1) Xiaomi Pocophone F1

Top phones for around $400 1) Xiaomi Pocophone F1 - $434 LINK Chipset – Snapdragon 845 (Adreno 630) (This chip has a second generation 10nm processor, allowing for more efficient travel between the transistors. This means that this processor would be both faster and more energy efficient than say, a 14nm process) Uses DynamIQ cluster architecture, which combines multiple CPU cores into a single cluster, this extends on the big.LITTLE architecture which was designed for more power efficiency whilst still driving up performance. The Snapdragon 845 has Qualcomm’s Hexagon 685 DSP, a co-processor used for AI and machine learning. This special chip was introduced to handle the computation of large vectors, something that general-purpose chips struggle to compute as quickly. The hexagon 685 DSP can handle thousands of bits of vector units per processing cycle, whereas a standard CPU could process a few hundred. What this means, is that the DSP is capable of juggling various execution units on a single instruction, which helps to better support on- device AI processing, richer camera images, voice, and even XR and gaming experiences. Not only does it improve the on-board features we use daily, but the new architecture used in these chips, improves overall performance even when idle. The choice of chip for this phone, at this price point, was definitely a good decision for Xiaomi. Memory – The Pocophone comes in 2 variants, the first comes with 6GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage, and the other option offers the same amount of RAM, alongside 128GB of storage. This storage is also expandable via MicroSD card. Camera – The rear facing camera on the Pocophone offers a 12MP and 5MP Dual pixel camera with an f/1.9 aperture and 1.4um pixels, which offers Dual-LED Flash, Panorama and HDR a standard. The selfie camera offers a 20MP image resolution with a pixel size of 0.9um, and an aperture of f/2.0, whilst also having a HDR feature. IR face unlock is another feature present on this phone, which isn’t often seen at this price point. Hardware Accelerated Face detection, Multi-Frame Noise Reduction. Active Depth Sensing and Hybrid Autofocus, are some of the best features the camera on the Pocophone has to offer. Video – The Pocophone offers 720p at 960FPS, 1080p video at 240FPS and 2160p at 30/60FPS. A recent update also gave the Pocophone the capability of 4k 60FPS video recording. Other features/Battery and Display This phone has an impressive 4000mah battery life, on par with the Galaxy S10 flagship. The screen size is a good-sized 6.18 inches, with a 2246 x 1080 FHD+ screen, with 403 ppi. Qualcomm have engineered this phone for an all-day battery life. With the Qualcomm Kryo CPU built on ARM Cortex technology, and Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 4 capable of charging your phone up to 50% in as little as 15 minutes, this phone allows you to use your phone for a lot longer before needing to charge again. This phone also supports wireless charging, something a few other contenders don’t offer. Alongside IR face recognition, it comes with a fingerprint sensor mounted on the back of the phone. 2) Honor View 10 - $421 LINK Chipset – Kirin 970 (Mali G72) – Much like the Snapdragon 845 present on the Pocophone, this chipset also uses a 10nm process. Both the snapdragon 845 and the Kirin 970 have 8 cores, but the snapdragon’s cores are clocked higher. With the 4 big cores clocked at 2.8 GHz, and the 4 little cores clocked at 1.77 GHz, it beats the Kirin’s clock scores which fall at 4 of the big cores operating up to 2.36 GHz, and the little cores operating up to 1.8 GHz. The Kirin 970 also uses the big.LITTLE architecture present in the Pocophone. The Honor also boasts “GPU turbo”, a software supposedly capable of providing a 60% performance boost, while saving 30% power. Memory – The Honor Play comes with 128GB of internal memory, and 4GB of RAM. This is the standard for most phones, so nothing shocking here. The Honor Play does support the use of a MicroSD card, allowing for expandable storage, however. Camera – The rear facing camera on the Honor uses a dual camera, with a single camera in the front. The rear facing camera is 16MP with an F/1.8 aperture and PDAF, while there is also a second telephoto 20MP black and white lens. While the rear facing camera seems to have more megapixels than the one on the Pocophone, the Pocophone has higher megapixels on the dual second camera, with a higher pixel size. The pixel size on the Honor’s rear camera, comes in at around 1.13um, which is quite a bit lower. The front camera on the Honor, however, has a 13MP camera with a pixel size of 1.13um, and an aperture of f/2, which is significantly better that what the front facing camera on the Pocophone provides. The Honor only has LED Flash, as opposed to the Dual flash seen in the Pocophone, but offers similar features such as Autofocus, HDR and face detection, as seen in nearly all phones. Video - The Honor Play stresses about its AI camera, which recognizes in real time, around 22 different categories of subjects, including different shooting scenarios and automatically adjusts the shooting parameters accordingly. Other features/Battery and Display This phone offers a 3750mah battery, and uses Huawei Super Charge 3.0, notably the fastest quick charging standard. In a comparison done by notebookcheck.net, Huawei super charge led the way with an impressive 46.57mah/min, with Qualcomm only achieving 30mah/min, contradicting Qualcomm’s self-proclaimed 50% in 15 minutes projection. But despite this charging speed being better, the battery is slightly lower than the Pocophone’s 4000mah, but the differences between the battery performances in these phones, are realistically little to none. The Honor has a 5.99” inch screen, and uses an LTPS LCD screen with a 403ppi, the resolution comes in slightly better than the Pocophone at 2340x1080, but the difference here is minimal, and wouldn’t have a significant affect. The phone also has a rear mounted fingerprint sensor. Conclusion – the Pocophone comes ahead in first place due to utilising one of the newest Qualcomm processors, and its use of Hexagon 685 DSP, allows it to overtake its competitors at a very good price point. The current price different between the Pocophone and the Honor is minimal, both phones can be found for around the same price, but with one being a stronger contender, the Pocophone. 3) Google Pixel 3A Chipset – Snapdragon 670 (Adreno 615) – Much like the snapdragon 845 found in the Pocophone, this chipset also uses the Hexagon 685 DSP. This phone also has an octa-core CPU like The Honor and Pocophone, but has its own way of using the big.LITTLE architecture, it has 2 clusters of cores, but one cluster contains 2 cores and the other 6, unlike the traditional 4 to 4. The 2 big cores are clocked at 2GHz, whereas the 6 little cores are clocked at 1.7GHz, this is already notably less than the Honor Play in second place. Memory - The Pixel 3A also comes with 64B of internal memory, alongside 4GB of RAM, much like the Honor View 10, unfortunately, unlike the previous 2 phones, the Pixel 3a offers no expandable storage, creating an issue for those who need more storage. Camera – The camera on the Pixel 3A is impressive, but lacks a lot of the features seen in the Pixel 3 flagship, that really made googles camera a contender. Firstly, PVC (Pixel Visual Core) an advanced image processing unit which was custom designed by google to be a co- processor for their camera, is usually used to handle application-level resource requests, and Is optimised for high performance when in use, using around 6-8W for short 10-20m seconds bursts before going back to its idle state and dropping to a milliwatt of usage. This phone relies on both hardware and software to achieve its high performance, which may be why it isn’t being used on the Snapdragon 670. The lack of the feature means that the processing of HDR photos, takes around double the time of which the Pixel 3 flagship does. Not only does this phone not use that feature, but it also omits the spectral + flicker sensor, which was used to avoid flicker in certain light conditions. Despite this, the camera is fairly impressive using the same specs as the flagship Pixel 3, the rear camera uses a dual-pixel 12.2MP camera, with a 1.4um pixel width, and an f/1.8 aperture, but google relies heavily on post-processing to increase photo quality. The front camera has an 8MP sensor, with a 1.12um pixel size and f/2.0 aperture. The camera specs are very close to that of the Pocophone, especially the rear camera, but googles processing generally puts the edge to most competitors. Some of the most notable rear camera features include, Auto-Focus with dual-pixel phase detection, optical + electronic image stabilisation, Super Res Zoom, HDR, Top Shot and night sight. The range of features alongside the processing added to photos, make’s the rear camera on googles phone, the best we’ve seen so far. Video – The video shooting on the Pixel 3A is similar to most phones of this price point, 1080P at 30, 60 and 120FPS, 720P at 30, 60 and 240FPS and 4k at 30FPS.

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