Leading positions in the global smartphone market are held by major corporations like Apple and Samsung. They are the ones that annually sell hundreds of millions of devices. But it’s not a secret for anyone that companies from China follow them - the top five most successful manufacturers of mobile devices for 2017 have three Chinese brands (Huawei, Oppo and Vivo), and this already says a lot. What is the secret of the frenzied popularity of Chinese smartphones? It's all about a huge variety of models and their availability. In most cases, devices originally from China are much more affordable than A-brand products, and this applies not only to budget and mid-range gadgets, but also to flagships. This review will focus on top-end smartphones.
Honor 9 Premium Edition
Price Honor 9 Premium Edition Emerging from the wing of Huawei, the Honor brand produces many decent smartphones. The most successful can be considered the flagship model Honor 9, which combines premium design, decent technical parameters and relatively low cost. Particular attention should be paid to the Premium Edition. Its main differences from the original model are the doubled capacity of the drive (up to 128 GB), 6 GB of RAM and a bright blue color. Other equipment of the Honor 9 Premium Edition is borrowed from the usual Honor 9. So, “under the hood” there is a 5.15-inch Full HD-display with a standard aspect ratio of 16: 9, the former flagship chip HiSilicon Kirin 960, the aforementioned amount of available memory and a battery at 3200 mAh The main camera of the smartphone is two-module and consists of two sensors (color and black and white) with an F2.2 aperture of 12 and 20 megapixels, respectively, borrowed from the Huawei P10 (although there is no optical stabilization and software from Leica). Of the main photo capabilities, we highlight two-time hybrid zoom with minimal loss of quality, shooting video in 4K and creating color images with higher resolution due to the monochrome sensor. You can read more about the features of shooting on Honor 9 in our review .Meizu Pro 7 Plus
Get Meizu Pro 7 Plus Price Among all Chinese smartphones, the eldest model of the Meizu company - Pro 7 Plus, stands out the most. What makes her so unique? Turning the smartphone over with the back to you, you will find an additional mini-display (AMOLED with a diagonal of 2 ?). Through it, you can control the player, view notifications, weather, display images from the main camera, etc. The main 5.7-inch AMOLED screen has a resolution of Quad HD. The second important feature of Meizu Pro 7 Plus was the camera with two 16-megapixel Sony IMX386 (F2.0) sensors. As in the case of Honor 9, one module is color, and the other is black and white. There is no optical stabilization and laser autofocus. The smartphone is powered by a bunch of a powerful 10-core Helio X30 chip and 6 GB of RAM, so there are no problems with performance. The processor is made according to technological standards of 10 nm, so the smartphone is almost not heated, and the battery for 3500 mAh is enough for about 15-17 hours of active work.Honor View 10
Learn the price of Honor View 10 This is a relatively fresh Honor smartphone, the presentation of which took place at the end of 2017, simultaneously with the debut of the new middle-class Honor 7x. Despite the presence of the number 10 in the name, Honor 9 remains the full-fledged flagship of the company. The novelty can be considered a vision of the future Honor 10. The device attracts with a frameless 6-inch display (Full HD +) with an aspect ratio of 18: 9, as well as the new flagship chip of the manufacturer HiSilicon Kirin 970 with dedicated neural module. What does this give in practice? For example, the main dual-module camera (12 + 20 megapixels) is capable of independently recognizing the photographed object and adjusting the image quality so that the objects in the frame look the most plausible. Externally, the smartphone almost completely repeats the Honor 7x (all-metal body, protruding camera lenses, antenna strips in the manner of the iPhone 7). There are only two differences: the Honor View 10 has a fingerprint scanner located in front of the screen, and there is no logo on the front panel. This device is also notable for the ability to combine up to 15 devices in one network to create a large stereo system. We already met Honor View 10 and prepared review .Xiaomi Mi 6
Get price Xiaomi Mi 6 Even after Xiaomi gained universal recognition, the company did not change its traditions and continued to produce the most “stuffed” devices at a reasonable price. The flagship Mi6 perfectly demonstrates this. At one time, the manufacturer equipped the smartphone with the most advanced hardware (inside - the Snapdragon 835 chip, 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of ROM, a dual camera with portrait mode and double optical zoom), which makes the device look quite cheerful at the beginning of 2018. The list of positive qualities of Xiaomi Mi6 also includes support for accelerated charging QuickCharge, fast Wi-Fi modules (updated 2x2 MIMO) and Bluetooth 5.0, front-facing fingerprint scanner, USB Type-C port, as well as the ability to work with two SIM cards. The Xiaomi Mi6 display does not have the largest diagonal by today's standards - only 5.15 inches. Together with a “modest” resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels and a 3350 mAh battery, this made the smartphone quite tenacious. On the side of Xiaomi Mi6 is also a low cost: the younger modification of the device with a 64 GB drive is now being given at the price of an average mid-range smartphone (20 with a small thousand rubles). By the way, on our site there is Xiaomi Mi6 test .Huawei P10 Plus
Learn the price of Huawei P10 Plus The P10 Plus smartphone, created in collaboration with the German Leica photo giant, can be a real creative tool for mobile photography lovers, as it has a high-quality Leica Dual Camera 2.0 Pro Edition (12 + 20 MP) camera with a Summilux-H F1.8 lens. About all the advantages and advantages of this solution, we described in detail in our review. Here, we briefly note that such a bunch shows excellent results when shooting both indoors and outdoors, and a large number of modes (monochrome and portrait shooting, 4K video recording, optical zoom) makes the P10 Plus a universal assistant for any photographer. The smartphone is also endowed with a quite productive filling: a powerful eight-core Kirin 960 chip, 4 or 6 GB of RAM and up to 128 GB of permanent memory, a 5.5-inch IPS display with Quad HD resolution and a capacious 3750 mAh battery with support for Huawei SuperCharge technology .Oppo f5
Get price Oppo F5 The second largest smartphone manufacturer in China, which recently came to our market, does not sell as many devices in Russia as we would like, but the Oppo F5 looks the most advantageous of all available. Yes, Oppo F5 is not a flagship in the usual sense of the word (a rather old Helio P23 is used as a chip). This is more a flagship selfie. The key advantages of the smartphone are a front-facing 20-megapixel camera, an F2.0 lens with photosensitivity and SelfieTune's own artificial intelligence system for automatically processing photos and eliminating some defects. Engineers endowed the smartphone with a thin all-metal casing, a good frameless display (6 ? with a resolution of 2160 × 1080 pixels and an aspect ratio of 18: 9), 4 or 6 GB of RAM, a 3200 mAh battery and a drive with a 32/64 GB memory capacity. If this is not enough, you can count on expanding the storage using a memory card (up to 256 GB). The main camera here is single-module, at 16 megapixels. Pleased with the equipment: in addition to the device itself and charging, inside the box are headphones, a protective case and a film that is already applied to the screen.Xiaomi Mi MIX 2 Special Edition
Get price Xiaomi Mi MIX 2 Special Edition One of the most beautiful Chinese smartphones now is Xiaomi's second-generation Mi MIX. The design of the device is impressive. In the Special Edition version, it looks even cooler: it differs in a one-piece ceramic case, individual elements of which (the rim of the camera and the fingerprint scanner) are plated with 18 carat gold. A frameless 6-inch display with an aspect ratio of 18: 9 and a resolution of Full HD + occupies 93% of the front panel. The filling of the Mi MIX 2 Special Edition is flagship. As a chip, the smartphone uses one of the top Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processors, and the amount of RAM is currently record 8 GB. 128 GB of ROM are allocated for storing content in a smartphone, however, without the possibility of expansion. Compared with the first Mi MIX model, the main camera does not look like greetings from the past - the Mi MIX 2 has a 12-megapixel Sony IMX386 sensor, featuring a 4-axis optical stabilization system and acceptable picture quality.OnePlus 5T
Get the price of OnePlus 5T The fifth-generation “flagship killer” that came out last year finally got to Russia - OnePlus 5T official sales started on January 26, with two modifications offered to customers. The younger (costing 41,990 rubles) is equipped with 6 GB of RAM and 64 GB of permanent memory, a frameless 6-inch AMOLED display with an aspect ratio of 18: 9 and Full HD + resolution, a Snapdragon 835 chip, a 3300 mAh battery and a dual main camera ( 16 + 20 megapixels) with hybrid optical zoom function. The top-end modification offers the same thing, with the exception of the amount of memory - those who want to get an 8/128 GB configuration will have to fork out for 44,990 rubles. Note the ability to scan the face of the owner using proprietary technology Face Unlock. Unlike Apple’s Face ID, unlocking in OnePlus 5T takes place via 2D scanning through the front camera, but the manufacturer claims that their technology is not so secure and you need to be more careful with personal data. Now OnePlus 5T runs on Android 7.1.1 (OxygenOS), but soon they promise to upgrade to Android 8.0 Oreo.Huawei Mate 10 Pro
Learn the price of Huawei Mate 10 Pro Last fall, Huawei revealed the updated Mate line of smartphones, which included four new models: the original Mate 10, a stripped-down version of Lite, the flagship model of the Mate 10 Pro and the even more advanced Mate 10 Porsche Design. Since the last modification is an exclusive product and it is quite difficult to get it, we will focus on the usual Mate 10 Pro. Mate 10 Pro entered the top for several reasons. Firstly, the smartphone is now Huawei's most technologically advanced product. Secondly, the Mate 10 Pro was the first device of the corporation with the Kirin 970 chipset. This processor, in addition to the usual CPUs and GPUs, includes a dedicated neural processor module (NPU), so the smartphone can "learn" on its own (for example, the device is capable of receiving solutions for adapting the image when taking pictures). In addition, the Mate 10 Pro is equipped with a frameless 6-inch FullView OLED display with a resolution of 2160 × 1080 pixels (first in a series) and HDR10 support, 6 GB of RAM, a 4000 mAh battery and a 64 or 128 GB storage. Also, the device is protected from external factors according to the IP68 standard and is equipped with a first-class two-module Leica camera (12 + 20 megapixels) with Summilux-H lenses (focal length - 27 mm, aperture - F1.6), which can shoot with a double hybrid optical zoom. Unfortunately, the device is still not officially sold in Russia, but we have seen and tested it .Nubia z17s
Learn the price of Nubia Z17s Created by ZTE, the Nubia brand produces first of all smartphones with a swing for the premium segment, so finding them a good Android gadget was not difficult. Such a smartphone was the current flagship of the Nubia Z17s line, which won us over not only with advanced hardware, but also with a stylish design. The glass panels at the front and back with a 2.5D effect, a metal frame around the perimeter and a large frameless display (5.73 ? with a resolution of 1080 × 2040 pixels) look very decent. The filling is also advanced: the Snapdragon 835 chip, 8 GB of RAM (by the way, this is the first device with this amount of RAM), dual cameras in the front and back (the main 12 + 23 megapixels and the front 5 + 5 megapixels), a battery capacity of 3100 mAh Support for fast charging, as well as a 128 GB drive. The main camera has optical stabilization, aperture F1.8 and can shoot with double physical zoom, while the front camera supports portrait mode with blurring the background