The LG Stylo series has been a staple offering at prepaid carrier stores for years. The stylus-equipped Stylo 4 received fairly positive reviews when it was released last year, and now LG has followed it up with a sequel.
The Stylo 5 impressed me with its good design and amazing battery life, but it has the same faults as many of LG's other recent phones — including a clunky software experience and no guarantee of future Android updates. Still, there's a lot to like for around $200.
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With the introduction of Plus models and decimals, HMD Global’s range of Nokia phones has taken on a somewhat bloated and hard to decipher form, far from the essential selection of handsets across various price points it started out as. With each new release, it gets harder for consumers to decide which budget phone in the burgeoning lineup is worth the money, which was no more apparent than when the Finnish company announced the Nokia 1 Plus, 3.2, and 4.2 at MWC back in February. The 4.2 appeared to be the most appealing of the bunch, and it went on sale in the US for $189 last month.
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Motorola promised at least three years of Mod compatibility when it announced the first Moto Z phones in 2016, and we're about to go beyond that with the new Moto Z4. Good on Motorola for sticking with it and giving consumers some confidence their Mod purchases would not be in vain. Although, Mods still don't seem like a worthwhile purchase, and even Moto is phoning it in with the Z-series. This is the first Moto Z that doesn't even attempt to be a flagship device—Motorola has essentially merged the Z Play and flagship Z-series. It would be easier if the Moto Z4 were an objectively bad phone, but it isn't.
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The flagship smartphone space is getting pretty stale in 2019. LG and HTC are floundering, overall sales are declining, Google's Pixels are an expensive bundle of compromises, Huawei has left the high-end US market, and Samsung is... Samsung. There's space for disruption, and while we wait for other Chinese OEMs to join the stateside fray, OnePlus is making a big push to compete with the latest $1000 flagships. The only catch when it comes to its new OnePlus 7 Pro is that it costs $670.
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I've had mixed feelings about Huawei phones for years. The company's intrusive EMUI software was to blame for much of that, but a history of sub-par camera performance and its spotty update track record didn't help. When we reviewed the Mate 20 Pro, we saw a lot of progress, with Huawei shipping a phone with the most recent version of Android mere months after it had launched. Stellar cameras, flagship performance, and an excellent OLED display hit the point home: Huawei was very ready to play in the smartphone big leagues.
Fast-forward to 2019, and the P30 Pro takes what made the Mate 20 Pro great and just keeps building on it.
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Last year's Asus Zenfone 5Z was an excellent phone with great hardware and an even better price point. The Zenfone 6, however, takes everything its predecessor did well and ups the ante with a wholly original design, powerful hardware, and a motorized flip-up camera, all while starting at $499 like the 5Z.
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In a long-expected move, OnePlus launched a more premium device earlier this month with a more premium price tag to boot. US consumers were presented the OnePlus 7 Pro as the only option for a brand-new OnePlus phone, but other markets have also been treated a with a cheaper alternative. The standard OnePlus 7 is something of an updated 6T — practically identical on the outside but with some significant enhancements on the inside — and at £499/€559, it also starts at the same price. Interestingly, the OnePlus 7 is even cheaper than the 6T in India where it starts at just 32,999 INR.
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Over the last six months or so, Honor has undertaken a rebranding exercise in part to give the impression of a more modern smartphone maker that appeals to a youthful audience and in part to distance itself from parent company Huawei. In view of recent political developments, it’s obviously hugely beneficial for Huawei to have a sub-brand that carries a different name and cachet, although they come as a package as far as Google is concerned and that looks like it could spell trouble for both.
Let's assume, for a moment, that it will all get sorted out (otherwise this review will have been a massive waste of time).
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The Pixel 3a, Google’s new entry-level smartphone starts at an attractive $399, and comes in only two configurations: regular and extra large. The 3a XL is the phone I’ve been using for over a week now, and it costs a bit more, at $479. But that seems eminently reasonable for the larger 6” screen and 3700mAh battery the extra $80 net you. Otherwise, there really aren’t any noteworthy differences: both phones have 64GB of storage, 4GB of RAM (yes, yes, I know), Snapdragon 670 processors, and identical cameras. And no doubt, many people’s first question with a cheaper version of any phone will be “what am I giving up?” To be sure, that’s important - and you can find the answers over here.
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Right now, the dominant trend in flagship smartphone design is one of refinement. Instead of aiming to sell shoppers on the appeal of tricks like modular hardware, or overloading a handset with gimmicky sensors, successful phones are instead trying to achieve the platonic ideal of basically existing as little more than one big screen. That's driven recent efforts like the proliferation of in-display fingerprint sensors, pop-out selfie cams, and the evolution of the notch to hole-punch designs. But you wouldn't know much of that, to look at the LG G8 ThinQ.
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