So, it’s time of the year again when these mid-flagships are announced. These are the phones which provide extreme value for money. They pack in some great hardware and still just more then half the price of real high end flagships like the Galaxy S series and Pixels. In a market like India, these type of phones have been super hit as many look for value for money devices without shelling out much cash. This year is also going to be a fiesta of Flagship killers with the likes of OnePlus 7, Zenfone 6 and Honor 10. Also it is expected each of them will also have a ‘Pro’ version which is more beefier but would cost a good amount of price.
OnePlus 7
Everyone’s favourite ,OnePlus which started the trend of flagship killer back then when it announced the OnePlus One. The Chinese brand has come a long way since then and is ready to provide to the market another killer phone but at not so killer price.
OnePlus 6T was received positively but for the specs it had to offer. It was criticised for the increase in prices of its phones. Now, they are set to launch next generation devices in form of OnePlus 7. Yes, devices! because it’s gonna announce OnePlus 7 along with a Pro variant of the same. With tons of leaks and rumours going around, we know that ‘Pro’ will be a substantially different from normal variant. As far as design is concerned OnePlus 7 is said to sport same design as 6T meaning a waterdrop notch and same screen size and resolution. Things change with the OnePlus 7 Pro. It will have full edge to edge to display with no notch whatsoever. A pop-up selfie camera is going to be implemented. Here are some new tech built in for the Pro which never have been implemented in Oneplus devices:-
- 6.67 inches 2K AMOLED Display
- 90Hz display refresh rate
- UFS 3.0 (Supplied by Samsung)
- HDR10+ support
Rest of the specs include the mighty SoC i.e. Snapdragon 855 with 6GB, 8GB and even 12GB RAM configurations. Also the Pro variant is supposed to have a triple camera configuration of 48MP, 16MP & 8MP. Battery on the Pro is expected to be 4000mAh whereas on OnePlus 7 everything seems same as OnePlus 6T except for the SoC. Overall the OnePlus7 Pro is the real deal this time and its price is also gonna be real expensive this time compared to previous generation OnePlus’. Even pricing has been leaked and the base variant of 6GB RAM of the OnePlus 7 Pro to start at Rs. 49,999. Samsung’s flagship S10 series is just a couple of bucks more then this.
The OnePlus is set to launch on 14th May 2019 and its live event will be held in New York, London and Bangalore.
Read more about OnePlus 7 here
Watch the live stream here
Asus Zenfone 6
Recently Asus phones have been been a bang for the buck and at the same time underrated to. Last year’s Zenfone 5z was one of them, amazing smartphone, neck to neck with the OnePlus 6 & 6T and a price you can only imagine. Sadly lack of marketing and less coverage it didn’t create a buzz in the market as opposed to OnePlus which does rigorous marketing. I have personally used the Zenfone 5z and its an amazing device especially the design and performance is best in class and price.
The Zenfone 6 is Asus’ next flagship and who know they might launch a couple of devices under this series. That’ll we’ll know during the launch event only. This device has also been leaked heavily, but the irony is, there is not such a leak which can 100% guarantee that this particular leak is true. Though Asus has released some official features which are present on its next flagship on its social media handles. The same is below-
Other features include as expected the Snapdragon 855 which Asus confirmed which also was leaked by Geekbench. A 1080p display above 6 inch is expected but wheter IPS or OLED, that is unkown. The battery is a massive 5000mAh. It is very unlikely that Asus will equip a triple camera this time so the dual cameras will be of 48MP and 13MP one of the being an ultra wide angle lens. Asus will also announce its next generation of custom skin, ZenUI 6 with this phone.
All in all, this device is sure to compete with the likes OnePlus 7 and Honor 20 as it packs everything which its competitors also have. Asus needs to focus more on its marketing so that people get to know that Yes there’s also a phone other then OnePlus that can perform and work as flagships at a lesser price. Asus can be termed as an underdog but it is even older then OnePlus in the market and it does have what it takes to be successful in the smartphone market.
Now some leaks of Asus Zenfone 6:
The irony is, none of them justify the teaser revealed by Asus which even had a headphone jack and rounded corners. Though the cover leaks seems pretty legit. Still unkown whether they’ll go for pop-up camera or a slide,
Zenfone 6 (series) is set to launch on 16 May at Valencia, Spain and the same can be watched here
Honor 20
Honor is a brand which does launch some great devices but sometimes unnecessary ones. This is because at the same price they’ll launch similar devices with little bit ups and downs in specs and features. Honor 20 seems one of them with the already existence of the punch hole phone, Honor View20.
The Honor 20 series is the successor to the Honor 10 which launched last year around the same time frame as this year. It was on of the first phone with gradient back and looked stunning though not in interest of all. It borrowed some essentials from the Huawei P20 series like a small notch and fingerprint scanner on the front. It was a very compact device.
The Honor 20 is expected to take the photography to next level in the mid-flagship range. It is also teased with 4 sensors by a leakster on Twitter. This device is also not left and have got leaked several times already recently.
The phone will come with Huawei’s flagship SoC Kirin 980 which is used in all top end Honor & Huawei phones like Huawei P30, Mate 20 and Honor View20. The all new EMUI 9.1 with Android 9 Pie will come along. The screen will be full screen 6.1 inch OLED display with in-display fingerprint scanner. As expected it will come in various gradient colours as it is in Huawei’s DNA to include that.
The purpose of Honor 20 is little strange with already avaiable Honor View20 at less price. Its just that the optics on Honor 20 would be better but that doesnt mean the View20 has bad cameras. It would be interesting to see how it would stack up against the Zenfone 6 and OnePlus 7.
The Honor 20 series is launching on May 21 at London
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