Can flagship smartphones be affordable?

These days consumers are flooded with great options across all segments. Phones manufacturers are giving the best to beat the competition. The difference between what's offered by the more expensive brands and the brands leading the mid-segment is narrowing down. We are flooded with options and I am sure it would be really confusing to decide what to buy. But hey, it's always good to do some research and read online reviews or watch reviews on YouTube that can help you with your buying decision.

Let's take a look at some of these bands and what they offer. Phones like the Realme X2 Pro, OnePlus 7T and the Redmi K20 Pro are giving these expensive brands a run for their money. The Realme X2 Pro is one of the latest smartphones with great specifications. It comes with a 6.5" Super AMOLED screen with a resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels. The screen has refresh rates of up to 90 Hz and is HDR10+ compatible. This screen should be plenty bright at 1000 nits and is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5.

The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 855+ processor that is a 7nm chipset and is coupled with Adreno 640 GPU. The Realme X2 Pro comes in 6/64GB (UFS 2.1), 8/128GB (UFS 2.1) and 12/256GB (UFS 3.0) variants with no support for microSD. Speaking about the camera setup, it's quite interesting. We get a quad camera on the back with a 64MP (26mm) wide primary lens with f/1.8 aperture, a 13MP telephoto lens (2x optical zoom) with f/2.5 aperture, 8MP (16mm) ultrawide lens with f/2.2 aperture and a 2MP lens (depth sensor) with f/2.4 aperture. The Realme X2 Pro can capture videos in 2160p@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/120fps and 720p@960fps resolutions. In the front, the phone gets a 16MP lens with f/2.0 aperture.

The phone has NFC, 3.5 mm audio jack and a 4000 mAh battery. The battery should be fine for a full day of moderate use however this shouldn't bother you much as the phone comes with SuperVOOC 50W charger that should charge the phone to 100% in just 35 mins. This phone will launch in India on 20th Nov 2019 and the expected price should be around Rs 27,000.

The next phone needs no introduction. The OnePlus 7T. OnePlus phones have had the flagship killer tag for all this while however that has been now challenged by the other brands. Apart from the internals and price, one thing that makes the OnePlus 7T a leader in this segment is the software experience that comes with great additions to stock android and prompt software update. Oxygenos is my personal favorite OS that is well designed and optimized to give long term stutter free experience.

Lets take a look at the specifications. The OnePlus 7T comes with a 6.55" Fluid AMOLED screen with a resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels. The screen has refresh rates of up to 90 Hz and is HDR10+ compatible. This screen is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5. We get an in-display optical fingerprint scanner that is fast and reliable. The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 855+ processor that is a 7nm chipset and is coupled with Adreno 640 GPU. The phone comes in 8/128GB (UFS 3.0) and 8/256GB (UFS 3.0) variants with no support for microSD.

The camera here is a different one this time. The OnePlus 7T gets a triple camera setup on the back with a 48MP Sony IMX586 (26mm) wide primary camera with f/1.6 aperture a 12MP (51mm) telephoto lens (2x optical zoom) with f/2.2 aperture and a 16MP (17mm) ultrawide lens with f/2.2 aperture. We have seen the 48MP Sony IMX586 sensor do wonders in some budget smartphones like the Redmi Note 7 Pro, Realme X, Realme 5 Pro and the Samsung Galaxy M30s. These phones are half the price and yet click equally great pictures.

The OnePlus 7T is capable of recording 2160p@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60/240fps and 720p@960fps. We get a 16MP selfie lens in the front with f/2.0 aperture.

The phone misses the 3.5mm audio jack however there is a connector included in the box. There is NFC here and a 3800 mAh battery. The battery should be fine for a full day of moderate use however a slightly bigger battery wouldn't have hurt. 30W Wrap charge is there to back the phone when needed. This wouldn't be as fast as SuperVOOC 50W but will be faster than the rest of the competition. The OnePlus 7T is priced at Rs 37,999 for the 8/128GB variant and Rs 39,999 for the 8/256GB variant that is slightly higher then the other phones I have compared here.

Lets see the last contender. The Redmi K20 Pro. Xiaomi has been crushing the low and the mid segments market in terms of sales for a very long time. With the Pocophone F1 they struck the flagship territory with a thunder and challenged the flagship killer tag. They continue to compete for this tag with the Redmi K20 Pro. And indeed its a worthy successor to the Pocophone F1.

The Redmi K20 Pro comes with a 6.39" Super AMOLED screen with a resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels. The screen is HDR10 compatible and is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 5. The phone gets in-display optical fingerprint scanner that is fast and reliable. The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 855 processor that is a 7nm chipset and is coupled with Adreno 640 GPU. The phone comes in 6/64GB (UFS 2.1), 6/128GB (UFS 2.1), 8/128GB (UFS 2.1) and 8/256GB (UFS 2.1) variants with no support for microSD. The camera lens that we get are a 48MP Sony IMX586 (26mm) wide primary camera with f/1.8 aperture, an 8MP (53mm) telephoto lens (2x optical zoom) with f/2.4 aperture and a 13MP (12mm) ultrawide lens with f/2.4 aperture.

The Redmi K20 Pro is capable of recording 2160p@30/60fps, 1080p@30/120/240fps and 1080p@960fps. We get a motorized pop-up 20 MP camera with f/2.2 aperture that takes some great selfies.

The phone has NFC, 3.5mm audio jack and a 4000 mAh battery. The battery optimization is great here and the battery easily lasts for more than a day of moderate use. The phone also gets 27W fast charging. The Redmi K20 Pro is priced at Rs 25,999 for the 6/128GB variant and Rs 28,999 for the 8/256GB variant. These are the only two variants available in India. The price is absolutely fantastic.

This is it guys. There are many great options to choose from. Choose wisely and you could save some money and buy great accessories for your phone.

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