Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Does a Cheap 2018 Smartphone beat a 2013 Flagship?”.
So someone asked me a question the other day they said Aaron, I’m looking for a new smartphone, but I’ve got a seriously tight budget of $ 200. Should I buy an older flagship smartphone? Should I buy a newer budget smartphone and I couldn’t give them an immediate answer, so I decided to dig a little bit deeper and let’s find out to find the answer. We’Ve got two of the best smartphones in each category. We’Ve got the Xiaomi me 5x, which has an alternative version called the me a one running stock Android, but they’re more or less the same internally, and that goes for around $ 200.
We’Ve then got the Galaxy Note 3 released at $ 600, but you can now get a more or less brand new one for 200 and a little bit less. If you go, pre-owned we’ve installed Nova Launcher on both to bring attention to each of the phones raw capabilities, instead of just the different skins that manufacturers put on top of Android we’ll get on to the power of the two phones in just a bit, which i Think is a really interesting button indeed, but first the displays both are 1920 by 1080p panels, which is pretty good, but you’ll instantly recognize the Super AMOLED tech on show with the Samsung. This is a technology that even today, tends to be reserved for flagship phones and there’s no denying it makes a world of difference to image quality. The 2013 note 3 has good viewing angles and produces beautifully deep, colors and inky blacks for some really high levels. Of contrast, but whilst more recent AMOLED flagships have managed to do this while retaining color accuracy, this was not so much the case in 2013, with the note 3, which has far too warmer color palettes out the box.
However, Samsung did let you tinker with this and regardless the note 3 kills the picture quality of the meet 5x. But what about the cameras? Perhaps the most obvious thing, you’ll notice first – is that the new 5x has a dual camera. The note 3 does not fun fact. We actually saw dual cameras on a phone all the way back in 2011 with the HTC EVO 3d, but at the time they were used to capture 3d images and it wasn’t until 2016 that we really started seeing dual cameras for the purposes of taking better quality Images – and that is what we’re getting with the me 5x, so immediately, this phone has a bit of a leg up.
It’S got a very convincing portrait mode which uses the dual cameras to perceive depth and apply huge levels of depth of field or bokeh or blur. Whatever you want to call it to the background – and this truly makes the foreground standout mu5 X – can also zoom in whilst barely losing any quality, and that is not the case with the note 3, whilst both rear cameras on the 5x are packing. A 12 megapixel resolution, the single camera on the note 3 has 13. So when push comes to shove, the older smartphone here is actually capable of higher levels of detail, but unfortunately it is just so much harder to get photos. That look is good. The shutter time is slower, meaning that if you aren’t completely steady when you’re taking your photo, it’s gon na come out blurry. The me 5x also has better high dynamic range capabilities and a wide angle which lets you capture more of your scene. Both hands shoot 4k.
Video and in this category to the 5x has a slight edge in terms of dynamic range and noise. To be honest, the xiaomi is about as good as $ 200 phone cameras get in 2018, and in this case you can quite clearly see that cameras are an area where nu a is better. But what about power? Which, i think is a particularly interesting area because back in 2013, when the note 3 was released, it was the most powerful phone in the world, whereas when was released in 2017, the xiaomi me 5x was definitely not the note 3 hadley snapdragon 800, a flagship system On a chip from 2013 and the xiaomi has a snapdragon 625, which in 2018 is pretty mid-range. Okay, I’m about to get a little bit technical here, but hopefully this will make sense. So the Snapdragon 800 is based off a 28 nanometer fabrication process. The 625 is based off 14. It’S. What has happened between these two chips is known as a die shrink and is essentially a situation in which an identical circuit has been created, but one that exists in a smaller area.
This huge shrink and eye size not only reduces the current that is needed by eg transistor, making a product with a lower total power consumption, but also it allows more chips to be crammed onto the same wafer, which reduces costs and allows more powerful chips to come To cheaper phones – and this is much to the detriment of the Samsung, exactly what has happened here. The me 5x is more responsive scores higher on benchmarks and is far more capable in terms of gaming. This is a perfect example of how processing power is moving forward rapidly. A few years is enough to make a transformative difference to how the phone feels one more thing that you really have to bear in mind. If you’re going down the Android root is that with an older phone you’re missing out on up-to-date software, even the top-tier flagship phones, they tend to remain up to date for two years at the very maximum, and even though budget phones are even less likely to get These updates, if you’re buying a recent one like the me 5x or the me a1 you’ve got a bit of a head start compared to the Android 5.0.
On the note, the Sharma enjoys things like Android pay, support for USB type-c and faster data transfers, better multitasking and so much more. It’S just a richer mobile experience. So, of course, there are tons of other factors that we could try and compare between these two phones, such as build quality speakers battery capacity, but these all vary wildly from phone to phone and they’re, not characteristics that have really trended upwards or downwards they’re, not necessarily Things that have gotten better or worse over time, the key areas of improvement buying a modern budget phone, as opposed to an older flagship, are probably going to be seen in terms of camera processing, power efficiency, as well as the software experience.
But this video is an example of how you might actually get a better quality display. If you go for an older flagship, all things considered, then the modern budget smartphone seems to be a more compelling option. So if budget is an issue, then a $ 200 phone from 2017 or 2018 seems like a good sweet spot.
I wouldn’t go much cheaper, as you start to make some serious compromises and the yields from going more expensive all noticeable are definitely diminishing. Thanks a lot for watching guys, I really do hope you enjoyed the video and, if you did, it would mean a lot to me. If you could smash a subscribe button. My name is Erin. This is mr. who’s. The boss and .