[GizPoll of the Week] Which is your best slide-screen phone?

From our last week poll, it Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 racked up 53% of the total votes while Huawei Mate 20 Pro managed 32%.

The smartphone manufacturing industry is consistently evolving and as the years roll by, there is an incessant quest for more innovation. The full-screen design has been an area of development over the past year. Last year, Essential Phone got a higher screen-to-body ratio by using a teardrop notch. This notch was modified by Apple into the iPhone X-like notch. We have also seen a pop-up camera design, like what we have in Vivo NEX as well as the periscope design of the OPPO Find X. Now, it appears that the slide screen design is taking the center stage. In the last couple of weeks, we have seen three smartphones with the slide-screen design. Xiaomi Mi MiX 3 was first launched, then we saw the Honor Magic 2 and finally the cheap Lenovo Z5 Pro. Which of these smartphones is your best slider phone? We will discuss the individual smartphones and you will make a pick in the poll below.

Honor Magic 2

The first point of attraction of the Honor Magic 2 is its 6 cameras setup. The sliding display mechanism and an on-screen fingerprint scanner are also attractive. The Honor Magic 2 boasts of a 6.39-inch AMOLED display with a very common Full HD+ 2340 x 1080) resolution, a 19:9 aspect ratio and a 2.5D curved glass coating. It is powered by Huawei’s flagship Kirin 980 CPU paired with 6GB or 8GB of RAM and 128GB or 256GB of high speed internal storage, sadly there’s no card slot.

As far as photos are concerned, the Magic 2 brings a whopping 6 cameras, 3 at the front and 3 at the back. The rear shooters include a main 16MP shooter, a 24MP B&W monochrome secondary and a third 16MP wide angle lens. This means there’s no telephoto lens on the phone, in its place we find a probably less useful B&W sensor, but we can assume the Magic 2 would have become too much of a Huawei Mate 20 killer if it had the same camera combo. Moving onto the front, here Honor surprised pretty much everybody with 3 cameras. A main 16MP snapper and two 2MP auxiliary sensors to capture depth info. Plus there’s an infrared emitter for Face unlock using a “depth-sensing bionic lens”.

The Honor Magic 2 does sport an under display fingerprint scanner, which won’t be as fast as an old-school one, but it’ll definitely turn some heads. Its lights are kept on by an average 3500mAh battery with support 10V4A, basically 40W fast charge. This tech will allow you to charge the phone to 50% in just 15 minutes. This handset packs a USB Type-C port, Bluetooth 5.0, dual-band GPS but there’s no headphone jack. Finally, it’s pricing. Potential owners of this smartphone will have to fork out 3799 Yuan ($544) for the 6GB/128GB version, 4299 Yuan ($616) for 8GB/128GB model and 4799 Yuan ($687) for the 8GB/256GB variant.

Xiaomi Mi MIX 3

Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 is the first slide-screen phone to hit the market. This device packs innovative features and it is the first in many ways. It is the first smartphone to adopt a magnetic slide full-screen design. It is also the first Xiaomi phone to use a dual-front camera.

It comes with a 6.39-inch FHD+ AMOLED screen and its screen ratio is 93.4%.  According to the company, this is the first slide-screen full-screen phone. A soft down-slide of the display reveals a 24MP+2MP selfie camera. On the rear, this smartphone a 12MP+12MP camera configuration. On DxOMark, Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 scored 103 points, the best Xiaomi camera phone so far.  The Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 is powered by a Snapdragon 845 SoC coupled with 6GB/8GB/10GB of RAM and 128GB/256GB of internal storage. The 10GB of RAM model is called “Forbidden City”, named after the place it was released. This special edition will hit the market soon. The battery is a bit disappointing – 3200 mAh.  It supports 10W wireless fast charge which gives you over to 70% in 60 minutes.

This smartphone camera comes with the handheld super night scene mode and 960 frames super slow-motion shooting. This is the first Xiaomi smartphone to use these features. Although the company mentioned 5G compatibility with this phone, Xiaomi will launch the 5G version next year. According to Xiaomi, the slide screen can be used up to 300,000 times. This means that if you slide display 100 times per day, you will use this device for 8 years without issues. Technically, nobody slides a screen up to 100 times per day and most phones don’t survive up to 8 years. The 6+128GB variant costs 3299 yuan ($475), the 8+128GB variant is available at 3599 yuan ($518), and the 8+256GB model costs 3999 yuan ($575). There is also a special edition of the Forbidden City, equipped with a 10GB + 256GB storage combination and priced at 4,999 yuan ($719).

Lenovo Z5 Pro

After the serious gaffe by Lenovo with the Z5, only a few people still take this company seriously. In fact, many now believe that whatever comes from the hierarchy of Lenovo is just a smokescreen to cover a “lie”. However, it appears that Lenovo has now proven its critics wrong and the Z5 Pro is just as the company promised. The Lenovo Z5 Pro is certainly going to compete with the Xiaomi Mi MIX 3 and the Honor Magic 2.

The Lenovo Z5 Pro comes with a 6.39-inch Super AMOLED screen which has a screen ratio of up to 95.06%, the highest in the industry so far. The Lenovo Z5 Pro features a six-position sliding structure with parallel dual-axis and seamless connection. In terms of core configuration, the Lenovo Z5 Pro is packed with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 710AIE Turbo chip coupled with 6GB of RAM and 64GB/128GB of internal storage.

In addition, the Lenovo Z5 Pro is also equipped with an on-screen fingerprint recognition module, which is the thinnest reader with a thickness of 0.98mm. In the camera department, this smartphone is equipped with a 24MP + 16MP Sony AI dual-camera on the rear. The main camera uses a 1.8μm equivalent large pixel and supports backlight AI super-picture quality, night scene AI super picture quality, AI video super picture quality functions. On the front, there is a 16MP + 8MP camera, which supports 80 degrees zero light face unlock. This smartphone runs on Android Oreo and a 3200 mAh battery keeps its lights on. Finally, the Lenovo Z5 Pro 6GB+64GB version is available at 1998 yuan ($287), 6GB +128GB version costs 2298 yuan ($330).

So, considering the specs and budget of these smartphones, which of these do you think offers a good value for money? Let us know your thoughts in the poll below and if there is anything you need to add, please use the comments.