From our last week poll, 52% of our voters will not spend anything more than $500 for a flagship smartphone while 25% could go as high as $700. 16% of voters say that <$300 is ideal while nobody thinks that a flagship smartphone should cost above $1500.
Since we are approaching the end of the year and we have almost seen it all in terms of flagship smartphone for 2018, we now take a look at the company that was most impressive. We will look at a couple of Chinese OEMs as well as Apple, Samsung, and Google. When we talk about Chinese OEMs with more flagship options, Xiaomi, and Huawei top the list.
Xiaomi released about six flagship smartphones this year. This includes Xiaomi Mi MIX 2S, Xiaomi Mi 8, Xiaomi Mi 8 Explorer Edition, Xiaomi Pocophone F1, Xiaomi Mi 8 Pro and Xiaomi Mi MIX 3. One interesting aspect of Xiaomi’s flagship is that it has not been plagued with issues and if you are lucky, some of these smartphones have sold for as low as $300.
Huawei also has a long list of flagship smartphones for 2018 but we can not miss the Huawei Mate 20 series and Huawei P20 series. These devices, though pricey, seem to offer good value for money. The Huawei P20 series redefined the camera department for Android phones and set a new pace which other OEMs have used as a focal point. Honor Magic 2 is one of Huawei’s 2018 flagship which is worthy of mention.
Oppo, Vivo, and OnePlus, run by BBK Electronics are other notable Chinese OEMs that can be mentioned. Oppo and Vivo particularly ushered in the on-screen fingerprint sensor tech and the pop-up camera/periscope structure design also came from these companies. Oppo Find X introduced the periscope structure (the only phone to use the design to date) while Vivo X21 and Vivo NEX were the first to use an on-screen fingerprint sensor and a pop-up camera design respectively. As usual, OnePlus had two flagships, OnePlus 6 and OnePlus 6T. Both smartphones have impressed the market so far.
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South Korean manufacturing giant, Samsung, is definitely one of the heavyweights in the smartphone market. However, it started its 2018 flagship lineup with the Galaxy S9 series which was a huge disappointment to many because of its lack of innovation and it was more of a hardware upgrade of the Galaxy 8 Series. Nevertheless, the company redeemed its image with the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 which was well accepted compared to the S9 series.
“King” of the Android world, Google, released two flagships this year. Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3XL were launched in October and this smartphone has a $799 starting price, for the Pixel 3, but not more than $999 for the highest variant for the Pixel 3XL. Netizens are a bit disappointed because of the news that these smartphones do not have official support from Google for now. However, many believe that these smartphones are well-priced ant its software support is swift as usual.
In the Android community, almost everyone thinks that Apple’s devices are overpriced. Thus, Apple tried to make a difference this year. The company released three flagships this year and the “low-end” Apple iPhone XR which was supposed to be a “cheap” device comes with a $749 price tag. This can easily get you two Xiaomi Mi 8 even from third-party stores. However, the iPhone XS Max comes with more fluidity and the design is also quite attractive.
Please note that some flagship smartphones from the above-listed manufacturers were not mentioned and so many other OEMs like Meizu, Nokia and others are not listed. However, the million dollar question now is “which of these OEMs released the best flagship for 2018?” If your preferred brand is not on the poll, please use the comment.
