makes this more complicated. But the long-standing appeal of Android is it often lets you buy a cheaper phone. Apple iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: price and storage At first glance, it seems the iPhone 12 and Galaxy S21 are very similarly priced. The iPhone 12 starts at £799, the Galaxy S21 at £769. There’s actually a bigger gap. The base iPhone 12 only has 64GB of storage. You need to pay £849 to get the same 128GB of room for apps as the cheapest Samsung Galaxy S21. Can you get by with 64GB? Sure. But it means less space to store photos, games and downloaded Netflix movies before you need to have a clear out. We much prefer a 128GB phone these days. The Galaxy S21 and iPhone 12 are both available with 256GB storage, too, for £819 and £949, respectively. Samsung’s upgrades cost less than Apple’s, as well as its phones. As ever, you can often find the phones for slightly less online, but the price disparity tends to persist. Skip to the deals Apple iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: battery life The Galaxy S21 and iPhone 12 are reasonably evenly matched for battery life. Neither will last two days for someone who uses their phone a lot each day. Both should last a full day for just about everyone. We find the iPhone 12 tends to last a little longer when subjected to our daily routine of podcast and radio steaming, lots of WhatsApp’ing and some mindless social network scrolling. If you’ve read a bunch of articles comparing these two phones, bear in mind the American version of the Galaxy S21 has different hardware to the one we get in the UK. The UK S21 has a Samsung processor, which is a little less easy on the battery than the one used in the US. Neither of these phones includes a charge adapter, and you’ll want to get hold of a “fast charger” for the best results. With one, both phones get to around 50% charge in 30 minutes. A full charge takes around 80 to 90 minutes. They are not the quickest speeds around. A OnePlus 9 is much faster to charge, for example, but that is only because Apple and Samsung haven’t chased fast battery charge tech as much as some other companies. Apple iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: camera These phones are camera queens, even though they do not cost as much as the top Apple or Samsung phones. They both take excellent photos with their main cameras, shots that can go toe-to-toe with any phone camera out there. However, we think the Samsung Galaxy S21 lets you have a bit more fun with your photography. It has a zoom camera, letting you get closer to the action without, well, actually getting closer to the action. Over the last few weeks of using the Galaxy S12, the zoom mode is probably the one we’ve used most. The “3.0x” view lets you capture images that may just be out of reach with your current phone. Apple’s iPhone 12 uses digital zoom if you try to take a 3.0x image, which looks soft and blurry by comparison. Samsung’s Galaxy S12 also has a better ultra-wide camera than the iPhone 12. These cameras are great for photos of big buildings looming overhead. If we had to pick one of these two to use as a holiday camera, we’d pick the Galaxy S12. The iPhone does have some important benefits, though. It’s better at shooting video, even though it seems worse on paper. Samsung’s Galaxy S21 can shoot video at 8K resolution, which will probably the resolution of the TV you’ll own in, say, 5-10 years. The iPhone 12 can’t, but the quality and smoothness of its 4K resolution video (which may be the resolution of the TV you own today) are excellent. We’d pick the Samsung for stills, the iPhone for video. Of course, if you already own an iPhone, you should probably give the iPhone 12 extra brownie points as you’ll slip right into using its camera app. Skip to the deals Apple iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: display The iPhone 12 and Galaxy S21 screens can sound pretty similar on paper. They have 6.1-inch and 6.2-inch OLED panels. Each offers superb contrast, very high brightness and excellent colour. However, there are some important differences here. The iPhone 12 has a higher resolution screen. We’ve eyeballed the two, and sure enough, you can notice the difference if you get up close. Small text looks slightly sharper on the iPhone. The Samsung Galaxy S21 has a higher refresh rate, 120Hz, to the iPhone’s 60Hz. This makes scrolling look much smoother, and it was quite noticeable when flicking through a website with the two phones side-by-side. Each has an advantage, but the Samsung Galaxy S21 seems a significantly larger screen in person. The iPhone 12’s notch takes out a bigger chunk of the display than the S21’s punch-hole selfie camera, and the Samsung screen is significantly taller. It’s a benefit for gamers, but not really for video streaming as the displays are almost identical in terms of width. Why does that matter? Phone screens are so tall these days that your normal 16:9 aspect video won’t fill it unless you crop into the image. Apple iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: 5G capability and connectivity All UK Galaxy S21 phones have 5G. The iPhone 12 does too, so there’s no major difference here. This is a great feature to have even if 5G isn’t in your area yet, as it probably (hopefully) will be before you look into your next upgrade. It means faster downloads, less waiting for video to buffer. They have the same restrictions too. You can’t plug wired headphones directly into the Galaxy S21 or iPhone 12. You’ll need an adapter. There’s no MicroSD slot to expand the memory either, making that initial choice of storage all the more important. There’s one crucial difference. The iPhone 12 has a Lightning connector, the Galaxy S21 a USB-C socket. This should come as no surprise unless you are considering your very first iPhone. Apple has used the Lightning connector in its phones since the iPhone 5 in 2012. Skip to view the deals Apple iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: design Our side-by-side photos should give you an idea of the size and look of these phones. Our take? The Samsung Galaxy S21 has a more distinctive look. Samsung’s two-tone style comes across beautifully in the gold-on-purple phone we have. And while their dimensions are similar — each a little over 71mm wide – the Galaxy S21 feels easier to handle because the back and sides are curved. The iPhone 12 has very squared-off sides. However, in terms of build quality, this is an easy win for the Apple iPhone 12. It has aluminium sides and glass panels on the front and back. The Samsung Galaxy S21 has aluminium sides but a plastic back. Some people like plastic. It won’t crack should you drop the phone, and the textured plastic Samsung uses here feels great. But it is a cost-cutting measure. The Galaxy S21 Plus and S21 Ultra have glass backs. Simmer these designs down to the essentials, and you get the same thing. The iPhone 12 and Galaxy S21 are relatively petite phones with high-end hardware. You probably shouldn’t base your decision solely on the fact the S21 has smoother curves. Apple iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: which should you buy? The iPhone 12 and Galaxy S21 are near-perfect phones for someone who wants a top-quality mobile that takes great photos but does not make you feel like you’re carrying about a tablet in your pocket. They are annoyingly evenly matched in many ways and trading blows with slight advantages in each area. For the latest news and expert tips on getting the best deals this year, take a look at our Black Friday 2021 and Cyber Monday 2021 The Samsung Galaxy S21 camera makes a better travel photography buddy. We’d pick the iPhone 12 for gaming, thanks to its better games library, more powerful processor and bassy speakers. And for the long-standing iPhone fan, there may not quite be enough here, in terms of tech and savings, to make you switch to Android. Where to buy the iPhone 12 - from £799 Amazon | from £699, SIM-free Carphone Warehouse | from £34.99 a month and £49.99 upfront Tesco Mobile | from £31.99 a month (36-month contract) EE | from £47 a month and £100 upfront Vodafone | from £55 a month and £29 upfront O2 | from £41.37 £37.37 a month and £30 upfront Where to buy the Samsung Galaxy S21 - from £769 Amazon Samsung Vodafone | from £33 a month and £29 upfront EE | from £47 a month and £100 upfront O2 | from £44.21 a month and £30 upfront (includes Disney Plus subscription) Not sure which model is for you? Compare with our Samsung Galaxy S21 vs Plus vs Ultra and the iPhone 11 vs iPhone 12 guides.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro review: a leading budget Android
The Redmi Note 10 Pro is one of the best budget Android phones on the market - here's why.
The Redmi Note 10 Pro is one of the best Android phone buys of the year so far. It offers an almost obscene amount of hardware for your money and lasts longer off a charge than many top-end phones. It also has some of the surface-level gloss usually associated with more expensive Androids. This levels up the Redmi Note 10 Pro from simply a solid deal to something many of you should consider buying. It has a glass back, a touch of class now quite rare at the Redmi Note 10 Pro’s £250 cost. And a high refresh rate screen makes the Android software feel more responsive. This phone looks and feels slick in person, not just on a retailer’s product page. 5G is the one missing feature, and it’s an important one. However, 4G should keep most happy, particularly those who tend to upgrade their mobile every couple of years rather than waiting for it to fall apart. Tech aside, size is one aspect to give some thought to. The Redmi Note 10 Pro is not a petite phone, so it is best suited to those who value a large Netflix-loving screen rather than something that slips happily into smaller pockets. For our expert verdict on another leading smartphone from the same brand, don't miss our Xiaomi Poco M3 Pro 5G review. Jump to: Redmi Note 10 Pro summary What is the Redmi Note 10 Pro? How much is Redmi Note 10 Pro? Redmi Note 10 Pro features Redmi Note 10 Pro battery Redmi Note 10 Pro camera Redmi Note 10 Pro design and set-up Our verdict Where to buy Redmi Note 10 Pro review: summary The Redmi Note 10 Pro is one of the best budget buys for people who actually like phones and what you can do with them. It’s probably overkill for someone who mainly just chats to friends and family on WhatsApp. But its large 120Hz screen, stereo speakers and solid Snapdragon processor are significant wins for gamers, Netflix fans and explorers of YouTube rabbit holes. Check out our Realme 8 Pro review if you’d prefer something smaller, but the Note 10 Pro has clear benefits for those who all but live through their phone’s screen. Price: £249 Key features Curved toughened glass back panel 6.67in 120Hz OLED screen Snapdragon 732G CPU 128GB storage 108MP/8/5/2MP rear cameras 16MP selfie camera Pros Lovely and large OLED screen Glass back lends the design a touch of class Unusually fun macro camera Good primary camera Long battery life Cons No 5G May be a little large for some What is the Redmi Note 10 Pro? The Redmi Note 10 Pro is an affordable Android phone and an enthusiast one. Buying a Redmi often nets you more tech for your money than, say, a Samsung. And it trades the accessibility of a smaller frame for a larger screen, which is a bonus for playing games and streaming video. It’s terrific value and highly recommended as long as you don’t have your heart set on 5G mobile internet. What does the Redmi Note 10 Pro do? Captures surprisingly good macro photos Shoots 12MP images with its main 108MP camera Lasts up to 2 days off a charge Offers stereo sound with above-average volume Captures video at up to 4K resolution Lets you unlock with a finger Can control your TV and other devices How much is the Redmi Note 10 Pro? The Redmi Note 10 Pro is £249. Is the Redmi Note 10 Pro good value for money? The Redmi Note 10 Pro represents superb value for money. It’s a bit of a techy tour de force, considering the very reasonable cost. And while its relatively large size means it will probably appeal most to the real phone fans out there, plenty of the highlights will benefit just about everyone. Loud stereo speakers are handy for podcasts while you cook, and the glass back makes the phone feel that bit nicer than most at this price. Redmi Note 10 Pro features Xiaomi’s Redmi phones are made for demanding buyers who do quite a lot of research before purchasing. And that means you get a lot for your money. The Redmi Note 10 Pro’s screen is a particular highlight. It’s a large 6.67-inch OLED display of 2400 x 1080 pixel resolution and a 120Hz refresh rate. This makes it the highest-spec screen you can get for the money in mid-2021. That 120Hz refresh rate means the screen image changes at twice the usual pace. It makes Android scroll with a smooth fluidity you can’t help but notice and admire when switching from a standard 60Hz phone. If your phone is a couple of years old or more, it has a 60Hz screen. The Redmi Note 10 Pro’s OLED panel also provides the sort of colour and contrast you might not expect from a phone this affordable. It’s a hit for all sorts of content, particularly streamed video and games. And while the Redmi Note 10 Pro predictably can’t handle the most demanding games as well as a £1,000 phone, it does run Fortnite well at 30fps. Fortnite is one of the most demanding mobile games there is. There are some unusual side dishes too. The Redmi Note 10 Pro has an IR blaster. It lets you use the phone as a universal remote for your TV and other home equipment: not a must-have, but an IR blaster can solve the occasional headache when you lose a remote under a sofa. Redmi Note 10 Pro battery The Redmi Note 10 Pro is one of just a few phones that lasts for full two days of light to middling use. It has a large 5020mAh battery, and careful behind-the-scenes power management helps to increase the run time between charges. However, as this is not really a phone made for the basics, it’s best to think of the Redmi Note 10 Pro as an Android you can use a lot and see if reliably last until bedtime. Battery life can be improved further by changing the screen refresh from 120Hz to 60Hz. You can do this in a few seconds in the Settings menu, and this might be a good idea for holidays or big days out when you’ll use the Redmi Note 10 Pro for GPS navigation and might be in trouble if it conks out. The battery charges at 33W with the adapter you get in the box. And while this isn’t as quick as the 50W charger of the Realme 8 Pro, it’s still a lot quicker than an iPhone 12 or Galaxy S21. It takes the phone from a flat battery to 55% in a half-hour. And that number would be higher if the Redmi Note 10 Pro’s battery were not so big in the first place. Redmi Note 10 Pro camera The Redmi Note 10 Pro has a surprisingly good and fun set of rear cameras. You get a good 108MP main camera, an 8MP ultra-wide camera, a 5MP macro and a 2MP depth sensor for background blur images. Its macro is the most unusual. Plenty of phones around this price have very poor macro cameras, ones barely worth using. The Redmi Note 10 Pro’s can dig out the sort of ultra-fine detail you might see in a nature photography exhibition because it has a much better sensor and lens. Most of us would probably prefer a dedicated zoom camera, which you don’t get, but these are very rare in cheaper phones. The Redmi Note 10 Pro’s 108MP camera produces powerful images during the day, with good dynamic range and detail. It won’t match a Pixel 5 at night, for example, but holds its own against just about every other sub-£300 phone. And while the ultra-wide camera’s 8-megapixel resolution doesn’t sound like much, its images are perfectly pleasant. They are significantly clearer than those of the Realme 8 Pro, for example. Want to capture video as well? The Redmi Note 10 Pro can shoot at up to 4K resolution, but it’s best to stick to 1080p if you move around as you don’t get motion stabilisation in the top mode. The 2MP depth sensor is a lower quality piece of camera hardware, but getting three out of four totally respectable rear cameras is a great result. Selfie quality is fine, too, although skin tones aren’t always the most flattering. Redmi Note 10 Pro design and set-up If you already own an Android phone, getting a Redmi Note 10 Pro setup should only take a few minutes. The initial steps let you transfer the most important data from your old phone by logging into your Google account. However, you might find that the Xiaomi software skin on this phone benefits from a tweak or two. It is not the prettiest Android front-end around, and the more technically savvy may want to, for example, make the app drawer background black rather than white or increase the number of icons that are crammed into each screen. The Redmi Note 10 Pro’s hardware design is great, though. It has a toughened glass back, not the plastic usually seen at this price. This gives the phone a harder, more expensive feel. It’s a treat for the fingers, even if the sides are still plastic rather than aluminium, There’s even IP53 water resistance, enough to keep it safe in heavy rain. The look of the Redmi Note 10 Pro is relatively subdued, apart from the gadgety raised camera platform on the back. It comes in three finishes, and two of them are fairly plain: grey and white with a mild light-reactive layer that makes the rear shine when it catches the light. Hunt down the Lake Green version for something a bit punchier. It’s a white-to-green gradient with a little more pizazz. We’re fans of the Redmi Note 10 Pro’s outer style. However, it is a fairly large phone, particularly if you will use the bundled silicone case to keep the rear glass safe. If you’re after a smaller phone, consider the Pixel 4a or Realme 8 Pro instead. Neither has the Redmi’s charming glass back, mind. Our verdict: should you buy the Redmi Note 10 Pro? The Redmi Note 10 Pro is almost certainly one of the best value phones of 2021. If you are a demanding phone buyer who wants as much for your cash as possible, you can’t do much better. Battery life is great, the cameras are solid, the screen is excellent for the money, and it has enough power for all but the most demanding gamers. The only reason to hold off is if you want a smaller phone. One with a 6.67-inch screen is never going to be tiny. Rating: Features: 5/5 Battery: 5/5 Camera: 4/5 Design: 4/5 Overall rating: 4.5/5 Where to buy the Redmi Note 10 Pro Buy from Amazon Still comparing models? Check out our Realme 8 Pro review or Google Pixel 4a 5G review for some great alternatives.
How does Google's mid-ranking phone score?
The Pixel 4a 5G is the middle-ranking Google phone. It costs more than the Google Pixel 4a but has 5G and a larger screen. It also costs £100 less than the Pixel 5, and all you miss out on of note is an aluminium casing and a 90Hz refresh rate. This makes the Pixel 4a 5G a fair deal. Battery life is the main reason to pause. While the Pixel 4a 5G lasts longer than we’d expect, given it has a small-for-2021 3885mAh battery, it will be left running on fumes by the evening for some of you. Still, this is a great phone for those who don’t hit video streaming services and social networks too much during the day and want a killer camera. Want a more recent Google Android handset? Read our in-depth thoughts of the latest flagship smartphone in our Google Pixel 6 Pro review. Be sure to follow our coverage of the Google IO 2022 showcase on 11th May, which may be used to unveil the new mid-range Google Pixel 6a smartphone. Pixel 4a 5G summary What is the Pixel 4a 5G? How much is the Pixel 4a 5G? Pixel 4a 5G features Pixel 4a 5G battery Pixel 4a 5G camera Pixel 4a 5G design and set-up Our verdict Where to buy Pixel 4a 5G: summary The Pixel 4a 5G is a good alternative to something like the Samsung Galaxy S21. It takes excellent photos, is powerful enough for most people, isn’t too large or heavy and has a bigger screen than the Pixel 5 or Pixel 4a. You do lose a few nice-to-have techy extras compared to some rivals, though, like a high refresh rate screen and ultra-fast charging. Price: £499 Key features 6.2-inch 2340 x 1080 pixel 60Hz OLED screen 128GB storage Snapdragon 765G CPU Android 11 12/16MP rear cameras 8MP front camera 3885mAh battery Pros Excellent main camera, day or night Uncluttered software Guaranteed quick Android updates Cons Just OK battery life Plastic casing What is the Pixel 4a 5G? The Pixel 4a 5G is a Google phone. It’s one of only three current-generation mobiles from the company that makes the software used in Android phones. It sits above the Pixel 4a, below the Pixel 5. And for many, it’s Goldilocks-style ‘just right’ choice. You get 5G and Google’s class-leading photo quality at a lower cost than the Pixel 5 commands. What does the Pixel 4a 5G do? Captures class-leading photos during day and night with its main camera Has a fun astrophotography mode for night-time photos Lets you get on board with 5G Shoots high quality selfies Will display HDR video Can handle high-end games How much is a Pixel 4a 5G? The Google Pixel 4a 5G’s recommended retail price is £499. You may be able to find it for slightly less online, but Pixel phones rarely sell for masses below their original cost. At the time of writing, it’s available online for £464.99 Skip to view more deals Pixel 4a 5G good value for money? Pixel phones aren’t made to shove a sense of ultra-high value per pound in your face like some alternatives from Chinese companies such as Realme, Xiaomi and OnePlus. It doesn’t have stacks of extra features like loads of rear cameras, a huge screen or hugely aggressive pricing. However, it remains solid value because of the quality of the overall experience and that most of the core features are still roughly on-par with phones at £600-800. Do consider the standard Pixel 4a if you are not fussed about 5G, though. It loses a few other features apart from 5G but is available for £150 less. Pixel 4a 5G features The camera is arguably the primary reason to buy a Pixel 4a 5G, but we’ll cover that in its own section. Other key draws are less about features in the usual sense and more about how Pixel phones work. Buy a Pixel, and you’ll get Android updates before any other manufacturers' phones. Google also guarantees three years of key system updates, although that three years started when the Pixel 4a 5G went on sale in November 2020, not when you choose to buy one. The Pixel 4a 5G also has Android in its purest form. There’s no custom manufacturer skin to complicate the phone’s look or feel, although, at this point, we think almost all third-party Android skins are perfectly sound. Periphery hardware features that get more attention are those you’re likely to appreciate often. There’s no fat on the Pixel 4a 5G. It has stereo speakers, for example. And while they are not the loudest in the known universe, they are calibrated to sound surprisingly bassy at lower volumes. We’ve streamed hours of podcasts and radio on the Pixel 4a 5G and were pretty impressed — until it had to compete with the sound of a shower or boiling kettle anyway when it just fared OK. The screen is the largest of all the Pixel phones at 6.2 inches. A 60Hz refresh rate means it won’t scroll as smoothly as the 90Hz Pixel 5, but it is an OLED display that excels in other areas of image quality. Colours look bold but natural, while brightness is high enough to compete with bright sunlight and contrast is impeccable. The Pixel 4a 5G may not be the most expensive Pixel phone, but it’s our top pick for gaming. The phone has the same Snapdragon 765G processor as the Pixel 5. This is a mid-range chipset that can handle all games well, from casual titles to demanding ones like Fortnite. However, if you care far more about gaming than anything else, check out something like the Motorola Moto G100 too. It sells at the same price but has a far more powerful Snapdragon 870 processor and a much taller 6.7-inch screen that provides more space for virtual gamepad controls. Pixel 4a 5G battery Any Android phone with under 4000mAh battery capacity sets off alarm bells these days. The Pixel 4a 5G has a 3885mAh battery. There’s good news and bad news. The Pixel 4a 5G does not have bad battery life. In our days of testing, it always made it ’til bedtime. It didn’t threaten to give up at 7pm. This is likely because there are careful restrictions on what is allowed to go on in the background while you do not actively use the phone. And, like the best of these measures, you don’t actually notice these battery-saving techniques in use. However, there are plenty of significantly longer-lasting phones available at £400 or less. Most mid-range Motorola, Xiaomi and Realme Androids have better stamina. If you really want a phone that will last two days between charges, the Pixel 4a 5G isn’t it, unless you use the thing very little. Still, we were not annoyed by the Pixel 4a 5G’s stamina, something that seemed quite likely before we used the phone. Charging speed is fine, but nothing special. A full charge takes around 90 minutes because the Pixel 4a 5G supports 18W charging, not the super-powered speeds seen today from some of the Chinese phone-makers. You do get a charger in the box, which is good. Pixel 4a 5G camera The Pixel 4a 5G has a superb camera, one that matches the Pixel 5. There’s a 12-megapixel primary camera and a 16-megapixel ultra-wide. Its main camera is the best you can get at £499 by our estimation. Benefits aren’t to do with detail so much as dynamic range, contrast, colour and performance in low light. The Pixel 4a 5G has a good-quality camera sensor, but the magic here is all about the software, the processing that happens behind the scenes. It uses stacks of the stuff to optimise your photos, but shots never look processed. Colours are natural, and contrast doesn’t appear obviously manipulated. Even in low light, where the most processing is needed, the Pixel 4a 5G’s images have a realistic look to them. We got the measure of the phone after going out shooting in a nature reserve, capturing images shooting directly into the sun, with a grassy, tree-filled foreground. The Pixel 4a 5G is a pro at keeping a darker foreground looking lifelike and yet bright even when competing with a much, much brighter sky overhead. This stuff isn’t easy, but the Pixel makes it look effortless. The ultra-wide camera benefits from the same style of processing, but its hardware isn’t quite as good, so you will see a little more noise in tricky scenes. Astrophotography is the Pixel series’ neat little extra. This lets you take pictures of stars in the night sky if you can keep the phone still for a few minutes. However, the standard NightSight mode is more important. You can use it handheld, and it takes night photos comparable with those of an iPhone 12 or Samsung Galaxy S21 – better ones in plenty of cases. Zoom is the Pixel 4a 5G’s slight weak point. It doesn’t have a zoom camera, and while Google uses clever photo-merging tricks to make your 2x zoom pics look better, it’s no replacement for a dedicated zoom. Video quality is good, and you can shoot at up to 4K resolution. The Pixel 4a 5G’s front camera is only OK, though. It has a great background-blur mode for professional or dramatic looking selfies, but older Pixels actually capture sharper detail. Pixel 4a 5G design and set-up The most striking thing about the Pixel 4a 5G design is a white power button. Google aims for styled ultra-plain minimalism and hits the bullseye. This isn’t the phone to get if you like the look of colour gradients and light-reactive finishes. And it doesn’t have the aluminium casing of the Pixel 5 either. The Pixel 4a 5G is a plastic phone, aside from the tough Gorilla Glass on its front. Here’s the strange thing: most phones are such try-hards that the Pixel 4a 5G’s reserved look is more refreshing than boring. And despite the plastic build, it does not feel cheap. It’s dense and solid, despite being light at 168g. Still, if you want a small phone, you are better off with the non-5G Pixel 4a or the Pixel 5. This phone is wider than both of those phones, and the Galaxy S21, which has the same 6.2-inch display count. Why? The screen’s aspect ratio is less ‘tall’ than most. It’s a mid-size phone, though, not a giant. But some of you may see the screen size and assume it’s notably small-feeling. Like other Pixel phones, the Pixel 4a 5G’s setup is even quicker than most other Androids because there are no services to log into other than your Google account. The start-up process lets you start installing apps you had on your last phone if you log in (if it was an Android), and it should only take a couple of minutes. Our verdict: should you buy the Pixel 4a 5G? If you want a fairly simple phone that gets software updates quickly, has 5G and a fantastic camera, the Pixel 4a 5G is a solid bet. Don’t care about 5G? The standard Pixel 4a is also worth a look as it is significantly cheaper. Its screen is smaller, the processor less powerful, but this won’t matter to some people. Those who use their phone an awful lot each day may not be too impressed with its battery life. There are longer-lasting phones at the same price or less. Still, the Pixel 4a 5G can keep up with plenty of high rollers, including the Samsung Galaxy S21. Rating: Features: 3/5 Battery: 3/5 Camera: 5/5 Design and set-up: 4/5 Overall rating: 4/5 Where to buy the Google Pixel 4a 5G Buy from Amazon Buy from Argos Buy from Currys PC World Available at EE | from £31 a month Available from Carphone Warehouse | from £26 a month and £39.99 upfront Available from Vodafone | from £38 a month and £29 upfront Interested in reading more about Google devices? Check out our in-depth reviews of the Pixel 5 and the current Pixel Buds. Still not sure which Pixel to buy? Read our full Pixel 5 vs 4a 5G vs 4a comparison guide.
OnePlus 9 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: which should you buy?
The OnePlus 9 and Samsung Galaxy S21 are both brilliant high-end phones, without the four figure price tag. But which should you choose?
The OnePlus 9 and Samsung Galaxy S21 are two great options for someone who wants a high-end phone that does not cost anything close to £1,000. They are the more affordable Androids in their makers’ top-tier ranges. You see the odd sacrifice here and there. They aren’t made entirely of glass and metal, and they don’t have cameras quite as advanced as the top Samsung and OnePlus phones. But you do get to save at least a couple of hundred pounds, and what you lose will not be all that glaring to most people. But which is best? The Samsung Galaxy S21 is, we think, a prettier phone. It takes better zoom photos and is one of the very best ‘small’ phones you can buy. The OnePlus 9 costs a little less, is more powerful and the larger screen is great for games and video streaming. There’s no clear all-out winner here, but stack up your priorities, and this shouldn’t be too tricky a choice. For another comparison piece, take a look at our iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21 article. To see how the OnePlus 9's big brother compares to another rival, don't miss our OnePlus 9 Pro vs Oppo Find X3 Pro explainer. And for our comprehensive breakdown of the Galaxy handset range, there's our Samsung Galaxy Phones list article. Jump to: Key differences at a glance Specs and features Price Battery life Camera Display 5G capability and connectivity Design Verdict: which should you buy? OnePlus 9 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: key differences at a glance The OnePlus 9 has a larger screen, useful for playing games and video Samsung’s Galaxy S21 has a much better zoom camera mode The OnePlus 9 has a better processor, one that makes games like Fortnite run slightly faster A Samsung Galaxy S21 is a better choice if you want a small phone, as the OnePlus 9 is significantly taller and wider The OnePlus 9’s battery charges much faster, but those who use their phone quite a bit will have to recharge every day with either Samsung’s Galaxy S21 has excellent IP68 water resistance, but the OnePlus 9 has no rating – so no official water resistance OnePlus 9 vs Samsung Galaxy S21 in detail OnePlus 9 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: specs and features These are high-end phones, even if they don’t cost £1,000. You don’t miss out on too many features with either. They have 5G, fast charging, OLED screens and top-end processors. However, the OnePlus 9 is the more powerful phone, despite being a little cheaper. It uses the Snapdragon 888, which is newer and better than the Samsung Exynos 2100 of the Galaxy S21. The difference is not obvious when you do low-level stuff but is quite clear when you run Fortnite, one of the most demanding Android games. Each match starts with the player flying through the sky above the island play area, and the frame rate is significantly higher — and more stable – in the OnePlus 9. The way these phones present Android is a little different too. The OnePlus skin is more like vanilla Android, with a zero-upkeep (optional) vertical app library screen. Samsung uses a series of pages on which your apps sit, so you’ll need to keep them organised for the best results. That said, there is an option to auto-tidy them with a tap. If only we had that option for our homes. OnePlus 9 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: price If you assess these two phones by their recommended prices, the OnePlus 9 is significantly cheaper. It costs £629 with 128GB storage or £729 with 256GB. The Samsung Galaxy S21 launched at £769 with 128GB storage, £819 with 256GB . However, the Galaxy phone has been around for longer, and we have seen it drop to around £650-£680 online, just a little more than the OnePlus 9. If you decide to go with Samsung, shop around for the best price. Skip to the deals OnePlus 9 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: battery life Neither of these phones is a true battery life trooper, the sort of Android you can realistically expect to last two days between charges. They should last a full day for most people, but you may want to give them a little top-up before a night out if you spend some time during the day scrolling through social media or watching YouTube. The OnePlus 9 has a larger battery, 4500mAh, to the Galaxy S21’s 4000mAh. But don’t forget the Samsung also has a smaller screen. In our experience, the OnePlus 9 lasts slightly longer than the Samsung, and it also has much better charging. Its adapter is more than twice as powerful, 65W to 25W. You don’t even get a charger plug with the Samsung Galaxy S21. We charged the two from flat, and by the time the Galaxy S21 was up to 25%, the OnePlus 9 was already at 54%. You get 15W wireless charging with either phone, and the Samsung has reverse wireless charging. This is most useful for topping up sets of wireless earphones like Samsung’s Galaxy Buds. OnePlus 9 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: camera Samsung is a master of phone cameras. But this year, OnePlus not only teamed up with photography icon Hasselblad to improve image quality, but it also used higher-end hardware in the OnePlus 9 than its last generation. So which has the best camera? The OnePlus 9 and Samsung Galaxy S21 excel in different areas. The Samsung Galaxy S21 has a much better zoom, handy for travel images and capturing dogs playing in the local park. It also fares a bit better at night, although both have useful modes dedicated to getting you clean-looking shots in low light. Samsung also tends to make your images “pop” that bit more, brightening up the areas in a picture at risk of looking dingy. You’ll notice this when shooting sunsets or scenes with dramatic bright-but-cloudy skies. However, the OnePlus 9 has a much sharper ultra-wide camera. This is no surprise, as it uses a very high-res 50-megapixel sensor. Don’t expect a big variation in detail in images you take with the primary cameras, though. The OnePlus 9 may have a 48-megapixel sensor to the S21’s 12-megapixel one, but they capture similar levels of detail. Who wins? The Samsung Galaxy S21 feels like a more flexible camera phone. Sometimes the OnePlus 9’s colour looks more natural, but we think more people will appreciate the added punch of Samsung’s pics more often. Both phones can shoot video at up to a staggering 8K resolution, but 4K offers the best balance of compatibility, motion smoothing and image quality. OnePlus 9 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: display The OnePlus 9 has a larger screen than the Galaxy S21. It’s 6.55 inches across, to the S21’s 6.2 inches. You’ll appreciate that extra space when watching video or playing games. An extra 0.35 inches may not sound like a lot, but it matters. Their resolutions are the same, 2400 x 1080 pixels. That means the Galaxy S21 is actually slightly sharper per inch, but in person, they look similarly crisp. The Galaxy S21 does have a couple of benefits. Its colour tone is more even at an angle, where the OnePlus 9 takes on a slight red tint. And it looks clearer in bright sunlight. This isn't just because the S21 has slightly higher peak brightness, which it does, but because Samsung does clever stuff with colour and contrast to keep it looking good in all conditions. This is an unhelpful case where you win some, you lose some. A bigger screen is great, but Samsung’s display is slightly better-optimised in a few ways. They are both OLED screens, which have flawless contrast, with a refresh rate of up to 120Hz for ultra-smooth scrolling in Android. There’s a fast fingerprints scanner built into both displays too. OnePlus 9 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: 5G capability and connectivity The OnePlus 9 and Samsung Galaxy S21 have 5G, one of the most important new bits of tech in recent years. They also support Wi-Fi 6, which will keep your phone up to speed with your home broadband router in the years to come. Future-proofing is on-point. Neither phone lets you plug in a pair of wired headphones, and neither takes a microSD card. Think carefully about the storage capacity you’ll need, then, because you can’t upgrade it. OnePlus 9 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: design The OnePlus 9 and Galaxy S21 offer high-end specs at a slightly more palatable price. And that means you have to swallow a little design compromise in each case. Samsung uses plastic on the S21’s back instead of glass but keeps the aluminium sides seen in the more expensive Galaxy S21 Plus and Ultra. OnePlus retains the glass but uses plastic on the sides. Which feels better? There’s not much in it, as while a drop from a glass rear to a plastic one is usually obvious, Samsung has done an excellent job making plastic feel fancy here. But the OnePlus 9 might snatch it by a whisker. For the latest news and expert tips on getting the best deals this year, take a look at our Black Friday 2021 and Cyber Monday 2021 guides. The Galaxy S21 is the more stylish phone, though. There’s real eye-catching confidence to the design of its camera housing and the two-tone colour scheme. It’s one of the best-looking phones Samsung has ever made. Size is probably a more important difference here than style. The Samsung Galaxy S21 is a petite but powerful phone, a rare and desirable combo. The OnePlus 9 is significantly larger, much closer in size to the average flagship phone. A bigger phone is worth it if you’re a big consumer of content, watching YouTube or Netflix, or playing games. But there’s a real charm to a smaller phone. It’s easier to handle, takes up less space in your pocket and shrugs off the nerdiness of high-end tech. OnePlus 9 vs Samsung Galaxy S21: which should you buy? There are a couple of clear wins for each team here. The Samsung Galaxy S21 is more stylish, its smaller frame is easier to handle, and the camera is more versatile, if not better in all respects. The OnePlus 9 is better for gaming, as it has a larger screen and a more powerful processor. Its lower starting price makes the phone the obvious choice for those after a phone that offers great value. But shop around online, and you can often find the Galaxy S21 for less than its original cost. Where to buy the OnePlus 9 – from £629 Buy from OnePlus Buy from Amazon The OnePlus 9 Pro is also available at John Lewis, Three, and Amazon. Latest Deals Where to buy the Samsung Galaxy S21 – from £769 Buy from Amazon Buy from Samsung Available at Vodafone from £43 a month and £29 upfront Available at EE from £35 a month and £0 upfront (when you trade in an eligible model) Available at Carphone Warehouse from £36.99 a month and £29.99 upfront Available at O2 from £46.99 £37.99 a month and £30 upfront (includes Disney Plus subscription) Latest Deals Like the sound of the Samsung Galaxy S21? Check out our Samsung Galaxy S21 vs Plus vs Ultra comparison to help you choose.
Samsung Galaxy S21 vs Plus vs Ultra: which should you buy?
We pit the Samsung Galaxy S21 against the S21 Plus and S21 Ultra to help you decide which to buy.
The Samsung Galaxy S21 family spans a number of budgets. It starts at £769 for the 128GB Galaxy S21, ends at £1329 for the top Galaxy S21 Ultra. Samsung’s Galaxy S21, S21 Plus and S21 Ultra are not a set of identical triplets by any means. The Galaxy S21 is the only obvious choice for someone who wants to spend less or prefers a smaller phone. A jump up to the Galaxy S21 Plus earns you the Samsung build quality we’re used to. It has a proper glass back, as well as a much larger screen. Only the Galaxy S21 Ultra has Samsung’s latest and greatest tech, though. This includes an incredible zoom camera, much higher screen resolution and a beautiful curved front that minimises the amount of visible screen border. You probably don’t need the upgrades of the Galaxy S21 Ultra, but you may well want them. To read more on Samsung Galaxy devices, try our Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra review and Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 review. Or head to our list of Samsung Galaxy phones with prices to see all your options. Jump to: Specs and features Price Storage Battery life Camera Display 5G capability and connectivity Design Verdict Samsung Galaxy S21 vs Plus vs Ultra: key differences at a glance Design - The Galaxy S21 is a much smaller phone than the Plus or Ultra and is really the only one to buy for those who dislike XL-size phones. Glass vs plastic - Only the Galaxy S21 Plus and Ultra have glass back panels. The base-level S21 uses plastic dressed up as glass, which doesn’t feel as expensive. Camera tech - All three of these phones have excellent cameras, but only the Ultra gets dual 3x and 10x zooms and an ultra-high-res 40MP selfie camera. Display size - The Galaxy S21 has a petite 6.2-inch screen, the essential part of its pocketable design. The Plus has a much larger 6.7-inch screen, and the Ultra’s is larger still at 6.8 inches. Samsung Galaxy S21 vs Plus vs Ultra in detail Samsung Galaxy S21 vs Plus vs Ultra: specs and features The top-spec Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra may cost almost twice as much as the entry-level Galaxy S21, but all three phones have the same processor. It’s the Samsung Exynos 2100. This is Samsung’s top CPU, for the first half of 2021 at least. It means raw performance isn’t even a factor here. All three can play the latest games perfectly. Android feels great on all three phones. There are some other changes inside, though. The Galaxy S21 and S21 Plus have 8GB RAM, while the Ultra has at least 12GB RAM. More RAM lets more apps stay parked in the background, although we don’t find the difference all that obvious day-to-day. The trio is available with either 128GB or 256GB of storage. But only the Galaxy S21 Ultra comes as a 512GB option, with a borderline ridiculous 16GB of RAM. All three, in all variants, have 5G. It is standard in the Samsung Galaxy S21 range. Samsung Galaxy S21 vs Plus vs Ultra: price There are seven prices for these three phones. Let’s break it down to core models to keep things simple. The Samsung Galaxy S21 starts at £769 with 128GB storage and 8GB RAM. You’ll pay £819, an extra £50, for the jump to 256GB storage. Samsung’s Galaxy S21 Plus starts at £949 for 128GB storage and 8GB RAM. The 256GB storage upgrade is £50 again, taking you to £999. Big spender? The Galaxy S21 Ultra starts at £1,149, with 12GB RAM and 128GB storage. A 256GB upgrade is, once more, £50. And the top Galaxy S21 Ultra has 16GB RAM and 512GB storage and costs £1329. Skip to view the deals Samsung Galaxy S21 vs Plus vs Ultra: battery life Battery capacity and real-world battery life do not always go hand-in-hand, but they largely do in this comparison. The Galaxy S21 has the smallest battery, 4000mAh, and tends to last the shortest amount of time between charges. That’s usually a full day, but heavy users should probably consider the step up to the Galaxy S21 Plus. It has a 4800mAh battery and handles heavy use a little better. In our experience, its stamina is very similar to the Galaxy S21 Ultra, which has a 5000mAh battery. That little bump in battery size likely only offsets the Ultra’s higher screen resolution. None of these three phones sets the standard for stamina. You’ll likely have to charge all three every day. But the Ultra and Plus offer a bit more of a battery buffer, which is one of the most important things to look for if you use your phone a lot. All three support 25W fast charging, which is actually quite slow compared to the speed of OnePlus, Oppo and Xiaomi phones. And none include a charge adapter. You get a cable but no brick. Samsung Galaxy S21 vs Plus vs Ultra: camera Here’s where things get interesting, but we need to lay out some facts first. The Galaxy S21, S21 Plus and S21 Ultra all have great cameras. They use high-quality sensors throughout. Their wide-angle cameras are unusually good, Samsung’s dynamic range processing is excellent. And while colours can appear a little keen on saturation, photos almost always pop off the display. All three get some form of zoom too. However, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra has far, far better zoom, not just than the other two but virtually every other phone you might buy. There are 3x and 10x zoom lenses. These provide incredible flexibility in terms of what you can shoot from any position, making the Ultra one of the best phones for travel photography ever. There’s also a slight bump in general image quality with other kinds of pictures in the S21 Ultra, but not the leap you might imagine from the specs. The Galaxy S21 and S21 Plus have 12-megapixel main cameras, the Ultra a 108-megapixel one. Samsung Galaxy S21 vs Plus vs Ultra: display All three Galaxy S21 phones have OLED screens with a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. This guarantees you amazing contrast and the smoothest scrolling you can get on an Android phone. In any phone, actually. Size is the most impactful difference between the two. The Galaxy S21 has a smaller 6.2-inch screen. At 6.7 inches and 6.8 inches, the Galaxy S21+ and S21 Ultra are better for watching video. Sometimes size matters most. Other differences are nice-to-have but aren’t quite as noticeable. For example, the S21 and S21 Plus have Full HD-grade screens. The Ultra is of a much higher resolution, which you can notice if you look close. Text looks slightly more pristine, as there are more pixels to smooth out the curves and diagonals. The Ultra’s screen also has higher peak brightness, 1500 nits to the other phones’ 1300 nits. However, you’ll only ever see that sort of power when using the phones outdoors on a bright day, and they all excel in such conditions. The Ultra also has a slightly smarter screen refresh, which can slow down the display to use less battery when showing static images. But as already noted, the Galaxy S21 Ultra and Plus have similar real-world battery life, so it’s not a feature you’ll actively notice. This one mostly boils down to a case of deciding how much you care about screen size. All three have great displays. Skip to view the deals Samsung Galaxy S21 vs Plus vs Ultra: 5G capability and connectivity All the UK versions of the Galaxy S21 phones have 5G. This was the year Samsung switched to offering 5G as standard with its top-end phones, which makes sense. Their other connectivity features are largely the same across the board. They won’t take a memory card. You can’t plug in cabled headphones. But they all have NFC, Bluetooth 5.0 and Wi-Fi 6. They are prepped for the future, even if they are not quite so friendly to some accessories you already own. There’s one additional benefit to buying a Galaxy S21 Ultra. It supports Samsung’s S-Pen styluses, which are pressure-sensing digital doodling and handwriting tools. You don’t get one in the box, but you can find them online for under £25. That is much less than you’d pay for an Apple Pencil. Samsung Galaxy S21 vs Plus vs Ultra: design Some parts of the Galaxy S21 family are consistent throughout the range. But design changes quite a bit between models, even if they all share the same striking and stylish two-tone look. The Galaxy S21 sits at the bottom of the pile but is arguably the best-looking of the lot. It has a certain cuteness the others lack, as larger phones, that works with the almost jewellery-like aesthetic Samsung chose. However, the Galaxy S21 has a plastic back, which may disappoint some long-term Galaxy fans. The sides are aluminium. Step up to the Galaxy S21 Plus, and you are upgraded to a glass back and aluminium sides, the classic combination for a modern ‘expensive’ Android phone. The Galaxy S21 has a flat front, unlike 2020’s S20 Plus, which makes its small screen borders more apparent. Some people prefer flat screens, as curved ones pool reflections in a way that can be distracting when, for example, you watch a movie. Samsung’s Galaxy S21 Ultra has the most luxurious build of the three, with curved glass on both sides and a strip of aluminium connecting the two. Still, you could argue that the family’s style is diluted by the sheer number of cameras on the back and the amount the camera housing juts out from the rear. Samsung had to do this because the 10x periscope zoom uses folded optics, which demand more space. For the latest news and expert tips on getting the best deals this year, take a look at our Black Friday 2021 and Cyber Monday 2021 guides. Samsung Galaxy S21 vs Plus vs Ultra: which should you buy? Want a small phone? Pick the Galaxy S21. It still has great cameras, looks fantastic and has just as much power as the more expensive Plus and Ultra phones. A jump to the Galaxy S21 Plus is worthwhile if you’ll appreciate a larger screen. It’s also a better choice if you’re worried about your next phone making it through a full day’s use. Zoom photography is the best reason to go all-out and buy a Galaxy S21 Ultra. Its two zoom lenses make the phone ridiculously flexible and bags of fun to use as your everyday camera. It supports a stylus and has a slightly fancier design and screen, but these just don’t seem as important as the phone’s fab zooms. Samsung Galaxy S21 5G - from £769 Buy from Amazon Buy from Samsung <a href="http://www.awin1.com/cread.php?id=489797&clickref=radiotimes-1150819&awinmid=10210&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.awin1.com%2Fcread.php%3Fid%3D489797%26clickref%3Dradiotimes-1150819%26awinmid%3D31423%26p%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.three.co.uk%252Fsamsung%252Fgalaxy-s21-5g%253Fcolour%253Dphantom%252520grey%2526intid%253Dyxtsrch-product-galaxy-s21-5g%2526memory%253D128%2526paym%253Dtrue" target="_blank" rel="sponsored">Available at Three | from £50 a month and £29 upfront Available at Vodafone | from £35 a month and £29 upfront Samsung Galaxy S21 Plus - from £949 Buy from Samsung Available from Vodafone | from £42 a month and £29 upfront Available from O2 | from £41.99 a month and £30 upfront Available at Three (unlimited data) | £55 a month, £79.00 upfront Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra - from £1,149 Buy from Amazon Buy from Samsung Available from Vodafone | from £46 a month and £29 upfront Available from O2 | From £42.71 a month and £30 upfront Looking for more comparisons before you decide? Read our iPhone 12 vs Samsung Galaxy S21 and OnePlus 9 vs Samsung Galaxy S21 guides.
The Realme 8 Pro's 108MP camera and fast charging could easily belong to a pricier phone, but how do the rest of the features measure up?
Many people who are yet to hear about Realme will buy a Realme phone this year. It uses one of the best techniques for finding fans: make cheap phones brimming with features, like the Realme 8 Pro. It retails for £279 but has some tech that sounds like it belongs on something at least twice the cost. A 108-megapixel camera, a 4-camera array on the back and a Full HD OLED screen make the Realme 8 Pro immediately seem a good deal. Don’t get transfixed by the specs, though. The Realme 8 Pro is a good deal, but not magic in phone form. Great strengths include one of the better primary cameras you can get for the money, a screen that still looks clear outdoors, good battery life, very fast charging and a not-too-big frame. Weaker parts include the all-plastic build, a slightly thin speaker, and a rear design that might make some wince. The Realme 8 Pro is not a 5G phone either, which those who only buy a phone every handful of years should consider. What is the Realme 8 Pro? How much is Realme 8 Pro? Realme 8 Pro features Realme 8 Pro battery Realme 8 Pro camera Realme 8 Pro design and set-up Our verdict Where to buy Realme 8 Pro review: summary Want a relatively affordable phone with a decent camera? The Realme 8 Pro is a good buy. It takes solid photos, the battery lasts the best part of two days for light users, and the screen is bright and bold. Tech heads might want to switch to the similarly-priced Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro instead. It has a larger screen, a glass back and a much less eyebrow-raising design. Price: £279 (RRP). Available on Amazon from £258. Key features Four rear cameras, including a 108MP sensor Mid-size 6.4-inch OLED screen 4500mAh battery with ultra-fast 50W charging Has a headphone jack Provocative frosted plastic back Pros Primary camera takes good photos Fairly long battery life Competitively priced Bright display Cons Plus-size rear slogan won’t suit all tastes Three of the four rear cameras are weak Mostly plastic build What is the Realme 8 Pro? The Realme 8 Pro is an affordable mid-range Android phone. It has an ultra-high-resolution 108MP camera and fast 50W charging. Relatively low weight and a compact footprint make this phone a little easier to handle than an alternative like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro. What does the Realme 8 Pro do? Takes 12MP photos with its 108MP camera Emulates a 3x zoom camera Can shoot wide-angle and standard view images Lets you use cabled headphones Charges from flat in under 50 minutes Can capture 4K video How much is the Realme 8 Pro? The Realme 8 Pro is available to buy at Amazon for £279 (£258) Is a Realme 8 Pro good value for money? Almost every Realme phone offers good value for your money, and the Realme 8 Pro is no different. Its 108MP camera and fast charging could easily belong to a more expensive phone. It does not have 5G, a high refresh rate display, a glass back or metal sides. All are available in phones under £300, so make sure the Realme 8 Pro’s fairly compact frame and quick charging would sit high on your priority list. Realme 8 Pro features The Realme 8 Pro’s feature list is quite a roll-call. It has lots of storage, 128GB, plenty of RAM and one of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon “G” series processors, made for gaming. Realme is out to prove its phones are good value. However, the longer you spend with the phone, the more you realise the Realme 8 Pro’s priorities are actually quite focused. It’s probably more useful to look at the parts that don’t get quite as much attention, in case they should push you towards another phone. The Realme 8 Pro does not have 5G mobile internet, a feature you can already get at under £300. Its speaker is not the best around, as it uses a single mono driver and does not have the beefiest sound. And the screen has a standard 60Hz refresh rate, not the 90Hz or 120Hz already available around the price. This leads to less smooth scrolling, although top iPhones still use 60Hz, so it shouldn’t be a deal-breaker for many. Realme deliberately uses a slightly smaller screen here, too, 6.4in, intended to make the Realme 8 Pro slightly easier to handle than some others. It’s lighter than plenty, too, at 176g. Want a massive, loud, 5G phone? The Realme 8 Pro isn’t for you. It does have a bright and bold OLED display, a headphone jack and a solid — if not quite class-leading — performance. The in-screen fingerprint scanner is the one part that seems a mistake rather than a choice. The Realme 8 Pro’s finger scanner is a little slow and unreliable, most likely because it could only fit less capable hardware in at under £300. Most phones in this class have side or rear fingerprint scanners, which are less trendy but cheaper to implement. Realme 8 Pro battery The Realme 8 Pro has a 4500mAh battery. These days such a capacity is no longer a guarantee of stellar battery life, but the phone’s staying power is above average. Use the Realme 8 Pro a good amount for audio streaming, constant WhatsApp checks and some online shopping, and you can still expect to have a solid 30% or more by the end of the day. Light users may be able to go two days before needing to recharge the Realme 8 Pro. It outlasts plenty of phones that cost around £1000, which is a fairly common benefit of models in this £200-300 class. Charging speed is what makes the Realme 8 Pro stand out even more clearly, though. It has 50W charging, around three times the pace of the top iPhones. A 10-minute charge can add 25% or more to the battery when topping up for a night out. And most of the time, you shouldn’t even need these little ‘peace of mind’ top-ups. Realme includes the fast charger, too, at a time when phone makers are starting to sell phones without an adapter in the box at all. Realme 8 Pro camera The Realme 8 Pro camera is both better than you might guess and worse than it looks. At the same time. It has a very capable 108MP main camera that shoots nice photos with bold colour and contrast. In many conditions, you could mistake them for those of a much more expensive mobile. The Realme 8 Pro even captures solid photos at 3x zoom, which is a surprise given the phone does not actually have a zoom lens. Much of the camera strength is in this central 108MP camera. It seems to have sucked up much of the budget, as the other three rear cameras are significantly weaker. The 8MP ultra-wide is handy for shots of looming buildings or sprawling landscapes, but the image quality isn’t nearly as good as that of the main camera. Your two other cameras are used for close-up macro photos and depth mapping for the background-blurring Portrait mode. They have low-quality 2MP sensors and seem to be here as much to make the camera housing look advanced, on paper and in person, as for any photographic benefit. Thankfully the 16MP selfie camera is much better and can capture a decent amount of fine facial detail even in lower light as it uses pixel binning. This is where pixels are merged to reduce image noise. Skip to the deals Realme 8 Pro design and set-up The Realme 8 Pro is as easy to set up as any other Android phone. You’re given the option to migrate data from an old Android on start-up, and aside from re-downloading your apps, it should only take a few minutes. A few years ago, phones from Chinese manufacturers like Realme used to benefit from a bunch of manual software tweaks to make them more palatable to us westerners. But that doesn’t apply anymore. The Realme 8 Pro’s defaults are all fine. Not all of you will like the Realme 8 Pro’s hardware design. It’s relatively light and of a manageable size, but Realme has stamped its attention-grabbing “dare to leap” slogan on the back. It’s all a bit unnecessary, an attempt to make sure you won’t mistake a Realme phone for anything else. The build is not quite as glamorous as it may appear online, either. The Realme 8 Pro’s back is dressed up to look like frosted glass but is plastic. Its aluminium-looking sides are plastic too. Plastic may not shatter like glass, but it will dent and scuff more easily. A few Realme 8 Pro rivals, like the Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro and Realme X50 5G, have glass backs if you like a cooler, harder feel to your phone. Our verdict: should you buy Realme 8 Pro? The Realme 8 Pro is no wallflower Android phone. Its brash finish will turn some off. However, it is not just for tech fans who like to show off their gadgets. The phone is smaller and lighter than plenty in its class yet still lasts a good while between charges. And those recharge sessions barely take any time at all. Add a very capable 108MP main camera, and you have a compelling, if not perfect, Android phone for those who don’t want to pay £500 or more. Features: 4/5 Battery: 4/5 Camera: 4/5 Design: 3/5 Overall rating: 3.8/5 Where to buy the Realme8 Pro Amazon Laptops Direct For more of the latest news, release date pages and reviews, head over to the Technology section. Not sure what smartphone to buy? Read our reviews of the Moto G 5G Plus, Google Pixel 4a 5G and Oppo Find X3 Lite 5G.