Rating of the best smartphones up to 20 thousand rubles for 2022 | Articles | Phones

Pho­to: nextpit.com

Every year, an insane num­ber of new smart­phones hit the mar­ket. To choose from this vari­ety a real­ly good and not super expen­sive phone with­out spend­ing a lot of time is a mis­sion impos­si­ble. There­fore, we have pre­pared this top to help you buy not the gad­get that mar­keters impose, but the one that is actu­al­ly of high qual­i­ty and suits you. We talk about the pri­or­i­ty char­ac­ter­is­tics of smart­phones and eval­u­ate mod­els that can be called the gold­en mean between flag­ships and bud­get devices.

What to look for when choos­ing a smart­phone

Top 3 smart­phones with the best dis­plays

Top 3 smart­phones by per­for­mance

Top 3 smart­phones by auton­o­my

Top 3 smart­phones in terms of price-qual­i­ty ratio

Rat­ing of the best low-cost smart­phones — the grand total

What to look for when choosing a smartphone

What are the most impor­tant char­ac­ter­is­tics for a smart­phone? These are, of course, its basic para­me­ters: dis­play, bat­tery, per­for­mance and cam­eras. When com­pil­ing the rat­ing, we con­sid­ered them first of all, eval­u­at­ing each smart­phone accord­ing to a spe­cif­ic cri­te­ri­on rel­a­tive to oth­er mod­els includ­ed in the top. The max­i­mum score for each indi­ca­tor is 10 points. Let’s take a clos­er look at the cri­te­ria.

Display

The main tech­nolo­gies used in the man­u­fac­ture of dis­plays are OLED (and its mod­i­fi­ca­tions) and IPS LCD.

Pros of OLED:

• per­fect black;
• shades are brighter;
• the image is more con­trast;
• view­ing angle is bet­ter;
• min­i­mum response time;
• wide pos­si­bil­i­ties when design­ing smart­phones (you can bend the pan­el, install a sub-screen fin­ger­print scan­ner).

Cons of OLED:

• burns out faster
• costs more.

IPS pros:

• per­fect white col­or;
• soft­er and more nat­ur­al shades;
• no flick­er harm­ful to the eyes;
• longer ser­vice life;
• low­er cost.

Cons of IPS:

• gray instead of black;
• high­er response time (but when chat­ting on social net­works or watch­ing videos, you are unlike­ly to notice the dif­fer­ence with OLED);
• the pan­el is thick­er;
• low mar­gin of bright­ness;
• does not bend;
• you can not install a fin­ger­print scan­ner under the dis­play.

The screen refresh rate is respon­si­ble for the smooth­ness of the dynam­ic pic­ture (the dif­fer­ence is espe­cial­ly notice­able in games). The default val­ue is 60 Hz. But in mod­ern smart­phones, even the aver­age lev­el is found at 90 and 120 Hz.

Dis­play size is sub­jec­tive, so we won’t take it into account.

It is gen­er­al­ly accept­ed that OLED dis­play is bet­ter than IPS. But in the case of inex­pen­sive smart­phones, choose IPS, as a cheap OLED screen will flick­er a lot and can burn out quick­ly. For read­ing text (and, accord­ing­ly, com­mu­ni­ca­tion in social net­works and instant mes­sen­gers), IPS is also more suit­able (due to the lack of flick­er). There­fore, in our rat­ing, phones with IPS pan­els will receive a high­er rat­ing. In addi­tion, bet­ter scores for high bright­ness and refresh rate, the pres­ence of a screen pro­tec­tor and sup­port for view­ing con­tent in high res­o­lu­tion.

Battery

When eval­u­at­ing the bat­tery, we will pri­mar­i­ly rely not on its capac­i­ty, but on how long the smart­phone is able to work. After all, auton­o­my is affect­ed not only by the vol­ume of the bat­tery, but also by the bright­ness of the screen, proces­sor, soft­ware and oth­er fac­tors. The pres­ence of fast charg­ing will also increase the score.

Performance

The proces­sor is pri­mar­i­ly respon­si­ble for how quick­ly the phone launch­es appli­ca­tions and per­forms sev­er­al tasks at the same time. To assess the pow­er of mobile proces­sors, there are spe­cial tests. The high­er the chipset in the rank­ing, the high­er our score.

In addi­tion, RAM is impor­tant: the larg­er its vol­ume, the bet­ter the score.

cameras

The rear mod­ule of smart­phones usu­al­ly has sev­er­al cam­eras. How­ev­er, the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the main (wide-angle) cam­era are con­sid­ered more impor­tant, and we will con­sid­er them.

The num­ber of megapix­els is not so impor­tant. Devices with a high­er res­o­lu­tion usu­al­ly com­bine sev­er­al adja­cent pix­els into one large one, this is called bin­ning. It reduces noise and improves over­all pho­to qual­i­ty. But the actu­al res­o­lu­tion of the image will be sev­er­al times less than the declared one.

The size of the matrix, the size of the pix­els them­selves and the aper­ture are also respon­si­ble for the qual­i­ty of the pic­ture.

When scor­ing, we will take into account the total­i­ty of all these indi­ca­tors. And we will eval­u­ate the front cam­era sep­a­rate­ly.

The best smartphones under 20,000 rubles

All smart­phones from our selec­tion are equipped with an NFC mod­ule for con­tact­less pay­ments and data trans­fer, a head­phone jack and sup­port two SIM cards. 8 mod­els have USB OTG — an adapter with which you can con­nect periph­er­al devices to your smart­phone, such as a key­board, mouse, etc. USB OTG is not avail­able only in Xiao­mi Red­mi Note 9T and Sam­sung Galaxy M31. All phones from our rat­ing also have a slot for mem­o­ry cards: three mod­els have it com­bined (that is, you can use either a sec­ond SIM card or a mem­o­ry card), the rest have a ded­i­cat­ed one.

Top 3 smartphones with the best displays

Realme 7

Realme 7 has good per­for­mance for a bud­get class: the phone works with­out delays and freezes. Pho­to: www.gsmarena.com

• Dis­play: 6.5″, IPS, 20:9, FHD+ (1080 x 2400 pix­els), 90Hz, Goril­la Glass 3.
• Pri­ma­ry cam­era: 48 MP, 8 MP (ultra wide), 2 MP (macro) and 2 MP (depth sen­sor, mono). LED flash, 4K video record­ing at 30 frames per sec­ond (fps), 1080p at 30/60/120 fps.
• Front cam­era: 16 MP, 1080p at 30/120 fps.

Dis­play: 10 points
Realme 7 screen has fash­ion­able round­ed cor­ners. There is sup­port for a high refresh rate dis­play. In the set­tings, you can choose 60 Hz, 90 Hz or “Auto”. Auto­mat­ic mode allows the oper­at­ing sys­tem to decide when to use which fre­quen­cy. This saves bat­tery life.
The max­i­mum bright­ness is nor­mal for a smart­phone of this class, and the min­i­mum is enough for com­fort­able use of the gad­get in the dark.

Bat­tery: 7 points
The 5000 mAh bat­tery lasts for 35.5 hours of talk / 18.5 hours of web surf­ing / almost 15 hours of video play­back.
Using a pro­pri­etary adapter with sup­port for fast charg­ing Dart Charge with a pow­er of 30 W, the smart­phone is ful­ly charged in 65 min­utes, from 0 to 50% in 26 min­utes.

Per­for­mance: 7 points
The smart­phone runs on a Medi­atek Helio G95T mobile proces­sor (ranked 46th in the pow­er rat­ing). The gad­get has 4, 6 or 8 GB of RAM.

Main cam­era: 7 points
The main cam­era saves 12-megapix­el shots by default. It does not work sta­bly: some­times too “soft” images are obtained. The col­ors are a lit­tle warmer than they real­ly are. There is noise in areas of uni­form col­or, such as the sky. A 48 MP shoot­ing mode is avail­able, but it does not pro­vide any sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments. There is also a night mode.

Front cam­era: 4 points
When there is enough light, self­ies are good. By default, their res­o­lu­tion is 4 megapix­els. You can shoot por­traits: despite the low res­o­lu­tion, they are detailed with good sep­a­ra­tion, beau­ti­ful blur and “vivid” col­ors.

Aver­age score: 7/10

Pros of Realme 7:

• large con­trast dis­play with a refresh rate of 90 Hz and a neat notch for the cam­era;
• holds the bat­tery well and charges quick­ly;
• the proces­sor is suit­able for games;
• good qual­i­ty pho­tos and videos on the main cam­era.

Cons of Realme 7:

• splash-proof;
• The qual­i­ty of the ultra wide-angle video is not very good.

Realme 7 is avail­able in ver­sions with 64 or 128 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry, costs from 18.5 thou­sand rubles.

Samsung Galaxy A51

The bio­met­ric secu­ri­ty of the Galaxy A51 includes an under-dis­play fin­ger­print scan­ner and basic facial recog­ni­tion via the cam­era. Pho­to: www.gsmarena.com

• Dis­play: 6.5″, Super AMOLED, 20:9, FHD+ (1080 x 2400), 60Hz, Goril­la Glass 3.
• Pri­ma­ry cam­era: 48 MP, 12 MP (ultra wide), 5 MP (macro), 5 MP (depth sen­sor). LED flash; video record­ing in 4K res­o­lu­tion at 30 fps, 2160p at 30 fps and 1080p at 30/120 fps.
• Front cam­era: 32 MP, 1080p at 30 fps.

Dis­play: 9 points
Sam­sung pan­els are of high qual­i­ty, accu­rate col­or repro­duc­tion and con­trast. On a sun­ny day, the bright­ness of the screen is enough to see the con­tent, and at night it is com­fort­able to read. Thanks to the pro­tec­tive glass, scratch­ing the screen is not so easy.

Bat­tery: 6 points
The Galaxy A51 has a 4000 mAh bat­tery. It is enough for almost 22 hours of calls / 13.5 hours of web surf­ing / 14.5 hours of video view­ing. With the includ­ed 15W pow­er adapter, the phone is ful­ly charged in 2 hours and 14 min­utes. In half an hour — from 0 to 35%.

Per­for­mance: 6 points
The hard­ware basis is the Exynos 9611 chip. It is locat­ed in 54th place in the pow­er rat­ing. Depend­ing on the mod­el, the proces­sor is sup­ple­ment­ed with 4 or 6 GB of RAM.

Main cam­era: 4 points
The Sam­sung Galaxy A51 has an advanced quad-sen­sor cam­era on the back. By default, pho­tos are saved at 12 megapix­els. The 48 MP mode is avail­able, it gives a lit­tle more detail, but you have to sac­ri­fice dynam­ic range. There is a night mode.

Front cam­era: 8 points
The self­ie cam­era, for some rea­son, saves images at 12 MP (instead of the log­i­cal 8 MP that comes from com­bin­ing 4 pix­els into 1). There is a 32-megapix­el mode, but no HDR.

The por­trait mode of the front cam­era is not very good at the bor­der between the sub­ject and the back­ground, but there are no gross errors in pro­cess­ing.

Aver­age score: 6.6/10

Pros of Sam­sung Galaxy A51:

• bright dis­play with good col­or repro­duc­tion;
• reli­able bat­tery;
• good qual­i­ty pho­tos from all cam­eras in day­light.

Cons of Sam­sung Galaxy A51:

• the proces­sor is not as pow­er­ful as that of com­peti­tors;
• The cam­era does not shoot well in low light;
• no pro­tec­tion against splash­es and dust.

The smart­phone is avail­able in ver­sions with 64 and 128 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry. There is a ded­i­cat­ed slot for microSD cards up to 1TB.

The price of a smart­phone is from 17.5 thou­sand rubles.

Vivo V20 SE

Vivo V20 SE is the most expen­sive smart­phone in our rank­ing. Pho­to: indiatoday.in

• Dis­play: 6.44″, AMOLED, 20:9, 1080 x 2400 pix­els, 60Hz, Goril­la Glass 3.
• Pri­ma­ry cam­era: 48 MP, 8 MP (ultra wide angle) and 2 MP (depth sen­sor). Dual dual tone LED flash, 1080p video record­ing at 30 fps.
• Front cam­era: 32 MP, 1080p at 30 fps.

Dis­play: 8 points
vivo V20 SE has a flat dis­play with a stan­dard refresh rate. He’s in great tune.

Bat­tery: 2 points
The 4100mAh bat­tery sup­ports 30W fast charg­ing. It takes 75 min­utes to ful­ly charge from a stan­dard pow­er sup­ply.
One bat­tery charge is enough for about 12 hours of video play­back.

Per­for­mance: 5 points
The hard­ware basis is the Snap­drag­on 665 (61st place in the pow­er rat­ing). The chip is sup­ple­ment­ed with 8 GB of RAM.
In terms of per­for­mance, this smart­phone is notice­ably infe­ri­or to direct com­peti­tors. It is enough to run basic appli­ca­tions. But games work with a reduced frame rate, and the most “demand­ing” ones do not start.

Main cam­era: 6 points
The rear cam­era takes pic­tures with a res­o­lu­tion of 12 megapix­els. There are night and spe­cial “AI 48 MP” modes. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there is no ultra wide-angle lens. Pho­to qual­i­ty is good, with a wide dynam­ic range.

Front cam­era: 9 points
The self­ie cam­era can shoot por­traits with adjustable soft­ware bokeh and beau­ti­fi­er. The pic­ture is good both indoors and in nat­ur­al light.

Aver­age score: 6/10

Pros of vivo V20 SE:

• well-tuned dis­play;
• good auton­o­my, fast charg­ing.

Cons vivo V20 SE:

• throt­tling (per­for­mance drop) and a weak proces­sor for such a price;
• unsat­is­fac­to­ry image qual­i­ty in low light;
• no mois­ture pro­tec­tion.

128 GB is pro­vid­ed for stor­ing files in the smart­phone.

The price of vivo V20 SE is from 19,990 rubles.

Our ranking of the best smartphones by display quality

Top 3 smartphones by performance

Huawei P40 lite

P40 lite is deprived of all Google ser­vices. Instead, Huawei offers its pro­pri­etary mobile ser­vices in the Huawei Store, App­Gallery. Pho­to: www.gsmarena.com

• Dis­play: 6.4″, IPS, 19:9, 1080 x 2310 pix­els, 60Hz.
• Pri­ma­ry cam­era: 48 MP, 8 MP (ultra wide), 2 MP (macro) and 2 MP (depth sen­sor). 1080p video record­ing at 30 fps.
• Front cam­era: 16 MP, 1080p at 30 fps.

Dis­play: 5 points
There is uneven illu­mi­na­tion around the cam­era hole. On a com­plete­ly white screen, it’s annoy­ing.
The max­i­mum bright­ness is aver­age for an LCD screen, at the min­i­mum it is com­fort­able to read in the dark.
The smart­phone sup­ports Widevine L3 tech­nol­o­gy, which is required for Net­flix, Ama­zon Prime Video and oth­er sim­i­lar ser­vices. How­ev­er, HD con­tent is not played.
There is no infor­ma­tion about the screen glass man­u­fac­tur­er.

Bat­tery: 9 points
The Huawei P40 lite is pow­ered by a 4200mAh bat­tery with Huawei Super Charge 40W sup­port. The includ­ed adapter replen­ish­es about 70% of the bat­tery in half an hour, and it takes 64 min­utes to charge 100%.
With a full bat­tery, you can talk on the phone for more than a day (almost 33 and a half hours), or watch videos for 16 hours, or surf the Inter­net for 18 hours.

Per­for­mance: 10 points
The Kirin 810 proces­sor, the heart of the device, is ranked 31st in the endurance rank­ing. There is only one vari­ant of RAM — 6 GB.

Main cam­era: 7 points
Stan­dard 12-megapix­el pho­tos from the main cam­era come out crisp. Shoot­ing in 48MP AI Ultra Clar­i­ty mode takes about 5–6 sec­onds, and each pho­to eats up about 6MB of space. This mode only works in good light­ing, you need to switch to it man­u­al­ly in the set­tings. Night mode is also avail­able.

Front cam­era: 5 points
The self­ie cam­era takes decent-qual­i­ty shots in suf­fi­cient light: col­ors are accu­rate and con­trast is good. Por­traits already come out worse (because there is no depth sen­sor), but their qual­i­ty is quite enough for social net­works. Night mode is avail­able for the self­ie cam­era, shoot­ing takes less than a sec­ond.

Aver­age score: 7.2/10

Pros of Huawei P40 lite:

• com­pact body, stun­ning col­ors;
• large dis­play;
• excel­lent auton­o­my, incred­i­bly fast charg­ing;
• pow­er­ful per­for­mance (smart­phone suit­able for gam­ing);
• pho­to qual­i­ty day and night.

Cons of Huawei P40 lite:

• no splash pro­tec­tion
• increase in built-in mem­o­ry only through NM cards, hybrid slot;
• no google ser­vices.

128 GB of built-in stor­age is at your dis­pos­al.

Smart­phone prices start at Rs.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 9T

Most fin­ger­print scan­ners inte­grat­ed into the pow­er but­ton acci­den­tal­ly read them when hold­ing the smart­phone. Xiao­mi solved this prob­lem by adding the option to scan only when the but­ton is pressed. Pho­to: www.gsmarena.com

• Dis­play: 6.53″, IPS, 19.5:9, 1080 x 2340 pix­els, 60Hz, Goril­la Glass 5.
• Main cam­era: 48 MP, 2 MP (macro) and 2 MP (depth sen­sor). Video record­ing in 4K res­o­lu­tion at 30 fps, 1080p at 30/60 fps.
• Front cam­era: 13 MP, 1080p at 30 fps.

Dis­play: 6 points
The max­i­mum bright­ness of the Red­mi Note 9T screen is enough to see what is hap­pen­ing on the dis­play on the street.
The response time (ghost­ing in the text is notice­able when scrolling) and col­or accu­ra­cy (white has a bluish tint) con­firm that the dis­play is bud­get.

Bat­tery: 4 points
A large 5000 mAh bat­tery lasts for 32.5 hours of talk / almost 19 hours of web surf­ing / 12.5 hours of video play­back.
The smart­phone charges in half an hour from 0 to 33%, ful­ly — in 2 hours.

Per­for­mance: 9 points
Red­mi Note 9T is pow­ered by Medi­aTek Dimen­si­ty 800U 5G. This mobile proces­sor ranked 35th in the pow­er rat­ing. The amount of RAM is 4 GB.

Main cam­era: 5 points
The main cam­era con­sists of three sen­sors. There is no ultra wide-angle sen­sor. The actu­al res­o­lu­tion of the pic­tures is 12 megapix­els. There is a max­i­mum res­o­lu­tion mode (48 megapix­els), but it does not pro­vide any sig­nif­i­cant advan­tage. Night mode is avail­able for shoot­ing in low light con­di­tions.

Front cam­era: 3 points
The self­ie cam­era has a por­trait mode with good sub­ject sep­a­ra­tion and nat­ur­al bokeh. There is no night mode.

Aver­age score: 5.4/10

Pros of Red­mi Note 9T:

• water-repel­lent coat­ing;
• holds a charge per­fect­ly;
• sta­ble per­for­mance.

Cons of Red­mi Note 9T:

• bud­get screen (thick bezels around the dis­play, large hole for the cam­era, slight ghost­ing of the text);
• no ultra-wide-angle cam­era;
• works on Android 10 (and this is six months after the release of Android 11).

The phone is avail­able in two con­fig­u­ra­tions of inter­nal mem­o­ry — 64 or 128 GB. There is also a ded­i­cat­ed slot for microS­DXC mem­o­ry cards, but the max­i­mum capac­i­ty is not spec­i­fied. Addi­tion­al fea­tures include an infrared port (for con­trol­ling var­i­ous equip­ment, such as a TV), built-in FM radio, a fin­ger­print scan­ner (inte­grat­ed into the pow­er but­ton).

Red­mi Note 9T costs from 16.5 thou­sand rubles.

Poco X3 NFC

In addi­tion to the pow­er adapter, cable and trans­par­ent case, the Poco X3 NFC pack­age includes stick­ers for cars, lap­tops, etc. Pho­to: gsmarena.com

• Dis­play: 6.67″, IPS, 20:9, 1080 x 2400 pix­els; HDR10, 120Hz, Goril­la Glass 5.
• Pri­ma­ry cam­era: 64 MP, 13 MP (ultra wide), 2 MP (macro) and 2 MP (depth sen­sor). Dual LED flash, video record­ing in 4K@30fps, 1080p@30/120fps, 720p@960fps.
• Front cam­era: 20 MP, 1080p at 30 fps.

Dis­play: 7 points
The Poco X3 NFC screen sup­ports HDR10 tech­nol­o­gy, and the soft­ware sup­ports Widevine L1 DRM. That is, you can watch high-def­i­n­i­tion con­tent from all pop­u­lar stream­ing ser­vices (Net­flix, Prime Video, YouTube, and more).
The screen is cov­ered with pro­tec­tive glass Goril­la Glass 5 and a thin pro­tec­tive film (but its qual­i­ty is below aver­age).
The dis­play has a high refresh rate of 120Hz. It adjusts dynam­i­cal­ly (MIUI 12 and its apps dis­play at 120 fps by default; if the image is sta­t­ic — 60), which saves bat­tery.
Just like on the Red­mi Note 9T screen, ghost­ing is notice­able when scrolling through text or images in high refresh rate mode.

Bat­tery: 5 points
The Poco X3 NFC has a 5160mAh bat­tery and sup­ports 33W fast charg­ing. Its charge lasts for 32 hours of talks, or 17 hours of web surf­ing, or 14 hours of video view­ing. These fig­ures are valid for a screen refresh rate of 60 Hz.
It takes 75 min­utes to ful­ly charge the bat­tery, and in half an hour the phone charges from 0 to 55%.

Per­for­mance: 8 points
The smart­phone is pow­ered by the Snap­drag­on 732G chipset cou­pled with 6GB of RAM. The proces­sor is locat­ed on the 37th place in the pow­er rat­ing.

Main cam­era: 10 points
Stan­dard 16-megapix­el pho­tos from the main cam­era are excel­lent for a smart­phone class. There is a 64 MP mode, it will take a few sec­onds to take a pic­ture. Each pho­to is about 30 MB, but there is no sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment over the stan­dard mode. Night shoot­ing avail­able.

Front cam­era: 7 points
Images tak­en with the self­ie cam­era are rea­son­ably detailed, have pleas­ing col­ors and excel­lent con­trast. At the same time, the por­trait mode does not cope even with sim­ple hair­cuts (“blurs” part of the hair­style).

Aver­age score: 7.8/10

Pros of Poco X3 NFC:

• large screen with com­pact cam­era notch, excel­lent con­trast ratio, HDR10 and 120Hz;
• pro­tec­tion against dust and splash­es (lev­el IP53: the phone can­not be immersed in water);
• Long bat­tery life, fast charg­ing
• one of the fastest mid-range smart­phones on the mar­ket;
• good pho­to and video qual­i­ty.

Cons of Poco X3 NFC:

• not the best pix­el response time, lead­ing to ghost­ing at a fre­quen­cy of 120 Hz;
• hybrid slot for mem­o­ry cards;
• inex­pres­sive image qual­i­ty in low light.

This mod­el is avail­able in ver­sions with 64 and 128 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry. Sup­ports microS­DXC mem­o­ry cards. There is a fin­ger­print scan­ner (on the side), infrared, stereo speak­ers and FM radio.

The cost of a smart­phone is from 16.5 thou­sand rubles.

Our ranking of the best smartphones by performance

Top 3 smartphones by autonomy

Samsung Galaxy M31

The Galaxy M31 is anoth­er bud­get mon­ster from Sam­sung. Pho­to: expertreviews.co.uk

• Dis­play: 6.4″, Super AMOLED, 19.5:9, FHD+ (1080 x 2340 pix­els), 60Hz, Goril­la Glass 3.
• Pri­ma­ry cam­era: 64 MP, 8 MP (ultra wide), 5 MP (macro) and 5 MP (depth sen­sor). LED flash; video record­ing in 4K res­o­lu­tion at 30 fps, 1080p at 30 fps.
• Front cam­era: 32 MP, 4K at 30 fps, 1080p at 30 fps.

Dis­play: 3 points
The screen of the Sam­sung Galaxy M31 has good bright­ness and read­abil­i­ty out­doors. At night, at min­i­mum set­tings in man­u­al mode, the slid­er some­times increas­es the bright­ness, which makes it uncom­fort­able to use the phone in the dark. In addi­tion, view­ing angles are not as good as the AMOLED pan­els on more expen­sive devices.
HDR ver­sions of the con­tent are shown when watch­ing videos on YouTube and Ama­zon Prime Video, but for some rea­son Net­flix does not see the device as sup­port­ing HDR. In addi­tion, the qual­i­ty of HDR con­tent leaves much to be desired (lacks bright­ness and wide col­or sup­port).

Bat­tery: 10 points
The 6000 mAh bat­tery sup­ports only 15W fast charg­ing. There­fore, the phone charges slow­ly: in half an hour from 0% to 21%, in an hour — up to 40%. A full charge takes over 2.5 hours.
A charged bat­tery lasts for 29 hours of video view­ing, or 22 hours of web surf­ing, or 44 hours of talk­ing.

Per­for­mance: 6 points
The used Exynos 9611 proces­sor is locat­ed in 54th place in the pow­er rat­ing. The amount of RAM is 6 GB.
With a long load, the smart­phone slows down, and the case heats up.

Main cam­era: 9 points
The main and front cam­eras of Galaxy M31 have high res­o­lu­tion, large matrix and wide aper­ture. These char­ac­ter­is­tics have a pos­i­tive effect on the qual­i­ty of pho­tographs.
By default, the main cam­era shoots at a quar­ter of the spec­i­fied res­o­lu­tion, that is, 16 megapix­els come out. Image qual­i­ty in day­light is good, but not great: in dif­fi­cult areas (grass, tree leaves), the sharp­ness is exces­sive. When shoot­ing at close range, often only part of the image is in focus. There is a 64 MP mode, but it is not impres­sive.

Front cam­era: 10 points
The self­ie cam­era can cap­ture por­traits and cre­ate addi­tion­al effects.

Aver­age score: 7.6/10

Pros of the Sam­sung Galaxy M31:

• holds a charge for a long time;
• good cam­eras.

Cons of Sam­sung Galaxy M31:

• rel­a­tive­ly low per­for­mance;
• throt­tling under con­tin­u­ous load;
• there is no pro­tec­tion against dust and mois­ture.

The amount of built-in mem­o­ry is 64 or 128 GB. Cards up to 1TB are sup­port­ed.

The cost of a smart­phone is from 17 thou­sand rubles.

Huawei P40 lite

It has already been dis­cussed in this arti­cle — read the descrip­tion of the mod­el in the top 3 smart­phones in terms of per­for­mance.

OPPO A72

OPPO A72 has a good bal­ance between price and per­for­mance. Pho­to: techradar.com

• Dis­play: 6.5″, IPS, 20:9, 1080 x 2400 pix­els, 60Hz, Goril­la Glass 3.
• Main cam­era: 48 MP, 8 MP (ultra wide angle), 2 MP (depth sen­sor) and 2 MP (black and white). LED Flash, Video Record­ing: 4K@30fps, 1080p@30/120fps.
• Front cam­era: 16 MP, 1080p at 30 fps.

Dis­play: 4 points
A nice bonus is that there is a good qual­i­ty pro­tec­tive film on the screen. Unpleas­ant — due to the round cutout for the cam­era, the back­light is uneven.
Anoth­er of the minus­es: in direct sun­light, the text on the screen is dif­fi­cult to read.

Bat­tery: 8 points
The OPPO A72 uses a 5000mAh bat­tery with sup­port for 18W fast charg­ing. A full “tank” is enough for 16 hours of video view­ing.
In the first half hour, the smart­phone charges from 0 to 32%. It takes 2 hours and 15 min­utes to ful­ly charge.

Per­for­mance: 5 points
Like the Nokia 5.3 and vivo V20 SE, the OPPO A72 is pow­ered by a Snap­drag­on 665 proces­sor and is paired with 4GB of RAM.
There are peri­od­ic slow­downs in the oper­a­tion of the oper­at­ing sys­tem.

Main cam­era: 8 points
Dur­ing the day, the main cam­era shoots well, although there is noise in the frames. Active HDR mode gives more light in the shad­ows. At night, we rec­om­mend using a spe­cial mode (with­out it, the qual­i­ty of pho­tos is poor), shoot­ing in it takes 5–7 sec­onds. By default, the res­o­lu­tion of pic­tures from the main cam­era is 12 megapix­els. The dif­fer­ence between shoot­ing at 12 MP and 48 MP is not obvi­ous.

Front cam­era: 6 points
The self­ie cam­era takes good pic­tures in both nor­mal and por­trait modes.

Aver­age score: 6.2/10

Pros of OPPO A72:

• works for a long time with­out recharg­ing;
• decent image qual­i­ty even in dim light.

Cons of OPPO A72:

• uneven screen back­light;
• poor per­for­mance;
• no water pro­tec­tion.

To store files in the smart­phone has 128 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry. OPPO also has stereo speak­ers.

The cost of a smart­phone is from 15,800 rubles.

Our rating of the best smartphones by autonomy

Top 3 smartphones in terms of price-quality ratio

Nokia 5.3

Nokia 5.3 has a stan­dard Android inter­face. Android One guar­an­tees fast and reg­u­lar updates for the next two years. Pho­to: techradar.com

• Dis­play: 6.55″, 20:9, 720 x 1600 pix­els, IPS, 60Hz, Goril­la Glass 3.
• Main cam­era: 13 MP, 5 MP (ultra wide), 2 MP (macro) and 2 MP (depth sen­sor). LED flash, video record­ing in 4K res­o­lu­tion at 30 fps, 1080p at 30 fps.
• Front cam­era: 8 MP, 1080p at 30 fps.

Dis­play: 2 points

The dis­play does not have the “sharpest” res­o­lu­tion, but it is bright enough to con­trol a smart­phone on a sun­ny day.

Bat­tery: 1 point
Nokia 5.3 bat­tery capac­i­ty is 4000 mAh. Despite sup­port for fast charg­ing, the phone takes a long time to charge — 2 hours and 40 min­utes.
The bat­tery lasts for 8 hours of watch­ing video over Wi-Fi at full bright­ness.

Per­for­mance: 5 points
The smart­phone runs on the same proces­sor as the vivo V20 SE, Snap­drag­on 665. The RAM is only 4 GB.

Main cam­era: 2 points
The main cam­era in terms of tech­ni­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics leaves much to be desired, but sur­pris­ing­ly in good light it takes high-qual­i­ty, sharp pho­tos with pleas­ant col­or repro­duc­tion and a decent dynam­ic range.

Front cam­era: 1 point
The self­ie cam­era can take por­traits, change effects in arti­fi­cial bokeh. There is an adjustable beau­ti­fi­er. The pic­ture qual­i­ty is gen­er­al­ly good.

Aver­age score: 2.2/10

Pros of Nokia 5.3:

• large screen, small notch for self­ie cam­era;
• suf­fi­cient per­for­mance for work;
• price.

Cons of Nokia 5.3:

• screen res­o­lu­tion;
• Poor image qual­i­ty in low light
• no pro­tec­tion against splash­es and dust.

The phone is equipped with 64 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry. Ver­sions are avail­able with both one and two SIM-cards.

Nokia 5.3 costs from 13 thou­sand rubles.

Huawei P40 lite

It has already been dis­cussed in this arti­cle — read the descrip­tion of the mod­el in the top 3 smart­phones in terms of per­for­mance.

ZTE Blade 20 Smart

ZTE Blade 20 Smart is the cheap­est smart­phone from our selec­tion. Pho­to: www.gsmarena.com

• Dis­play: 6.49″, IPS, 19.5:9, 1560 x 720 pix­els, 60Hz, tem­pered glass (2.5D).
• Main cam­era: 16 MP, 8 (wide angle) and 2 MP (depth sen­sor). LED flash, video record­ing — 1080p at 30 fps.
• Front cam­era: 13 MP, 1080p at 30 fps.

Dis­play: 1 point
Despite the low res­o­lu­tion, the ZTE Blade 20 Smart’s screen is crisp with wide view­ing angles. For work in day­light, its bright­ness is enough.

Bat­tery: 3 points
The bat­tery with a capac­i­ty of 5000 mAh is charged in about 2.5 hours using a stan­dard AC adapter. It is pos­si­ble to charge oth­er devices using OTG tech­nol­o­gy.
A full bat­tery lasts for 12 hours of video play­back.

Per­for­mance: 4 points
The smart­phone runs on a Medi­aTek Helio P60 chip with 4 GB of RAM. Despite the fact that this mobile proces­sor is ranked 81st in the rank­ing, the phone does not slow down. Call Of Duty can be played with­out freez­ing even with HD+ screen record­ing.

Main cam­era: 3 points
The qual­i­ty of pic­tures on the main cam­era with its sad char­ac­ter­is­tics is decent: there is no extra noise.

Front cam­era: 2 points
The self­ie cam­era takes pic­tures with good detail.

Aver­age score: 2.6/10

Pros of ZTE Blade 20 Smart:

• pow­er­ful per­for­mance for the price;
• capa­cious bat­tery.

Cons of ZTE Blade 20 Smart:

• build qual­i­ty (hull creak­ing when com­pressed);
• com­bined slot;
• no splash pro­tec­tion.

The smart­phone has 128 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry, microSD cards up to 512 GB are sup­port­ed.

ZTE Blade 20 Smart costs from 11 thou­sand rubles.

Our assessment of the best smartphones in terms of price-quality ratio

Rating of the best low-cost smartphones — the grand total

So, smart­phones from our rat­ing received the fol­low­ing rat­ings accord­ing to the five most impor­tant cri­te­ria:

Sam­sung Galaxy M31 became the best smart­phone. It has good cam­eras and excel­lent auton­o­my. In sec­ond place is the Poco X3 NFC, the only smart­phone from our selec­tion with pro­tec­tion against dust and mois­ture (IP53). The top three is closed by Huawei P40 lite, which is also the leader in terms of price-qual­i­ty ratio. But, despite the advan­tages of this phone, many users may be put off by the lack of Google ser­vices.

Sep­a­rate­ly, I would like to note the last two devices. Yes, they received low marks rel­a­tive to oth­er smart­phones in the rat­ing, but these are wor­thy devices. They cost 1.5–2 times cheap­er than the top lead­ers, but at the same time they have excel­lent char­ac­ter­is­tics.

*All prices shown are valid at the time of writ­ing.