OnePlus Nord
The OnePlus Nord is OnePlus’ budget offering, which brings a similar software experience to the OnePlus 8 with cameras largely matching the flagship series. The good thing for fans is that the company has introduced OnePlus Nord at an aggressive price. OnePlus has kept AMOLED display, Warp Charge fast charging and good battery in this phone. However, compared to the flagship series, the company has made some shortcomings in it, such as its chipset and build quality. OnePlus Nord still has glass on the back, but instead of a metal frame, a plastic frame has been included, which looks like metal.
OnePlus Nord comes equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G chipset. However, the Nord comes with 5G support, which is not a useful feature in India at the moment, but it will not make you feel left out in the future. Its app and gaming performance is good. It captures good photos and videos in daylight and the display comes with HDR 10+ support.
Quality is compromised in low-light and this is the only major weakness of this phone. Battery life is very good and the single speaker performs averagely, but doesn’t disappoint. One impressive feature of the OnePlus is the ability to shoot 4K selfie videos at 60fps, which even the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro can’t do.
Redmi K20 Pro
Redmi K20 Pro is slowly moving into the sub-₹25,000 range. It is a powerful smartphone, with a pop-up selfie camera module. It has a large 6.39-inch display without any notch or hole-punch. The selfie camera has a 20-megapixel resolution and is set in a pop-up module.
The Redmi K20 Pro is powered by the powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 chipset, which was the flagship processor till last year. Redmi K20 Pro is available in two variants – 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage, priced at Rs 24,999. Second, 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage, which is available for Rs 29,999. Xiaomi has used a 4,000mAh battery in the Redmi K20 Pro and the phone supports 27W fast charging, but you only get an 18W charger in the box.
The triple rear camera setup of Redmi K20 Pro includes a 48-megapixel primary camera, a 13-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, and an 8-megapixel telephoto camera. The primary camera takes good pictures in good light and the details are also good. A slight barrel effect is seen in photos taken with a wide-angle camera. Low-light camera performance was good but zooming in showed a fair amount of grain in the output.
Redmi K20
The Redmi K20 is a well-designed smartphone and can still surpass some of the recently launched devices at this price point. The Redmi K20 gets the same design as the Redmi K20 Pro, with a glass back and a striking gradient pattern on the back. The 6.39-inch AMOLED display is good. It has a pop-up selfie camera, which provides full view in the display.
Redmi K20 works on Qualcomm Snapdragon 730 chipset. There are two variants of the device, in which the base variant comes with 6 GB RAM and 64 GB storage. The second one has 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage. This phone does not have a microSD card slot to expand storage, so you will have to choose the variant based on your requirement. It performs very well, though, compared to devices priced under sub-Rs 20,000.
Xiaomi has provided a triple camera setup at the back and a 20-megapixel selfie shooter on the front in Redmi K20. We saw that the performance of the camera was very good and the details in the pictures were also better. There is also an improvement in the wide-angle camera. Low-light camera performance was a bit lackluster. Selfies were good, but the selfie camera is a bit slow to come up. This phone also has a 4,000mAh battery and it gives good backup.
Vivo V19
Vivo V19 was added to Vivo’s V-series this year and is an upgrade to Vivo V17. It comes with a full-HD+ resolution display with a 6.44-inch AMOLED panel. The Vivo V19 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 712 chipset, which is undoubtedly an older and lighter processor for the price.
However, the phone has 8 GB RAM for multitasking. There are two storage options – 128 GB and 256 GB storage. Vivo V19 has a 4500mAh battery which gives good battery life. You get a 33-watt fast charger in the box, which is fast at charging the battery. Vivo V19 runs on custom Funtouch OS based on Android 10.
Vivo V19 has a quad-camera setup, which includes a 48-megapixel primary camera, an 8-megapixel wide-angle camera, a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. For selfie, it has a 32 megapixel selfie shooter and 8 megapixel ultra wide angle camera. The V19 is faster to lock focus and takes better photos in good lighting. Although quality degrades in low light, it is capable of controlling grains. Selfies taken with Vivo V19 are very good.
