Coming after the under $100 and $200 top 5 lists we’ve already released, we now check out what is pretty much the best China has to offer as far as smartphones go, a.k.a. the top 5 best Chinese phones under $500; let’s have a look!
Top 5 Chinese Smartphones for Under $500
1. OnePlus 5
You knew it would make it on the list so here it is, the latest flagship from the “flagship killer” company — the OnePlus 5. Release almost a month ago, the OnePlus 5 is probably the best Chinese smartphone currently on the market, featuring the latest and powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage.
OnePlus has upgraded their handset to a dual camera setup, composed of a main 16MP Sony IMX398 with F/1.7 aperture and a secondary 20MP telephoto shooter; the selfie snapper at the front is also high res at 16MP and a wide aperture of F/2.0.
The OnePlus 5 features a 5.5-inch FHD Amoled display, is fueled by a 3300mAh capacity battery with Dash Charge 5V 4A support, runs Android 7.0 Nougat and works on pretty much any 4G LTE network around the world.
2. Xiaomi Mi 6
Albeit with some flaws — no 3.5mm audio jack and no Band 20 support — the Xiaomi Mi 6 is still a killer phone. Xiaomi’s handset is indeed powered by the high performance Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 clocked at 2.45Ghz, 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage (yes, it’s still under $500!).
The Xiaomi Mi 6 comes with a smaller 5.15-inch Full HD display and the trendy dual camera setup on the back, where we have a primary 12MP shooter with F/1.8 aperture and OIS, accompanied by another 12MP Samsung image sensor with a telephoto lens.
The handset is packed with a relatively big the screen size 3350mAh battery which supports Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 technology.
3. Nubia Z17
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The Nubia Z17 is again between our favorite smartphones under $500 as it packs top notch hardware at quite an affordable price. We are talking about the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. We also get two rear cameras with a very high resolution 23MP Sony IMX318 main shooter with F/1.8 aperture and OIS and a secondary 12MP camera with F/2.0 aperture; on the front we instead find a 16MP selfie snapper.
Other spec include a 5.5-inch Full HD IPS display coated in 2.5D glass, a 3200mAh battery that works with Quick Charge 4.0 and 4G LTE connectivity with band 20 support.
4. Huawei Honor 9
The Huawei Honor 9 is one of the best specced Huawei phones for under $500 you can get. Powered by a Huawei HiSilicon KIRIN 960, the Honor 9 keeps up against Qualcomm counter-parts, at least on the CPU side. Together with the powerful processor we also get 6GB of RAM and a whopping 128GB of internal storage.
The 5.15-inch Huawei phone also comes with the now-usual dual camera setup on the back, which consists of a 12MP primary camera with F/2.2 aperture and a secondary 20MP black and white shooter to snap very detailed photos; the front-facing camera has a resolution of 8MP and a wide F/2.0 aperture.
The Huawei Honor packs a 3200mAh battery, supports 4G LTE but no band 20 and runs Android 7.0 Nougat OTB.
5. Zuk Edge
The Zuk Edge is quite an older phone but gosh it’s beautiful, powerful and it can now be found for just above $300. Albeit named “Edge” the Zuk phone still comes with side bezels, but where they saved space is at the top and bottom of the 5.5-inch FHD display, as you can see in the photo above, which gives the handset a good screen-to-body ratio of 77%.
Zuk’s Edge is powered by last year’s flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 coupled with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. On the handset we have a single 13MP shooter with F/2.2 aperture and 1.34µm big pixel size, plus an 8P selfie snapper on the front.
The Edge packs a 3100mAh capcity battery, 4G LTE connectivity including band 20 and runs Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box.
Top 5 Chinese Smartphones for Under $500 – Conclusion
This concludes our top 5 list under $500 for the month of July. If you find your next device in here please let us know in the comments below. Otherwise drop a comment mentioning which other smartphone you’d have added!
From this list, how do the camera performance of these phones rank?
When it comes to camera Chinese phones always loose compare to other flagships. Even when comparing Chinese flagships phones vs flagship phones from LG or Samsung. Chinese phones is not even cheap now. If I have £400 buget I will buy last year flagship from LG or Samsung than this year’s flagship from china
True, past year flagships from mainstream manufacturers typically have better camera results, a friend of mine recently bought the g4 for around $180(refurbished) and the images still look stellar. Hats off to the Chines brands for the other specs of their phones. Camera i’ll consider the g5 since I’m not a fan of all glass phones such as the present S series due to their fragility.
LG G6 is less than 500$
Me thinks Vivo can hold up against any other flagship
How about the best smart phones OVER $500?
Honor 9 does not have ois!
Thanks for letting us know, it’s been corrected.
lol shows you how poor the offering is , not that this top has anything to do with reason.
The top should be dominated by sub 200$ phones as many of those are much better.
Your choices are ridiculous too, OnePlus makes proper flagships look great. Horrible display, design, lacking camera and a very high price tag.If you are gonna be a tool, go buy an iPhone.
all of the sub 200$ have junk camera and come with mediatek so they aren’t really flagship worthy.
Untrue. Xiaomi Redmi note 4 has an sd processor and so did the 3. The LeEco Le 2 and 3 pro have an sd processor as well.
From this list, how do the camera performance of these phones rank?
When it comes to camera Chinese phones always loose compare to other flagships. Even when comparing Chinese flagships phones vs flagship phones from LG or Samsung. Chinese phones is not even cheap now. If I have £400 buget I will buy last year flagship from LG or Samsung than this year’s flagship from china
True, past year flagships from mainstream manufacturers typically have better camera results, a friend of mine recently bought the g4 for around $180(refurbished) and the images still look stellar. Hats off to the Chines brands for the other specs of their phones. Camera i’ll consider the g5 since I’m not a fan of all glass phones such as the present S series due to their fragility.
LG G6 is less than 500$
Me thinks Vivo can hold up against any other flagship
How about the best smart phones OVER $500?
Honor 9 does not have ois!
Thanks for letting us know, it’s been corrected.
lol shows you how poor the offering is , not that this top has anything to do with reason.
The top should be dominated by sub 200$ phones as many of those are much better.
Your choices are ridiculous too, OnePlus makes proper flagships look great. Horrible display, design, lacking camera and a very high price tag.If you are gonna be a tool, go buy an iPhone.
Untrue. Xiaomi Redmi note 4 has an sd processor and so did the 3. The LeEco Le 2 and 3 pro have an sd processor as well.
Does any of these 5 phone support micro SD cards?
Only the Huawei Honor 9!
Does any of these 5 phone support micro SD cards?
Only the Huawei Honor 9!