BEST MOBILE PHONES UNDER 25000 IN INDIA

The OnePlus Nord is a new budget offering from OnePlus, which manages to deliver a similar Android experience as the OnePlus 8, but at a more affordable price. OnePlus has kept all the staples such as the AMOLED display, Warp Charge fast charging, and a big battery in the Nord. However, it has made some cuts when it comes to the SoC and the build quality. The OnePlus Nord still has glass on the back, but instead of a metal frame, it's plastic.

The SoC used is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G, and not an 800-series chip as we're used to seeing. However, the Nord does support 5G, which is a cool bonus. As an overall package, it's really hard to find fault with the OnePlus Nord. App and gaming performance is good, it captures good photos and videos in daylight, and the display supports HDR10+.

Low-light image quality suffers a bit, but that's pretty much this phone's only major weakness. Battery life is very good and the single speaker gets decently loud. One impressive feature of the OnePlus Nord is its ability to shoot selfie videos at 4K 60fps, which is something even the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro can't do.

The Realme X3 SuperZoom features a periscope-style telephoto camera, which is the first we've seen in this price segment. The 8-megapixel telephoto camera features 5x optical zoom and a maximum of 60x hybrid zoom. Camera performance is very good during the day, but not so much at night. To help with the latter, there's Night mode, which is quite effective. The main 64-megapixel camera captures good photos in daylight, but struggles a bit in low light. The X3 SuperZoom can record video at 4K and the quality is good in the day, but could be better when shooting at night. 

The X3 SuperZoom uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ SoC, which offers plenty of processing power for apps and games. The phone also featrues a 120Hz refresh rate LCD panel, so scrolling through menus feels fluid. Battery life is also solid. The X3 SuperZoom is also very well built and looks stylish. It's mising stereo speakers but the single bottom-firing speaker gets pretty loud. The phone runs Realme UI, based on Android 10. 

The Realme X50 Pro is 5G ready and features the top-end Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor. In terms of performance, this device is excellent for gaming as well as general productivity. Realme has also used high-speed RAM and storage, plus a 90Hz display, for a snappy overall experience. This is a mid-range flagship phone that truly can take on many of the much more expensive models in the market. 

The X50 Pro 5G is available in two muted colour options and looks quite premium with its glass and metal body. However, the back is slippery and this phone is somewhat bulky and heavy. What you'll notice first is the dual-camera cutout in the upper left corner of the screen.

The display is sharp and the speakers are surprisingly powerful. You get four rear cameras including a 2X optical zoom camera. We found photos to generally be very good, even ones shot with the lower-resolution wide-angle and zoom cameras. However, photos taken at night weren't always great, and 4K video looked artificial.

The Nord CE 5G from OnePlus caters to the lower end of the smartphone market. OnePlus claims that the CE in the name stands for Core Edition since the device is capable of delivering a core smartphone experience. The OnePlus Nord covers all the basics in terms of specifications and also has a 3.5mm headphone jack.

The OnePlus Nord CE 5G has a 6.43-inch AMOLED display with a holepunch for the selfie camera. It also has a 90Hz refresh rate. The display has good viewing angles and an in-display fingerprint scanner that's quick to unlock. The smartphone is thin and weighs 170gms which makes it comfortable for single-handed use.

OnePlus has picked the Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G processor and has 6GB, 8GB and 12GB RAM options. It is available in two storage variants but storage is non-expandable since it does not have a microSD card slot. 

The Nord CE 5G gets a triple camera setup consisting of a 64-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide angle camera, and a 2-megapixel mono camera. For selfies, it has a 16-megapixel. Daylight photos from the Nord CE were good but lowlight camera performance needed improvements. 

OnePlus has packed in a 4,500mAh battery in the Nord CE which is capable of delivering over a day worth of battery life. It also supports 30W fast charging and comes with a Warp Charge 30T charger in the box. 

The Samsung Galaxy F62 is a new mid-range smartphone, and only the second model in the recently introduced F series. The back and frame are built from plastic but this phone still manages to feel sturdy. It's a thick phone at 9.5mm, and it's heavier than the Galaxy M51 at 218g.  The highlight of the Samsung Galaxy F62 is the Exynos 9825 SoC. One UI looks slick, switching between apps is snappy, and the phone doesn't heat up with regular use. Games run just fine too. Titles such as CSR Racing 2 and Call of Duty: Mobile look great and run well.

Battery life is another big win for the Samsung Galaxy F62. The 7,000mAh battery easily lasted me close to two full days even with heavy usage, which was impressive.The cameras on the Galaxy F62 have been borrowed from the Galaxy M51 too. All the cameras on the Samsung Galaxy F62 do above-average jobs when shooting in daylight. Low-light performance is a little weak, especially when it comes to videos. 

If you want a phone that can easily last for more than a day even with very rigorous usage, you should consider it.

The Mi 10i is relatively affordable but still offers a 108-megapixel primary camera, 5G, an IP53 rating, and Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G processor. It also has some neat touches including a notification LED, 3.5mm audio socket, and stereo speakers. It's available in three variants, with up to 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Performance in everyday tasks is good, and even gaming posed no problem. The back of the phone doesn't get too warm when stressed. Camera performance was somewhat disappointing in the daytime and at night, especially the fact that the three secondary rear cameras are quite ordinary. 4K video came out looking discoloured and there's no stabilisation. Battery life on the other hand was impressive. 

The V20 is a part of Vivo's V series of smartphones. The company has focused on the design of the device and made is slim. The Vivo V20 measures 7.38mm in thickness and has a gradient pattern finish at the back. The back panel is made out of glass and feels premium to the touch. 

Powering the Vivo V20 is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G SoC which isn't the most powerful processor for this price. There is 8GB of RAM onboard and the V20 is available in two storage options, 128GB and 256GB. You do also have the option to expand storage further up to 1TB.

The Vivo V20 runs Android 11 with Vivo's custom FunTouchOS 11 on top. It packs in a 4,000mAh battery which is smaller than average. Vivo has bundled a 33W charger in the box which helps the phone charge quickly. It ran the video loop test for 14hours and 39 minutes which was lower than the competition.

It has a triple camera setup at the back consisting of a 64-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera that is also capable of macro shots and a 2-megapixel monochrome camera. At the front, it has a 44-megapixel selfie shooter that clicked high-resolution selfies. Camera performance was good in daylight. The lowlight camera performance was average and the Night mode did not deliver a brighter output but it did offer better details.

The Samsung Galaxy M51 is the first smartphone from the company to pack in a massive 7,000mAh battery. The Galaxy  M51 also gets a bigger 6.7-inch SuperAMOLED display with a full-HD+ resolution. Samsung has opted for the 20:9 aspect ratio which makes the device tall and narrow. The Galaxy M51 has a hole-punch camera at the center towards the top of the display. A few users could find this distracting while watching content.

Powering the Galaxy M51 is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G SoC which is a first for a Galaxy M series smartphone. It is capable of loading apps quickly as well as multitasking without any issues. Samsung has launched two variants, one with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of storage and the other with 8GB RAM and 128GB of storage. The Galaxy M51 has two Nano-SIM slots and a dedicated slot for microSD. The Galaxy M51 offered good performance without any lag or stutter when we used it.

Samsung has gone with a quad-camera setup on the Galaxy M51 consisting of a 64-megapixel primary camera, a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, a macro camera and a depth sensor. The camera clicked good photos in daylight with abundant details. Photos clicked using the wide-angle camera has distortion at the edges. Video recording tops out at 4K for the primary as well as the selfie camera but video stabilisation isn't great.

Battery performance was excellent and we could go beyond two days without needing the smartphone to be charged. The supplied charger is also quick to charge the device. 

The Vivo V19 is the successor to the Vivo V17 and is yet another selfie-focused smartphone from the company. Vivo has focused on the design and the build quality of the device and the V19 feels like a premium device. The body is made out of Corning Gorilla Glass 6 and feels premium to the touch. Vivo also offers it in some interesting colours.

The 6.44-inch AMOLED display has full-HD+ resolution and sharp output. It has excellent viewing angles, and the panel gets bright enough when outdoors. Vivo also offers an in-display fingerprint scanner on the Vivo V19 which is quick to unlock the device. Powering the smartphone is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 SoC which is weak. There is 8GB of RAM which helps the smartphone handle day-to-day tasks well.

It has a quad-camera setup at the back and a dual-camera setup for selfies. We found the camera performance to be good and the software easy to use. Daylight camera performance is good and the phone manages good edge detection in portrait shots. Low-light camera performance is acceptable but shooting in night mode is a tad slow. 

Oppo Reno 3 Pro was launched on 2nd March 2020 in India. This smartphone has a 6.4-inch AMOLED display along with an in-display fingerprint scanner.  The Oppo Reno 3 Pro is sold in three colours, Auroral Blue, Midnight Black and Sky White. It is powered by an octa-core MediaTek Helio P95 SoC. It comes with 8GB of RAM and has two storage options, 128GB and 256GB.

The Oppo Reno 3 Pro has a 4025mAh battery and also has support for 30W VOOC charging. It runs ColourOS 7 on top of Android 10. The AMOLED display has good viewing angles and the in-display fingerprint scanner is fast to unlock the device. It also has the face unlock feature which can be used to unlock the smartphone. 

It sports a quad-camera setup at the back consisting of a 64-megapixel primary sensor with an f/1.8 aperture, a 13-megapixel telephoto camera, an 8-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera with a 119-degree field of view, and a 2-megapixel mono camera. At the front, this phone has a 44-megapixel selfie shooter along with a 2-megapixel depth sensor. We found the photo quality to be good in daylight conditions and average in low-light conditions. The Reno 3 Pro has a night mode as well that helps take a better shot. Low-light video recording was a little disappointing. 

Battery performance on the Oppo Reno 3 Pro was good and the phone lasted us for about a day and a half easily before needing charge.