Other Good International Phones
Haven’t seen anything you like? The following phones are also worth considering:
TCL P80 Ultra for £480: I love that the 6.8-inch AMOLED screen transforms into an e-ink screen at the flick of a switch; it’s also wonderfully matte, even in AMOLED mode, which makes it more comfortable to read for hours than most phone screens. TCL has also packed in a versatile camera, including a decent telephoto lens, and solid battery life. But the plain design and occasional sluggishness make it a tough sell at this price. If reading is your main priority, the compromises may be worth it.
Xiaomi Poco F9 Ultra for £999 and F9 Pro for £799: This year’s unfortunate price jump, combined with Xiaomi’s weird pricing (low early-bird prices and frequent discounts, but very high MSRPs), makes these phones tough to recommend. Both are actually very good, with lovely displays, good battery life and performance, great stereo speakers, and versatile triple-lens cameras. Naturally, the Ultra is slightly bigger and better. Sadly, they signal a major departure from Poco’s budget roots, but if you see them discounted (I’ve seen the Ultra for £669 and the Pro for £579), they are worth considering.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 17 Pro Max for £499: With a huge battery that easily lasts two days, a big screen, great build quality, and impressive durability, the Redmi Note 17 Pro Max makes a strong first impression. Performance is mediocre, the camera is limited, and it’s packed with bloatware. Unless battery life is your top priority, I’d pick something else.
Honor Magic 8 Pro for £894: This phone boasts excellent camera performance and AI assistance across the board, with a raft of refinements over Honor’s Magic 7 Pro. Its slimmed-down design with subtle curves makes it a pleasure to handle, and Honor has managed to pack in a much larger silicon-carbon battery. The versatile camera also zooms farther (3.7X optical zoom) and handles low light and shaky hands with aplomb (night photography is especially strong). That said, the image processing can be heavy-handed at times. The 6.71-inch screen is gorgeous, razor-sharp, and gets very bright. Honor’s Magic OS 10 is seriously slick on top of Android 16, and Honor AI genuinely adds value, from photo editing to contextual task handling; you can bring it to life with the dedicated AI button. There’s also support for Google Gemini, if you prefer. This is definitely not a phone for AI skeptics. Throw in secure face unlock, incredibly fast wired (100 watts) and wireless charging (80 watts) with the right gear, plus seven years of Android and security patch updates, and you get a supremely sophisticated smartphone with very few discernible weaknesses. But with its successor due to land shortly, you should only snag this right now if you can get a decent discount.
Xiaomi Poco X8 Pro for $390 (£479) and Poco X8 Pro Max for $510 (£599): If anything, a slight step down from the now-discontinued F7, the X8 sports a smaller 6.59-inch AMOLED screen, a MediaTek Dimensity 8500 Ultra chipset, and 8 GB of RAM in the basic model. Performance is solid (though it’s worth noting I used a 12-GB RAM review unit). And the slightly smaller body is a touch easier to handle. You get a big 6,500-mAh battery with plenty of stamina, plus 100-watt charging that gets you back to full in under an hour. The main camera is a solid 50-MP shooter, though the 8-MP ultrawide and 20-MP front-facing cameras aren’t great. I like the mint green model, but it also comes in black or white. There’s still too much bloatware to deal with, and Xiaomi’s software is not my favorite, but you get decent support, including four Android versions and six years of security updates. There’s no wireless charging, but that’s par for the course in this bracket. Overall, the Poco X8 Pro is the best phone for its price. If battery life is a priority, consider the X8 Pro Max, which jumps up to 8,500 mAh. It also has a bigger screen, a better processor, and Wi-Fi 7 support.
Xiaomi 17T for £649 and 17T Pro for $780: Without Honor’s aggressively low pricing, one of these phones (probably the 17T) would have claimed the best mid-range spot above. Compared with the Honor 600, the 17T offers slightly better performance with more RAM and a more reliable camera that has superior zoom capability. Unfortunately, it also comes with a lot of bloatware, and the software needs some tinkering to get the best it offers. The 17T Pro adds wireless charging, a bigger battery, much better performance with a faster chipset, and a larger screen—but it’s even more expensive, pushing the top end of what I’d consider midrange.
Oppo Find N6 for $1,899: Touting an 8.12-inch display, the Find N6 is a beautifully engineered folding phone that’s impossibly slim and light. Despite its creaseless promise, the fold is still discernible. You’ll hardly notice it with the screen on, but you’ll feel it if you use the optional stylus. Performance is impressively slick, with enough stamina to see you through a busy day, and the camera system is excellent. It’s a big step up from last year’s N5, with a 200-MP main shooter, 50-MP telephoto, and 50-MP ultrawide, though it can’t quite compete with the Xiaomi 17 Ultra above. The global model supports familiar Google apps, but you’ll have to import them, since the phone won’t officially launch in the West, which is why it can’t edge out Honor’s foldable above.
Xiaomi 17 Pro Max for $1,129: The Xiaomi 17 Pro Max differs from the 17 Pro mainly with a refreshing design that adds a second, smaller screen on the back to house the camera lenses. Xiaomi offers several creative ways to use this auxiliary display, including a selfie preview for better main-camera selfies, music controls, customizable themes, and virtual pets. There’s even a retro gaming case that lets you play Angry Birds, though it feels a bit silly when there’s a 6.7-inch screen on the other side. Aside from the second screen, the 17 Pro Max is a typical Xiaomi specs beast, and the 17 Pro isn’t far behind, but neither has been officially released outside China yet.
Oppo Find X9 Pro for £1,099: Photography fans simply must check out the Oppo Find X9 Pro. The 200-megapixel telephoto lens supports 3X optical zoom and can take excellent shots at 6X zoom by cropping images down to 50 megapixels. To maximize camera capabilities, though, you’ll need the detachable Hasselblad Teleconverter Kit ($400). This enormous lens slots into place on the case and adds another 3.28X zoom, though it’s tricky to use without a tripod. An additional trio of 50-MP lenses, with all supporting 4K video recording at 60 fps with HDR, makes this a great pick for creatives. Impressive specs include a 6.78-inch flat display, IP66/68/69 ratings, and a 7,500-mAh silicon-carbon battery that’ll last for two days.
Xiaomi Poco F8 Ultra for £649 and F8 Pro for £406: Xiaomi’s cheaper, youthful brand Poco provides room for experimentation, but the company’s own 15T Pro is a better buy in this price bracket. What the F8 Ultra offers that you won’t find elsewhere is a fun (or awful, depending on your tastes) denim finish on the back. There are also Bose-tuned speakers, an excellent 6.9-inch display, and an enormous 6,500-mAh battery. It also has a flagship-level Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and generous RAM and storage. There’s even a trio of 50-MP lenses in the camera. The F8 Pro is slightly smaller but has similar specs, making it the better bargain.
Honor Magic 7 Pro for $985: Honor’s Magic 7 Pro features a solid triple-lens camera, a gorgeous 6.8-inch screen, speedy performance, good battery life, and dual IP68 and IP69 dust- and water-resistance ratings. Honor’s Magic OS boasts polished AI features, and Honor announced an increased commitment to seven years of Android version and security patch updates with this phone. The Magic 7 Pro’s downsides include its large camera cutout on the front, camera processing that’s sometimes heavy-handed, and an ultrawide camera that struggles to match the other two lenses.
Doro Aurora A20 for £250: Doro is a Swedish company focused on providing devices that are accessible for older folks. It primarily offers phones but also sells a decent video doorbell. The Aurora A20 is an odd spin on the flip phone that may help some people transition to a touchscreen device. It’s like an old candy bar HTC Android phone with a flip-out keypad attached to the bottom. There are lots of thoughtful features, including an alarm button, a spacious keypad, and simplified software. It’s also fairly cheap, but I found the performance sluggish, the camera poor, and the design a bit chunky and heavy.
Realme 14 Pro+ for €369: The color-changing finish may be gimmicky, but it’s fun, and this phone looks and feels far more expensive than it is. There are more highs than lows on the spec sheet: You get a triple-lens camera, an IP68/69 water-resistance rating, a 6,000-mAh battery, and a 6.83-inch OLED display with a 120-Hz refresh rate. But the Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chipset is limited, there’s no wireless charging support, and you don’t get a charger in the box. Even so, it’s still quite a bargain.
Xiaomi 15 for $690: Folks seeking a compact phone could do a lot worse than the Xiaomi 15. It feels lovely and has a 6.36-inch screen, a decent triple-lens camera, and top-notch internals. But it’s a conservative design, and it has software and bloatware issues.
Honor Magic 7 RSR for £1,550: Designed with Porsche, this souped-up version of the 7 Pro above has a fancier design with a hexagonal camera module, a slightly improved telephoto lens, 24 GB of RAM, 1 TB of storage, and a bigger battery (5,850 mAh). It’s lovely, but it doesn’t justify the extra cost.
Avoid These Phones
These aren’t necessarily bad phones, but I think you’d be better served by an option above.
Nothing Phone (3a) Lite: Nothing’s translucent hardware and pixelated software give it a retro-cool vibe, and it is currently the cheapest phone it offers in the UK (it wasn’t released in the US). The screen, battery life, and software are decent, but the camera and bloatware were disappointing. I don’t think the Nothing Phone (3a) Lite is the worst, but you can do better.
Nubia Z80 Ultra: Like my gaming pick above, the Nubia Redmagic 11S Pro, the Nubia Z80 Ultra trades a better camera for slightly lower performance and screen quality. It’s also a real brick, with an enormous camera module on the back that makes it awkward to handle, though I do like the dedicated camera button. Despite a very impressive spec sheet for the money, it manages to feel like less than the sum of its parts. Nubia’s software is subpar, and for this phone, it commits to only three years of security updates and a single Android version upgrade.
Oppo Reno 13 Pro 5G: This slim, lightweight midrange phone boasts a 6.8-inch screen (brightness is limited), a triple-lens camera (solid 50-MP main and telephoto lenses with a disappointing 8-MP ultrawide), and an impressive IP69 water-resistance rating. Battery life is good, and wired charging is fast, but there’s no wireless charging. It’s packed with bloatware, but it also adds AI features and tools for transcription, summarization, image editing, and more that may add value for some folks. After some time with the 13 Pro, I feel you can do better for the money.
Xiaomi Mix Fold 4: Officially released only in China, the Xiaomi Mix Fold 4 is a stylish folding phone with a 6.56-inch outer screen that folds open to reveal a 7.98-inch inner screen. It also offers solid performance and battery life, but despite having a large quad-lens camera module, the camera is underwhelming. The crease is also pronounced, and using a Chinese model is a bit of a pain, as various items are not translated and getting the apps you want takes work.
Realme GT7 Pro: This potential flagship killer has a 6.78-inch OLED screen, a Snapdragon 8 Elite chip, and an enormous 6,500-mAh battery. You also get a triple-lens camera, but the 50-megapixel main and telephoto lenses are let down by the 8-megapixel ultrawide. It also lacks wireless charging, and it only seems to be for sale in Germany.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 14 Pro+: Here, you get an attractive, durable design (IP68), a 200-megapixel Samsung camera sensor, and decent battery life with superfast charging (120 watts). But those wins come at the price of middling performance, poor ultrawide (8 MP) and macro (2 MP) lenses, and a ton of bloatware. Ultimately, there’s little improvement over last year’s Redmi Note 13 Pro+. Not only are there better phones for the same money, but there are also better Xiaomi phones.
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: wired.com
