Nothing superfluous: TOP 5 smartphones on "pure" Android

Despite the touch screen, the Nokia 1 looks like the ideological heir of those legendary old company devices that worked for years on end, could open beer and stop the horse at a gallop. It has a minimum of frills, a durable plastic case, sharpness for basic tasks and a very affordable price tag.

Seriously, at a price of $80, its competitors are mainly smartphones, second-wave Chinese devices with dubious prospects and low quality control. It's not for nothing that Nokia focuses on the fact that pure Android is installed here without any crookedly localized applications, thanks to which Nokia 1 is sold under the slogan "Your first smartphone". Yes, and the one in the name seems to hint.

Naturally, as far as the filling is concerned, this is the simplest smartphone from the category "to work". So, most of the front side is occupied by a 5.45-inch IPS display with a resolution of 960x480 pixels and a modern aspect ratio of 18:9. The display turned out to be so-so, the grain size is large and very striking, especially if you are used to a Full HD class picture and above. But, with an eye to the price, it is quite itself. Thanks for not TFT.

The novelty received an 8-megapixel main camera with autofocus and LED flash. For selfies, the smartphone was equipped with a 5-megapixel front-facing camera with support for the Beautify function to improve portraits. This is usually found in more expensive devices. In addition, the processor supports noise reduction of photos at the hardware level. By the way, a frankly low-cost MT6739 with 4 cores, a PowerVR GE8100 video chip and 1 GB of RAM are installed here as a processor. The equipment is Spartan, but it is quite suitable for surfing, social networks or reading an e-book.

Of the additional functions, there is nothing special to note — there is neither the usual fingerprint scanner nor fast charging. But the smartphone does not look ugly, like many fellow state employees: the backdrop of corrugated plastic fits comfortably in the hand and looks good from the outside (especially in red colours), and the "face" of the smartphone stands out somewhat thanks to the Nokia logo in the upper right corner. And the smartphone itself turned out to be unusually compact, as for the current fashion, the height is only 145 mm.

It is not so easy to understand the Xiaomi model range due to the fact that many models with different names essentially duplicate each other or are slightly modified analogues for another market. The same situation is with the Mi A2, which is essentially the twin of the popular model Xiaomi Mi 6x 64 GB / 4 GB , but with a clean Android on board.

The company decided that models with a clean OS from Google would be a good alternative for those who do not like the proprietary MIUI shell. And here it turns out to be a double-edged sword, on the one hand, updates arrive faster, and the system is not littered with a bunch of pre-installed applications that you have never opened. On the other hand, there won't be a bundle of useful MIUI features.

The Mi A2 has a 6-inch IPS display with a Full HD resolution (2160 x 1080 pixels). Aspect ratio — fashionable now 18:9. In fact, the screen is "frameless" and occupies most of the facade of the smartphone, but the frames on top and bottom are quite noticeable.

In the "iron" part, the smartphone got a strong eight-core Snapdragon 660 processor, working in conjunction with 4 GB of RAM and Adreno 512 graphics. In terms of speed and smoothness, Mi A2 leaves a purely positive impression, in order to make it slow down, you will have to try.

The main camera of the device consists of two photomodules: a leading 12 MP with an aperture of f/ 1.75 and an auxiliary 20 MP with a similar maximum aperture. The front-facing camera with a resolution of 20 MP also tries to keep up with the rear camera, providing everything necessary so that the selfie pictures shine with quality. Usually, a camera is not something that is usually praised in a smartphone for $ 200, but in Mi A2 it can surprise both with the quality of photos and the ability to shoot videos. Although, sometimes she lacks speed and she can build an exposition strangely.

Finally, it is worth noting that the smartphone case is made of metal, which is not often found in a smartphone for less than $ 200. Or rather, this is almost not found. In most cases, even in tubes for $300-400, plastic is mainly used. Well, fast charging at this price looks like a nice bonus. Against the background of all this, the Mi A2 actually has no drawbacks. The only frustrating thing is that it does not have a full audio output, instead of which a USB-C port is used. However, this is not so much an omission of Xiaomi as a strange fashion — in every second flagship it is now.

The reduced frames did not give us more compact smartphones. On the contrary, smartphone screens have become even bigger, and yesterday's giant 6.5-inch screen has actually become the norm. Fortunately, Nokia has its own vision of a mass smartphone, so in the summer of 2019, the company shipped to the shelves a rather interesting Nokia 4.2 model, which can be considered a compact smartphone, has a good screen, NFC chip, runs on pure Android and at the same time costs less than $ 200.

Let's start with the most unusual — a separate button to call Google Assistant. Once you press it, the voice assistant will instantly turn on and be ready to listen to questions about the meaning of life, plot a route to a new coffee shop or create a reminder about someone's birthday. Such a solution is found for the first time in the company's devices and is sure to be successful — even if you are used to typing a lot in your smartphone, voice control turns out to be both faster and more convenient. Yes, it could have been done before, but with a button it's somehow faster and clearer. Plus, you don't need to waste time unlocking the screen and launching the assistant.

For its low-cost price, Nokia 4.2 uses a perfectly calibrated IPS screen with good indicators of brightness, contrast and pixel density. With a diagonal of 5.71", the resolution of 1520× 720 is just enough to make the picture smooth, without pixel "ladders" and floating fonts.

But the frames around the screen could be even narrower, the bottom one with the company logo turned out to be especially large. If they were smaller, the size of smartphones would be identical to the beloved old man Apple iPhone 6 16 GB . But with a much larger screen size. But even so, Nokia 4.2 looks like a great smartphone for owners of miniature hands and phablet haters. With a height of 149 mm, the smartphone fits perfectly in the palm of your hand, and all the key elements are in the thumb accessibility zone.

In addition to everything, the device is equipped with not the most modern bundle of hardware (Snapdragon 439 + 2 GB of RAM), a good dual camera, NFC chip and codec support. In general, Nokia 4.2 looks like a good option for those users who are looking for an inexpensive, reliable and compact smartphone without frills.

Zenfone Max Pro M2 is a serious Asus bid for success in the price segment up to $300. And now the Chinese rule the ball there and the competition is the highest. First of all, the new Zenfone attracts a good combination of hardware for its price: Snapdragon 660 plus Adreno 512 graphics plus 6 GB of RAM. The processor may not be the newest, but it is still performant, and 6 GB is with a margin for most cases of life.

There are no complaints about the speed of the interface — everything is fast and smooth, without delays or slowdowns, the case practically does not heat up, and the RAM allows you to open dozens and dozens of tabs with multimedia content. In terms of applications, everything also mostly flies, but with demanding games it is more difficult, not the most modern processor and video core affects.

The ZenFone Max Pro M2 has an IPS screen with a diagonal of 6.26", an aspect ratio of 19:9 and a resolution of 2280 x 1080 pixels (pixel density is at 403 PPI). By default, the screen shows an average colour gamut and a slight bias towards cold shades, which can be corrected in the settings. In general, the screen is pleasant, without any obvious pros and cons.

A medium—sized "monobrow" is far from a "drop", like some of the latest models, but also not a huge cutout almost the entire width of the screen. It's a pity that the firmware does not have an option to "mask" the cutout in the screen with a black stripe like many other smartphones with a notch. In general, with a certain adjustment for the rather large size, the smartphone is quite convenient — it fits well in the hand, does not slip, the power button fits exactly under the thumb, the side edges are smoothed

The smartphone is equipped with a dual camera with a Sony IMX486 sensor, which takes pretty nice pictures in good light and shoots well indoors: the photos get good detail and high dynamic range. A little annoying is just not very convenient camera applications with a well-thought-out interface.

Of the other additional buns, we note NFC, fingerprint scanner, USB-C + a separate headphone output and an unusually powerful 5000 mAh battery with support for Asus BoostMaster fast charging. But the lack of USB-C for a smartphone of this class seems a little strange.

The rigidity of thinking led the Pixel smartphone line somewhere wrong — it all started with a perfect smartphone on paper, and ended with an ambiguous flagship with chronic diseases. And so the company decided to make a feint with their ears and release an unusual Google Pixel 3a XL model — a kind of "semi-flagman" with most buns Google Pixel 3 XL 64 GB Price from 8 300 up to 9 517 ₴, but with a price tag at the level of a Chinese smartphone.

The first thing to start with is, of course, the camera. Like the older model Pixel 3 XL, here we have a 12.2-megapixel Sony IMX363 sensor (f/1.8) with optical and electronic image stabilization systems. The functions are the same: Top Shot, Super Res Zoom and a chic night shooting mode Night Sight plus unlimited storage in Google Photos. Recall that this is the best single camera in the DxOMark rating and still one of the best cameras in the price range up to $ 600.

The Pixel 3a XL has a 6-inch OLED display with Full HD+ resolution. Unlike the older model, the diagonal has slightly decreased and the resolution has decreased. The image quality displayed by the matrix is subjectively the same cool. But with iron, everything is not so clear. The smartphones received a Qualcomm Snapdragon 670 processor with an Adreno 615 graphics accelerator, 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal memory. The processor is quite average and it is clearly inferior to the Snapdragon 845, which stood in Google Pixel 3 XL. "RAM" is also right next to it — 4 GB has now become the norm for smartphones at $300-400, and 6 or even 8 GB are now put in more expensive handsets.

But the Pixel 3a XL has increased the battery capacity, which is now 3700 mAh. There is also an 18W fast charge. Of the additional buns, we note the presence of NFC, a fingerprint scanner and support for Active Edge technology, which can recognize clicks on the side faces. But there is no protection from dust and moisture, like the older model, here.

However, Google still lacks flexibility in the production of smartphones. For example, the company decided that it was no longer fashionable to make a notch, but for some reason they refused fashionable options like a teardrop neckline or a cutout in the screen. Instead, the smartphone got just wide old-school frames that look like greetings from 2017. The frame—to-body ratio of 76% is unusually high.

Well, the price of almost $ 600 is still too big for a smartphone of this level. Chinese flagships from Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi have been taught that for this money the buyer gets a full hardware, and not a single (albeit excellent) camera and an average processor. Yes, the same Pixel 3 XL has fallen in price since the announcement and now costs $ 50 — 100 more.