Study Assistants: 5 Best Smartphones for School and University Students

If the youngest model from Motorola's 2017 smartphone line — Moto C — with its characteristics resembles, rather, a five-year-old solution, then the following Moto E4 and E4 Plus look like quite modern smartphones. And the Plus version also impresses with a battery capacity of as much as 5000 mAh.

For a 5.5-inch screen size, a resolution of 1280x720 pixels is not enough: the image density is 267 PPI, which is less than the optimal 300+ PPI. But for schoolchildren and students, a large diagonal is perhaps more important than resolution, so that the letters are large and the eyes do not get tired from prolonged reading. The sides and back cover of the Moto E4 Plus are made of scratch-resistant matte plastic, and the large eye of the 13-megapixel camera, unlike the Moto G5 Plus, does not protrude, but rather is recessed into the body, so it should not scratch either. The fingerprint scanner is located at the bottom front of the screen.

Theoretically, the weakest point of the Moto E4 Plus is the MediaTek MT6737 processor with only four cores. In fact, its performance is sufficient for surfing the web, working with electronic documents and watching HD-video. The restriction is imposed only on games (particularly demanding ones may slow down or not start at all), but for the student this is even a plus — he will be less likely to be distracted. In addition, a low-power processor paired with Android 7.1, unencumbered by any graphical shell, allows the smartphone to work as long as possible without recharging (three to five days, depending on the intensity of use).

At the moment Huawei Y7 is the cheapest camera phone on the market. This term we call smartphones with a photomatrix larger than the typical 1/3.06" (corresponding to a resolution of 13 and 16 MPix). Huawei Y7 has a 1/2.9" matrix (12 MPix, smaller is better) — not a record-breaking large one, but thanks to good software optimization it makes good photos even in low light conditions. And where the automation makes a mistake, you can use the completely manual camera settings.

The body of the Huawei Y7 is made of metal, and the screen is covered with 2.5D tempered glass, although it lacks a grease-repellent coating. The display, which quickly and abundantly becomes dirty with fingerprints, is an unfortunate drawback of absolutely all low-cost and even mid-priced Huawei smartphones of 2017, for example P8 Lite 2017 and GR5 2017.

A 4000 mAh battery is hidden under the back cover, from which the Huawei Y7, controlled by an energy-efficient eight-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 453 processor, is able to eat for two to three days. Only 2 GB of RAM can be forgiven for a smartphone, because this volume is still enough even for demanding games, not to mention simpler applications. Another thing is only 16 GB of permanent memory, of which only 6 GB is available to the user (other smartphone manufacturers have 10+ GB). Partially solves the problem, which appeared in new versions of the Android OS, the ability to combine a memory card with permanent memory into a single array, but this function still does not work perfectly.

In 2017, smartphones of the mid-price Samsung Galaxy J line — a trio of models J3, J5, J7 — for the first time received an all-metal case. The choice of colours has also expanded: blue and pink have been added to black, silver and gold. The screen is covered with a protective 2.5D-glass with tactilely pleasant rounded edges. The matrix, in the case of the J5 model with HD resolution, is made using SuperAMOLED technology, thanks to which it boasts high contrast (reads well in the sun) and low power consumption (black pixels are completely turned off).

Another gift for the Galaxy J5 2017 from the lordly table of the flagships was a fingerprint scanner built into the mechanical menu button. This completely eliminates accidental unlocking of the screen, because to read the fingerprint you need not just touch your finger, which can be done by accident, but make an effort to press the button.

The processor of the Galaxy J5 2017 is the proprietary eight-core Samsung Exynos 7870, which is comparable in performance to the price-competing Qualcomm Snapdragon 453, but thanks to the modern process technology (14 versus 28 nm) it is even colder and more energy efficient. As a result, a seemingly small 3000 mAh battery lasts for two to three days. The rear camera, though the most ordinary 13-megapixel, but with the traditional for Samsung smartphones, perfectly working macro mode, which is useful for schoolchildren and students for taking pictures of the pages of textbooks and manuals. The front camera has exactly the same resolution and, rare, has an LED flash for taking selfies in the dark.

The LG Q6α is the first relatively inexpensive smartphone to follow two major design trends of 2017: bezel-less (more precisely, extremely narrow bezels) and a screen ratio wider (longer) than the classic 16:9. So, the proportions of the Q6α display (read exactly "Alpha", not "A") are related as 18:9, thereby repeating the flagship LG G6. But as it should be with a simpler model, the resolution is lower — 2160x1080 pixels, that is, incomplete 2K.

The most common single-chip system of this year, Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 with Adreno 505 graphics, became the heart of the LG Q6α. There are no problems with FullHD video playback: the smartphone programmatically adjusts videos to 18:9 to get rid of black bars at the edges. But with games, repeating the same trick is not always possible. Some will not be displayed in full screen, while others may refuse to run at all until such an aspect ratio becomes widespread.

The LG Q6α has 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of ROM (there is a 3/32 modification), the camera resolution is 13 megapixels, and the battery capacity is 3000 mAh. The characteristics are more typical of low-cost than mid-price smartphones, but given the unique design, this is begging. But for what the LG Q6α is definitely worth chiding, it's for the body materials. If the ends are made of metal, then the back cover is made of glossy plastic, which quickly collects fingerprints and small scratches. The smartphone just asks to put it in a case. The main target audience of LG Q6α are young girls, probably students. A gadget with an unusual appearance will appeal to them, and an elongated screen will allow you to effectively work with two applications, such as a web browser and a text editor, at the same time.

After 5.5 and even 5.7" became typical diagonals for smartphones, only models larger than 6" began to be called phablets. The new Xiaomi Mi Max 2 is the most real phablet ever: a 6.44-inch display with 2.5D glass, a metal body, a 5300 mAh battery and a weight of more than 200 grams. By the way, both speakers, conversational and multimedia, can work simultaneously, thereby creating a stereo effect.

Structurally, Xiaomi Mi Max 2, if you do not take into account the huge screen, is something between two other smartphones of the Chinese company — Redmi Note 4X and Mi 5X. The Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor is related to the first one: eight-core, 14-nanometer and with a powerful integrated graphics accelerator Adreno 506 (96 micro-cores). With the second — 4 GB of RAM and a 12-megapixel camera with a matrix size of 1 / 2.9 "(Mi 5X, however, has a double camera).

The large display size makes Xiaomi Mi Max 2 as close to 7-inch tablets as possible. This means that it is convenient to read e-books on it, including textbooks with tables and flowcharts. As a result, we get, in our opinion, the best mid-price smartphone or, if you like, a phablet for students, and even with a performance margin for several years ahead. Mi Max 2 is also the first Xiaomi smartphone to be sold with the latest version of Android 7.1 already pre-installed, which is faster, more energy efficient and safer than its predecessors.