Chinese Smart phones now top all our major smartphone charts.
While Huawei without Google services is no longer the attractive proposition it once was in the UK, many other Chinese brands have stepped up to fill its place. From Xiaomi to OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Vivo and others, these phones typically offer incredible value for money, with the premium build quality and feature set you’d expect from the top Android phones, but at a price point much lower.
Below we’ve assembled some of the best Chinese phones you can buy in the UK today.
Best Chinese Phones 2021
- Oppo Find X3 Pro
Pros
- Best-in-class display
- Excellent battery life
- Phenomenal cameras
Cons
- No periscope lens
- Some performance throttling
The Find X3 Pro is expensive, and not ashamed of it. But if you are willing to spend this kind of money, right here it is precisely where we would spend it. The display is the best around, the charging speeds and battery life are both exceptional, and the core specs are hard to fault – though we’re hoping firmware updates will shore up the shaky thermals a little.
The camera will be a large part of the appeal here, and Oppo’s struck an intelligent balance. The primary and ultrawide lenses excel, and though some will miss the periscope, the included telephoto is excellent at lower zoom levels. Our only real hesitation is the microlens – fun to play around with, but you do have to wonder how much it adds to the overall cost of the hardware and how often you’re really likely to use it.
2. Xiaomi Mi 11
Pros
- Fast performance
- Great camera
- Attractive design
- Phenomenal value
Cons
- MIUI still isn’t brilliant
- No IP rating
- No telephoto camera
The Mi 11 is a fantastic bit of hardware for the price. The fastest chipset around, a beautiful display, and hearty cameras are all packaged within a lovely bit of industrial design.
Some will miss the IP rating, though for me, the bigger downsides are the choice of a macro over a telephoto lens, the only average battery life, and a software experience that still lags behind the key rivals.
3. OnePlus Nord 2
Pros
- Excellent software
- Great design
- Strong all-rounder
Cons
- Only 90Hz display
- Slightly thick
An outstanding follow-up to 2020’s best mid-range phone, with excellent performance, 5G, OnePlus’s signature Oxygen OS user experience, and a near-flagship main camera. What’s not to love?
What the OnePlus Nord 2 really demonstrates is the company’s ability to prioritise the features that users are looking for right now and wrapping them up in an attractive package with a compelling price point.
The Nord 2 misses out on flagship niceties like wireless charging and waterproofing, but those are the only compromises made here.
4. Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra
Pros
- Incredible specs and display
- Powerful camera
- 67W charging
Cons
- An ugly, over-sized camera module
- Big and heavy
- MIUI is not for everyone
The Mi 11 Ultra packs some of the absolute best hardware out there, from top internal specs to a powerful camera, beautiful display, and fast charging using both wired and wireless methods.
There are downsides, though. The sheer price is an obvious one, as is the fact there is no promise of software updates, but honestly, the design is a more significant flaw. The Mi 11 Ultra is not only big, but thanks to the ungainly camera module, it’s also simply quite ugly.
5. OnePlus 8 Pro
Pros
- Finally adds waterproofing
- 30W wireless charging
- Excellent camera
Cons
- No telephoto camera
- large build
OnePlus has now released its OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro, but this older model remains the best, in our opinion.
The OnePlus 8 Pro was arguably the company’s first full flagship. It finally incorporated long-requested features like wireless charging and an IP68 waterproof rating to make it a genuine contender with Samsung’s top flagships.
Understandably the price has gone up accordingly, but it still represents serious value by flagship standards, and you will save at least some money by opting for OnePlus over most other manufacturers. (The OnePlus costs less still, though you’ll have to give up a few features and downgrade the display and cameras.)
The 8 Pro camera is OnePlus’ best yet, and while it still lags behind rivals slightly in software, the hardware is among the best around, which has helped to close the gap considerably. Throw in 5G, a great design, the best Android skin around, and the OnePlus 8 Pro is easy to recommend to anyone who can afford it.
6. ZTE Axon 30 Ultra
Pros
- Incredible camera
- Stunning screen
- Svelte design
- Great value
Cons
- No wireless charging
- No microSD slot
The ZTE Axon 30 Ultra is a stunning proposition and offers buckets of value. It’s a genuinely exciting flagship smartphone in practically every department: it’s lightweight, feels great in hand, the 144Hz 6.67in AMOLED display is detailed and crisp, the Snapdragon 888 allows it to perform like a gaming phone and, well, that camera setup is incredible.
Comprised of three 64Mp snappers and a 5x telescope lens, the Axon 30 Ultra’s rear camera offering is versatile. Unlike some, images captured across all sensors are comparable in terms of quality, detail and colour balance.
There are plenty of creative shooting modes available to make the most of the system, and it caters to videographers with sharp video recording too.
The results are comparable to those taken on ultra-premium smartphones like the Galaxy S21 Ultra and iPhone 12 Pro, but with one key difference – it’s hundreds of pounds/dollars cheaper.
The software could do with a visual tweak here and there, and there’s no wireless charging, but those are minor complaints in an otherwise phenomenal 2021 flagship.
7. Xiaomi Poco X3 Pro
Pros
- Phenomenal performance
- Big 120Hz display
- Long-lasting battery
Cons
- Big and bulky
- No 5G
- Average camera
The Poco X3 Pro is a phone designed for Android gamers or power users on a budget, though it might also appeal to those who want to go big on specs to futureproof their phone.
If pure performance isn’t your priority, you can find slimmer and lighter phones, with better camera performance, for around the same price.
What you won’t find is any phone that can match this pound for pound right now. The X3 Pro is near-flagship processing power in one of the cheapest phones on the market, and it’s almost ludicrous that Xiaomi has pulled it off.
8. Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro
Pros
- Stunning 120Hz AMOLED display
- Long battery life
- Excellent cameras
Cons
- No 5G
- No OIS
- Huge camera bump
- MIUI is not for everyone
The Redmi Note 10 Pro is one of the best budget phones you can buy, with Xiaomi delivering exceptional value for money.
Highlights here start with the stunning screen offering AMOLED technology and a 120Hz refresh rate and continue with an excellent set of cameras. The headline is a 108Mp whopper backed up by a reasonable ultra-wide and a surprisingly decent telemacro.
There are smaller delights, too, such as the inclusion of a headphone jack, Arc fingerprint scanner, stereo speakers and even an IR blaster. Battery life is also strong (Xiaomi includes a 33W charger in the box), and core specs are decent with a Snapdragon 732G ensuring smooth performance.
Our only real gripe is a lack of support for 5G.
9. Realme X50 Pro
Pros
- Impressively affordable
- Incredible performance
- 65W charging
Cons
- Not waterproof
- Camera setup could be improved
Realme’s first 5G flagship (and second-ever flagship phone) is an impressively affordable device that doesn’t skimp on high-end specs and features.
The Realme X50 Pro forgoes aspects like IP water resistance and a thin body, but in return, sports the latest and greatest Snapdragon 865 chipset, 5G, up to 12GB of RAM, fast UFS 3.0 storage and insane 65W ‘SuperDart’ fast charging, delivering 60% charge in just 15 minutes and a full charge in only 35.
Best of all, the X50 Pro costs around half that of most top-tier Android flagships.
10. Xiaomi Poco X3 NFC
Pros
- 120Hz display
- 2-day battery life
- Excellent camera
- Powerful
Cons
- Thick and heavy
- MIUI can be clunky
- Unreliable fingerprint scanner
The Poco X3 isn’t perfect. The big battery makes it bulky, we don’t love the aesthetic, and not everyone will find MIUI 12 immediately intuitive. For the most part, these are minor complaints though, especially when stacked up against the X3’s numerous strengths: strong specs, an excellent camera, a beautiful display, and absolutely amazing battery life.
The fact that you can get all of that for under £200 is almost unbelievable and makes the Poco X3 a shoo-in for the best budget phone of the year.
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