19th August 2020
Is Midrange The Place To Be?
Mobile prices keep goin up and up, but our options in the midrange are getting better and better. This summer the iPhone SE 2020, the OnePlus Nord, the Poco F2 Pro are all great options for under £500 and it makes me wonder, who really needs a flagship phone these days?
It's very possible I'm not the right person to answer this question though. You could argue I still buy the flagship devices... but at the same time, I've not yet spent more than £800 on a phone, when the top flagships are costing £1,200 and more. But still, £800 for my OnePlus 8 Pro or Pixel 4 is still above the midrange, and they are the best OnePlus and Google offer, so I guess that makes them flagships?
Let's take a look at the OnePlus Nord, pictured above. My summary in my video review was that it had good performance, a beautiful screen, a strong speaker and a fine camera. In fact, the only thing that really bothered me was the lack of always on display, and that's being addressed in their Android 11 update!
Wind back a couple more months and I got my hands on the latest Xiaomi 'Flagship killer', the Poco F2 Pro. I reviewed that too and surmised that it was a near perfect device, including now even MIUI which has come such a long way, with perhaps its 60hz screen as it's only weak point. You can find these for less than £300.
Let that sink in for moment. This device has all the power of current flagships, a lovely screen, great battery life, pretty OS and even a reasonable camera... for less than £300! (JUst over £400 if you want to buy it from mi.com)
Then we get to the much hyped iPhone SE 2020. The hype might be a little overdone, but it is still an incredibly powerful device for just over £400, on iOS no less. If Apple is your ecosystem of choice, you get strong performance, a great camera (albeit a little limited on optoions), a beautiful looking screen (albeit with big bezels) and you can do it for less than £500!
Now clearly the thing with how we all assign value and worth to items is in priorities. To me, a good mobile phone is a high priority, so I spend up around the £800 mark, but honestly, I wouldn't be upset if I was forced into spending less and had to settle on any of the afore mentioned devices (well, maybe I'd be a little upset if I was forced onto iOS) They are all very capable devices and for probably 90% of the population, they're plenty enough phone for anything a person could want.
Do you buy flagship, or do you buy midrange? Maybe you're even happy with budget devices under £200? Come and let me know why on my forum.
