Five best Chinese smartphones

ZTE Star 1 16 GB / 2 GB

The ZTE model with the unambiguous name Star 1 can be counted among the cohort of flagships. The high status of the smartphone is also evidenced by its stylish appearance. The front and back panels of this thin device have a glass coating (with oleophobic properties). In addition, the side faces are made of metal and, according to reviewers, the build quality is excellent.

The second trump card of ZTE Star 1 was a large and high-quality screen. The display with a diagonal of 5" is qualitatively calibrated and has excellent colour reproduction. The applied OGS technology, according to which there is no air gap between the Gorilla Glass 3 protective glass and the sensor, helps to reduce glare and increase the contrast of the picture. The high resolution of 1920 x 1080 creates a perfect picture, so that the user can watch movies in high quality with an excellent image. However, note that the battery here is not the most "hardy". Therefore, when watching movies, the charge will last for about 5-6 hours, and even less when starting games.

Although this smartphone has a fairly modest Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor installed, so you don't have to wait for the latest games to go at maximum settings. On average settings everything will be fine. And given the presence of 2 GB of RAM, there will be no problems with working applications. The Android KitKat 4.4.2 operating system and the MiFavor user shell are installed in Star 1. It has Russian localization and Cyrillic is supported without problems.

The camera in the smartphone is 8 MP. It is distinguished by wide-angle optics and the ability to shoot high-quality macro. The 5 MP front camera also handles with its tasks perfectly.

ZTE Star 1 impresses with its affordable price, for which the user is offered an impressive package of functions and a nice design. However, battery life and power do not break records.

Fly IQ4516 Tornado Slim 16 GB / 1 GB

Looking into the face of the Fly IQ4516 Tornado Slim, you are not particularly surprised — a standard smartphone with ordinary frames around the screen is enough. But it is worth turning it in profile — and you just wonder how in general in such a thin case — only 5.1 mm — they managed to put a screen, electronics, communication modules, and even a 2050 mAh battery? According to the manufacturer, this is the thinnest Android smartphone in the world!

In fact, Tornado Slim easily lives the whole day in active use mode. One of the reasons for such good battery life was the screen with an AMOLED matrix, which is built on organic crystals and consumes little energy to work. In addition, the HD resolution with a display diagonal of 4.8", which is enough to provide a pixel density comfortable for the eyes. Gorilla Glass 3 protective glass is installed on top of the screen.

The MediaTek MT6292 chip is used as a processor here. Its eight cores with a clock frequency of 1.7 GHz are enough to cope well with most complex games on medium and high graphics settings. A small dip in performance is observed with the amount of RAM — for the flagship 1 GB of RAM is somewhat insufficient, I would like 2 GB.

The 8 MP main camera module installed in the Fly IQ4516 Tornado Slim is quite average in terms of characteristics — photos may lack sharpness. Nevertheless, in good light, the pictures come out quite acceptable. The front camera at 5 megapixels takes self-portraits worthy of posting on Instagram.

Price plays an important role in choosing this smartphone, but its main advantage is the original and very thin case.

OnePlus 1 16 GB / 3 GB

The success of One Plus One to a certain extent was due to the fact that initially it could only be bought by invitation. Although mostly, of course, its success was predetermined by the incredible price-power ratio at that time. Although a year has passed since its release, the One Plus One is still a smartphone with an excellent price-performance ratio.

The hardware platform that is used here is one of the most powerful today — Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 with a clock frequency of 2.5 GHz. The Adreno 330 video accelerator pulls out complex 3D games at maximum graphics settings. And for smooth operation, even with numerous running applications, One Plus One received 3 GB of RAM.

Among other smartphones, One Plus One stands out with a variation of the Android operating system —Cyanogen Mode 11S. An ordinary user is unlikely to notice the differences, but those who like to dig into the system and personally configure everything to the last point will be happy.

The design of the phone is quite concise: the user can choose a white or black version. In addition to the colour, the models differ in the texture of the back covers: the white one is smoother, and the grey one is rough.

The diagonal of the display of the One Plus is half an inch higher than the standard figure for flagships and is 5.5". At the same time, the overall dimensions remained at the level of other models and the smartphone can be used with one hand. The smartphone has an IPS matrix with Full HD resolution. There is a Gorilla Glass 3 protective glass on top of the display. Many users and reviewers note the natural colour rendition, perfectly conforming to the sRGB standard, a balanced gamut and the correct colour temperature of the One Plus One display.

In addition to all the previous features, the smartphone received an NFC and 3G/4G support. And what it lacks, according to some people, is a slot for a second SIM card and a memory card. Therefore, the buyer of One Plus will have to be content with one tariff plan and built-in 16 GB of memory.

The 13-megapixel main camera does a great job both during the day and in the evening. Plus, there is an opportunity to record video in 4K format. The 5 MP front camera is equipped with wide-angle lenses, so that not only a large company gets into the pictures, but also objects in the background (carefully select the background for shooting).

For long-term operation of such a powerful system, a 3,100 mAh battery is installed. This is enough for the smartphone to withstand a day in maximum activity mode, or even one and a half or two days at an average intensity of use.

The main advantages of the One Plus One remain, as at the time of release, the balance of characteristics and prices, as well as a flexibly customizable interface.

Xiaomi Mi 4 16 GB / 2 GB

Xiaomi Mi4 is considered by many to be the flagship of one of the boldest and most successful brands of the best smartphones today. As noted in one review, Xiaomi has a lot of advantages, this gadget itself is one big plus. Its design is neat and even classic — a plastic case with metal edging. The design of the case uses traditional colours — white and black. But the package does not include the headset familiar to many, and the charger plug needs an adapter for our sockets.

The filling of the smartphone is the most flagship — Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 with a clock speed of 2.5 GHz and an Adreno 330 video adapter. This chip handles with any complex tasks and occupies a leading position in the system performance ratings. And this powerful chip is supplemented with 3 GB of RAM. As a result, the user can be sure of the perfect operation of the device without brakes or freezes under any loads. With active use, the battery lasts for about a day and a half — for a powerful flagship, this is a good indicator. To do this, it has a 3080 mAh battery installed in it.

Xiaomi Mi4 has a custom MI UI shell installed, which was one of the first on Android to transfer application icons directly to the main screen. It is distinguished from many other interfaces by good optimization and usability. Initially, there was no Russian localization of the shell, but now the smartphone supports Cyrillic without any problems.

The display is made using OGS technology without an air gap between the sensor, the matrix and the protective glass (Gorilla Glass of the third generation). With a diagonal of 5" and a Full HD resolution, the density of dots turns out to be 441 per inch, so it is simply impossible to consider pixels. The colour rendering is normal, for those who like to adjust everything in their own way, there is a manual adjustment.

With an 8 MP front camera, your selfies will be out of competition. Moreover, good lenses are used in the front. The main camera is still more serious — a 13 MP Sony matrix and more or less high-power optics (f/1.8) are installed. Therefore, to create photo masterpieces, you just have to look for beautiful views, the rest of the equipment is ready to take over.

Xiaomi Mi4 is liked by many not only because of its excellent technical characteristics, but also thanks to an interesting interface, a good camera and a strict design.

Huawei Mate 7 16 GB / 2 GB

Huawei went the original way, offering users not just a flagship, but a flagship with a large battery that will always be with you everywhere, even at peak loads — Huawei Mate 7.

For convenient work with a smartphone, a custom Emotion UI 3.0 shell is installed on top of the relatively new version of Android 4.4 KitKat and a number of additional functions are implemented. It has a built-in fingerprint scanner and an NFC module for quick connection to wireless accessories. Quite unexpectedly, microSD memory cards are supported for the flagship.

HiSilicon Kirin 925 octa-core processor and Mali-T628 MP4 video accelerator are responsible for the system performance. Thanks to them, the smartphone gets high marks in performance ratings (for example, in AnTuTu it scores about 42K points). In fact, this means that even the most demanding games are running at maximum settings.

There are no questions about the battery life of Huawei Ascend Mate7 — it has a battery with a capacity of 4100 mAh on board. You can expect two days of active use from this smartphone, and in standby mode, the working time reaches 10 days. When playing games, the smartphone is discharged approximately in 5-6 hours, while for watching movies, the battery lasts for 10 hours.

Another proof that you can and should watch movies on this smartphone is a six-inch screen with Full HD resolution. And here we must pay tribute to Huawei designers, who were able to make the frames around the screen minimal, so that even with such a large display, the smartphone remains convenient to use.

Both cameras in the phone are excellent: the main one at 13 MP and the front one at 5 MP. The main one easily handles with shooting even with a lack of lighting, during the day the photos come out extremely contrasting and sharp. The front—facing camera installed here is one of the best to date.

Huawei has turned out to be an extremely balanced smartphone, which, in addition to a powerful battery, boasts excellent performance, excellent cameras and a high-resolution screen. Although, the price corresponds to its capabilities.