Top best smartphones for students in 2021 | Articles | Phones

By the new aca­d­e­m­ic year, Roskach­est­vo experts have com­piled a rat­ing of the five best smart­phones for school­child­ren. They eval­u­at­ed gad­gets accord­ing to three cri­te­ria: shock resis­tance, bat­tery capac­i­ty, cost. As a result, four Xiao­mi mod­els and one Realme entered the top 5 phones accord­ing to Roskach­est­vo.

Source: depositphotos.com

We also stud­ied the mobile gad­gets mar­ket and com­piled our own rat­ing of the best smart­phones for school­child­ren in 2021. When com­pil­ing the rat­ing, we paid atten­tion to: per­for­mance, cam­era, val­ue for mon­ey, qual­i­ty and size of the dis­play, the amount of inter­nal and RAM and the strength of the case.

ZTE Blade A3 2020 NFC is the most bud­get phone for school
Sam­sung Galaxy A01 Core is the brand’s cheap­est smart­phone
Realme C21 is a bud­get phone with good specs
Xiao­mi Poco F3 (128 GB) is a top smart­phone for any stu­dent
Xiao­mi Red­mi Note 10 Pro is a flag­ship for rea­son­able mon­ey
Realme 8 Pro is an inex­pen­sive smart­phone with a good cam­era
Sam­sung Galaxy M12 is a uni­ver­sal option for a stu­dent
Results

ZTE Blade A3 2020 NFC is the most budget phone for school

A bud­get smart­phone for a pri­ma­ry school stu­dent with an NFC chip for con­tact­less pay­ment. It can be use­ful for pay­ing for pub­lic trans­port or shop­ping in stores.

The phone costs about five thou­sand rubles, and the char­ac­ter­is­tics cor­re­spond to the price: a weak 4‑core Unisoc SC9832E proces­sor, 1 GB of RAM and 32 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry. This is def­i­nite­ly not enough for games, except for the most sim­ple and unde­mand­ing ones. The smart­phone works with­out delay thanks to the light­weight Android 9.0 Go Edi­tion oper­at­ing sys­tem.

Com­plete with phone charg­er and doc­u­men­ta­tion. Source: yamobi.ru

A small amount of inter­nal mem­o­ry can be expand­ed using a microSD card. Sup­port­ed up to 128 GB. The 5.45” screen has HD+ res­o­lu­tion. The main cam­era has a res­o­lu­tion of 8 megapix­els, and the front cam­era has a res­o­lu­tion of 5 megapix­els. The bat­tery capac­i­ty of 2600 mAh is enough for one day. The case is assem­bled well and the smart­phone is not very heavy, so it can with­stand falls quite con­fi­dent­ly.

• pro­duc­tiv­i­ty — 4
• dis­play — 6
• inter­nal mem­o­ry — 5
• RAM — 5
• build­ing — 8
• bat­tery — 5
• cam­era — 3
• val­ue for mon­ey — 8
• total score — 5.5

Samsung Galaxy A01 Core is the brand’s cheapest smartphone

Anoth­er bud­get smart­phone for school­child­ren for six thou­sand rubles. One of the cheap­est mod­els in the Sam­sung line­up, so don’t expect too much from it. Sam­sung Galaxy A01 Core equipped with Medi­aTek MT6739 proces­sor. The smart­phone has 1 GB of RAM and only 16 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry. Despite the sim­pli­fied ver­sion of the Android 10 Go Edi­tion oper­at­ing sys­tem, the gad­get is not as fast as the pre­vi­ous ZTE Blade A3 2020 NFC.

With a large cutout for the front cam­era, the Galaxy A01 Core los­es a lot to flag­ship mod­els. Source: cnet.com

The advan­tages include a good 3000 mAh bat­tery, the charge of which is enough for a day of active use of the smart­phone. The mod­el does not have an NFC mod­ule or a fin­ger­print scan­ner. The main cam­era is 8MP and the front cam­era is 5MP. The IPS-dis­play has a diag­o­nal of 5.3 ″ and a res­o­lu­tion of 1480x720 pix­els.

The inter­nal mem­o­ry can be expand­ed with a microSD card up to 512 GB. The case by the stan­dards of frag­ile Sam­sung smart­phones turned out to be durable.

• pro­duc­tiv­i­ty — 4
• dis­play — 6
• inter­nal mem­o­ry — 4
• RAM — 5
• build­ing — 8
• bat­tery — 6
• cam­era — 4
• val­ue for mon­ey — 8
• total score — 5.6

Realme C21 is a budget phone with good specs

A smart­phone can be bought for about nine thou­sand rubles. Equipped with a Medi­aTek Helio G35 proces­sor and 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of inter­nal mem­o­ry. You can option­al­ly insert a 256 GB microSD card. As an oper­at­ing sys­tem, the devel­op­ers have cho­sen a full-fledged Android 10, which works sta­bly and quick­ly on this con­fig­u­ra­tion.

On the back of the smart­phone is a block of three cam­eras and a flash. Source: www.abworldnews.com

The screen is quite large — 6.5″. Res­o­lu­tion — 1600x720 pix­els. The main block with cam­eras con­sists of three mod­ules:

• main 13 MP;
• macro at 2 MP;
• tele­pho­to 2 megapix­el.

The front cam­era of Realme C21 has a res­o­lu­tion of 5 megapix­els. The gad­get is pow­ered by a 5000 mAh bat­tery. On a sin­gle charge, the smart­phone can work up to two days. The case looks good and is of good qual­i­ty. Suit­able as the first smart­phone for a child of 7 years to school or as an inex­pen­sive phone for an old­er stu­dent.

• pro­duc­tiv­i­ty — 6
• dis­play — 7
• inter­nal mem­o­ry — 6
• RAM — 6
• build­ing — 8
• bat­tery — 7
• cam­era — 5
• val­ue for mon­ey — 7
• total score — 6.5

Xiaomi Poco F3 (128 GB) is a top smartphone for any student

This gad­get scored the high­est score in the Roskach­est­vo rat­ing, although you can’t call it a bud­get one — it costs more than 25 thou­sand rubles. Xiao­mi Poco F3 is the suc­ces­sor of the pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tion Poco F2 Pro. The devel­op­ers decid­ed to remove the Pro pre­fix from the mod­el name.

Xiao­mi Poco F3 is eas­i­ly rec­og­niz­able thanks to its large cam­era unit. Source: techadvisor.com

Giv­en the good con­fig­u­ra­tion, the cost of the smart­phone does not seem so high: a 120 Hz AMOLED dis­play with a bright­ness of up to 1300 cd / m2, stereo speak­ers, 5G, stereo speak­ers and a Snap­drag­on 870 5G proces­sor. A pow­er­ful chipset paired with 6 GB of RAM is enough to run all mod­ern games. The gad­get is pow­ered by a 4520 mAh bat­tery, which holds a charge for about two days.

The main sen­sor has a res­o­lu­tion of 48 megapix­els, and next to it is an 8 megapix­el ultra-wide angle and telemacro lens. There is no opti­cal zoom. The 20 MP front cam­era is built into the screen in the form of a small hole in the cen­ter.

• pro­duc­tiv­i­ty — 8
• dis­play — 9
• inter­nal mem­o­ry — 8
• RAM — 7
• build­ing — 7
• bat­tery — 7
• cam­era — 9
• val­ue for mon­ey — 7
• total score — 7.75

Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro is a flagship for reasonable money

The flag­ship mod­el of the Red­mi brand worth about 22 thou­sand rubles for the 6/64 GB ver­sion. The smart­phone runs on a Qual­comm Snap­drag­on 732G proces­sor. It has a high-qual­i­ty AMOLED dis­play at 120 Hz with a peak bright­ness of 1200 nits. The front and back pan­els are made of durable Goril­la Glass 5, so they resist scratch­es well. On the side of the case is a fin­ger­print scan­ner. A good flag­ship smart­phone for a child to school, if par­ents are will­ing to spend more than 20 thou­sand rubles.

In appear­ance, Xiao­mi Red­mi Note 10 Pro is clear that this is the flag­ship mod­el of the brand. Source: techradar.com

Bat­ter­ies with a capac­i­ty of 5020 mAh are enough for two days of using a smart­phone. 33W fast charg­ing is pro­vid­ed. On the back side there is a block with four cam­eras:

• the main one at 108 MP;
• ultra wide-angle 8 MP;
• telemacro at 5 MP;
• 2 MP depth sen­sor.

The res­o­lu­tion of the front cam­era of Xiao­mi Red­mi Note 10 Pro is 16 megapix­els. The phone is worth its mon­ey and deserves the title of the peo­ple. Suit­able not only for ele­men­tary school, but also for old­er stu­dents.

• pro­duc­tiv­i­ty — 7
• dis­play — 8
• inter­nal mem­o­ry — 7
• RAM — 7
• build­ing — 7
• bat­tery — 8
• cam­era — 8
• val­ue for mon­ey — 7
• total score — 7.4

Realme 8 Pro is an inexpensive smartphone with a good camera

Mid-bud­get smart­phone with a good cam­era at a price of 19 thou­sand rubles. A pop­u­lar mod­el, it can be dif­fi­cult to find on sale. The smart­phone turned out to be very thin and light. The back cov­er is plas­tic, but pleas­ant to the touch. The case is assem­bled with high qual­i­ty.

On the back of the Realme 8 Pro, there is a very catchy inscrip­tion that not all users like. Source: pocketlint.com

The gad­get is equipped with a 6.4” AMOLED dis­play with Full HD+ res­o­lu­tion. The max­i­mum bright­ness is 1000 nits, and the screen refresh rate is only 60 Hz, although many com­peti­tors offer 120 Hz for the mon­ey.

The main fea­ture of this smart­phone for a stu­dent was the main cam­era Sam­sung ISOCELL HM2 with a res­o­lu­tion of 108 megapix­els, although 12 megapix­els is set by default. There is no opti­cal zoom, but the man­u­fac­tur­er claims that 3x dig­i­tal zoom is in no way infe­ri­or to it. The main cam­era is com­ple­ment­ed by an 8MP ultra wide-angle lens, a 2MP macro lens, and a 2MP depth sen­sor. The res­o­lu­tion of the front cam­era is 16 megapix­els.

The gad­get is pow­ered by a Qual­comm Snap­drag­on 720G proces­sor and 6 GB of RAM. The amount of inter­nal stor­age is 128 GB. The 4500 mAh bat­tery is enough for two days of smart­phone use.

• pro­duc­tiv­i­ty — 6
• dis­play — 7
• inter­nal mem­o­ry — 8
• RAM — 7
• build­ing — 8
• bat­tery — 7
• cam­era — 7
• val­ue for mon­ey — 7
• total score — 7.1

Samsung Galaxy M12 is a universal option for a student

Anoth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Kore­an brand is a large smart­phone with a pow­er­ful bat­tery. Sam­sung Galaxy M12 will suit all stu­dents. For 12 thou­sand rubles, the man­u­fac­tur­er offers a pro­pri­etary Sam­sung Exynos 850 proces­sor, an ARM Mali-G52 graph­ics chip, 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of per­ma­nent mem­o­ry. There is a slot for two SIM-cards and microSD mem­o­ry cards up to 1 TB.

The ribbed body is a visu­al effect. In fact, the sur­face is smooth. Source: www.ungeek.ph

The 5000 mAh bat­tery holds a charge for a long time. With active use of the smart­phone, the bat­tery lasts for two days. Sup­ports 15W fast charg­ing. The smart­phone was equipped with an NFC mod­ule for con­tact­less pay­ments.

The case is made of plas­tic, but it looks good and is of high qual­i­ty. On the back side there is a quad cam­era with four sen­sors:

• main at 48 MP;
• 5MP ultra wide angle;
• 2 MP depth sen­sor;
• 2 megapix­el macro lens.

A good smart­phone for school­child­ren, suit­able not only for calls and instant mes­sen­gers, but also for not the most demand­ing games.

• pro­duc­tiv­i­ty — 7
• dis­play — 7
• inter­nal mem­o­ry — 7
• RAM — 6
• build­ing — 8
• bat­tery — 7
• cam­era — 7
• val­ue for mon­ey — 8
• total score — 7.1

Results

We have reviewed all the best smart­phones for pri­ma­ry school stu­dents and old­er stu­dents. Now let’s col­lect them all in a com­mon table accord­ing to the grades:

If you need a bud­get smart­phone for a 7‑year-old child to go to school, take a look at the ZTE Blade A3 2020 NFC or Sam­sung Galaxy A01 Core. The child is unlike­ly to be able to play on them, but they are quite enough to main­tain com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Old­er stu­dents will like Realme C21. This is a uni­ver­sal option that is suit­able for com­mu­ni­ca­tion, social net­work­ing, and not the most demand­ing games.

High school stu­dents will like more advanced smart­phones: Realme 8 Pro, Sam­sung Galaxy M12 and Red­mi Note 10 Pro. Although they are far from the flag­ship ones, for most teenagers their per­for­mance is more than enough. The top one in our rank­ing is Xiao­mi Poco F3 – you can freely play your favorite games on this gad­get.