GSMArena smartphone buyer’s guide:January 2018 edition

Source: GSMArena smartphone buyer’s guide:January 2018 edition

introduction

It’s season! Or rather, it was season, as the end of 2017 flew by as we put the finishing touches on this buyer’s guide. So we’re definitely a bit late for a Christmas shopping guide, but that was more or less on purpose on our part. What better time for an overview of the best phones than at the beginning of the year, when all the big announcements are far behind us and prices have leveled off after the Christmas shopping spree.

As is tradition, in this guide we examine all the worthy purchase options on the market, grouped by price. We start at the bottom with phones under €100 and work our way up to the flagships. Some categories are downright overflowing with options while others are less busy, but we think we’ve got something for everyone here.

Hopefully this makes the information really accessible and helps even the most wholesome smartphone buyers out there. We usually advise you to select a price category and also read through the category above and below. That way, you make sure you don’t overspend on the features you want or miss out on something great that’s just a few bucks over your target budget.

If you are not sure how to make good use of all the features that smartphones offer this year, Angie recently prepared a nice video in which she explains what are the most important aspects to consider when buying a smartphone so you don’t overpay for features you may not need or appreciate.

The mid-range industry trend continues and we have some great phones in the €200, €300 and €400 categories. These are getting better every year and are already at a point where they can all offer a really solid smartphone experience. Long forgotten are the days when midrangers all had glaring weaknesses that would drive even a less demanding user insane.

However, the upper tiers are still where geeks and power users do their shopping, and they’re not short of options either. Indeed, 2017 delivered a surprisingly strong squad for flagships. All the big players have delivered excellent devices – there are no overheating issues, downright bad cameras or sub-par builds to limit the choices.

Still, there’s a less exciting financial observation to make as well. With top-tier devices officially breaking the mental and literal financial bar of $1,000 MSRP, there’s no denying that the smartphone space is changing. One of the most notable smartphone trends of the year is the increase in the average price of the most popular phones.

However, as we perused listings and deals, we also noticed a disturbing trend that some older devices were becoming more expensive than they were about six months ago. This means we may only see a very subtle price increase across the industry, following in the footsteps of the newly discovered three-digit flagship price tags.

Before we let you explore the jungle of phones, a few tips are in order. For each device we have compiled the most important specifications so that you do not have to switch back and forth between this page and the phone’s specifications page. We’ve also listed all the potential issues we see with each phone. These are certainly not deal-breakers, as otherwise the phone would not have been listed in the first place.

We’ve reviewed many of the phones mentioned here, and for them we can offer even more insight. These include screen brightness, battery life, chipset performance and the cons section is more detailed as well.

With that in mind, we hope you have all the information you need to point you in the right direction. When you’re done, here’s the index for that edition of our buyer’s guide. You can jump straight to your target price range:

Alternatively, you can follow us as we explore the groups one by one. We’ll start with the sub-€100 phones right after the jump.

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