Lydia Scott
【Gearbest Technology】The US smartphone market is monopolized by Apple and a few brands representing the Android camp. Foreign media Android Police said that most of the best Android smartphones we recommend are made by Samsung, Google and OnePlus. Although there are some other brands (such as Motorola) active in certain price segments, no brand can occupy the flagship market like these three companies.
Foreign media reviews 5 excellent mobile phones that are not available in the United States
There are so many other options in the world of smartphones outside of North America that it's hard to pick a favorite. So we're sharing some of the best smartphones in international markets that we think the U.S. is missing out on.
Xiaomi Mi 14 Series
When our editor Manuel Vonau reviewed last year's Xiaomi Mi 13 Pro, he was particularly impressed by its camera performance. Xiaomi's collaboration with Leica not only excels in color, but also makes the camera app feel smoother. This year's Xiaomi Mi 14 Pro has improved its photography again. In the photo comparison by foreign media GizmoChina, you will find that the photos taken by the Xiaomi Mi 14 series cameras are more vibrant. And the photos taken are clearer and richer in details, which becomes obvious when you zoom in.
But that's not all. There's another, more premium Mi 14 model out there, and it looks to be an absolute camera monster. From the official renders, you can see that the Mi 14 Ultra has some eye-popping design elements, including a multi-layered camera module that takes up a large portion of the back. We just hope the image quality matches the visuals, because the previous generation Ultra was a pretty great camera, and we expect the same from the Mi 14 Ultra.
Android Police review: Xiaomi Mi 14 Ultra’s camera is excellent
OPPO Find X7 Ultra
It's not an unknown fact that OnePlus and OPPO are essentially the same company. But the OPPO Find X7 Ultra's imaging configuration is so superior to the OnePlus Open and the newly launched OnePlus 12 that we're looking forward to a OnePlus 12 Ultra. The OPPO phone has a huge camera bump with a built-in quad camera. In addition to wide-angle and ultra-wide-angle cameras, it is also equipped with two telephoto cameras, one of which can achieve 2.8x optical zoom and the other can double the optical zoom to 6x.
All four lenses are equipped with 50-megapixel sensors, so there's no drop in resolution, and you still get the Hasselblad branding and color tuning. All these fancy features are not in vain, Nirave Gondhia found that the OPPO Find X7 Ultra is a better camera phone than the OnePlus 12, although OxygenOS is still better than ColorOS.
Android Police review: I hope OnePlus can make such a cutting-edge phone
Fairphone 5
Although a little less than artificial intelligence, repairability has also been a hot topic in the tech world. The Fairphone 5 is probably the most repairable phone out there. It allows users to easily and quickly replace a dead battery, but Fairphone didn't stop there, it took it a step further.
Parts like USB ports, speaker units, and even camera modules can be easily replaced by users themselves in a matter of minutes using minimal tools. This also makes the phone more environmentally friendly since you won’t be throwing it away when it breaks down. While the performance of this phone may not be as good as it could be, it has earned a good reputation for its unique repair system.
Android Police review: Open, replace, fix, done!
vivo X100 Pro
Collaboration with professional camera brands has become a common practice in the smartphone industry. Vivo currently also maintains a partnership with Zeiss. However, this special partnership also extends to the hardware level, and the company has chosen a coating that reduces lens glare for clearer photos. Vivo and Zeiss have collaborated on the color of the X100 Pro, which is impressive. The phone has three rear cameras, and they can provide consistent colors when switching between the three cameras, which is often a pain point for multi-camera phones.
The vivo X100 Pro is one of the few high-end phones that uses MediaTek's flagship chip instead of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Despite this, its performance in daily tasks and even games is still up to par, but Android Police says that vivo's Funtouch OS is not for everyone.
Android Police review: Integrating the word “professional” into the camera
Honor Magic V2
A big problem with foldable phones is that they are bulky because the two-half design increases the overall thickness. But this is not the case with the Honor Magic V2. When folded, it is only 9.9mm thick and not heavy compared to ordinary phones, making it very convenient for daily use and carrying. Android Police commented that although the foldable design itself is exciting, the Magic V2 still surprises you when you first pick it up – before you get used to its slim shape, you will want to confirm whether it is really foldable.
Despite its fairly compact build, this phone doesn't compromise on anything else. It has top-notch specs that rival any high-end phone. It would have been a solid competitor to the current crop of foldable phones, but it doesn't look like it's coming to the US at all.
Android Police review: Really light, feels like magic
at last
We often say that mainstream smartphones have become fairly stagnant, with no real innovations outside of some routine upgrades each year. But if you look beyond the three major Android phone manufacturers in the United States, there's still a lot of interesting stuff to be found. There are now a large number of “Ultra” phones in the Asian and European markets that can easily compete with the Samsung S24 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max.
One brand wants to bring back the good old days of automatically swappable batteries, while another is willing to make foldable phones more accessible to everyone… This diversity in the global smartphone space makes us look forward to the future of Android phones.
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