Phone Reviews

It's hard to consider a product mainstream when there are only two or three people selling a small number of them. For foldable phones and tablets to really be accepted as the future of mobile, they have to be more accessible in design, availability, and price. Those are the goalposts that OPPO tried to hit with the company's first foldable device. With mixed excitement and cautious optimism, we took the OPPO Find N for a good spin to see how many points it managed to score on its first try.

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POCO started out as a Xiaomi sub-brand that offered almost high-end performance but with too many compromises to keep the price extremely low. Those compromises were primarily found in the materials used, giving it a cheaper look and feel that contrasted with its true power. Since then, however, POCO has grown out of its shell to use more premium materials while sometimes also increasing the price tag. The POCO F3 was launched to be the company's "Real Beast" and its return to form. It recently launched a new variant of the phone with a Midnight Silver color option, and we take it for a run to see if there's more to it than just a pretty rear.

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It wasn't too long ago when POCO, also known as Pocophone in other markets back then, launched to make Xiaomi's already affordable phones even more accessible. Standing on the shoulders of a very big smartphone giant, the POCO F1 shocked the world with its high-end specs and dirt-cheap price, though that did come with some compromises in materials and durability. Since then, POCO has grown to become its own brand, playing around with different formulas that mixed up design, hardware, and prices. With the POCO M4 Pro 5G, the company tries to take its legacy one step further, and we take it for a test to see if there is more to it than meets the eye.

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Our Google Pixel 6 Review is separate from that of the 6 Pro because they are two very different devices. Different not in their presentation of Android - there they're quite similar. Different in some of the most essential game-changing points of the smartphone experience. The Google Pixel 6 represents the strong bones of ideal Android 12 smartphone as envisioned by Google - it's more than just essential, and less than extravagant.

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The Google Pixel 6 Pro is the best Android phone in the world today - but is it right for you? This is really the first time Google has created a smartphone that's meant to battle the top-tier handsets in the industry, and it shows. But do you need the features that make this device cost more than its non-Pro companion?

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It has become harder and harder to define what constitutes a flagship phone these days. Technically speaking, any phone that becomes the brand's foremost product is considered its flagship. On a practical level, however, those are often the phones boasting high-end features that usually come with a matching price tag. It's in that latter context that Realme is bringing out its own flagship killer with a slightly different formula than those flagships. But does the Realme GT Neo 2 really have what it takes to take on those high-end smartphones, or is it just marketing-speak? We give it a good shake to find out.

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The iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini are Apple's 2021 smartphones for the mainstream, progressive upgrades that avoid huge changes in favor of welcome refinement. Unlike last year, though, this year's iPhone 13 family feels like it covers a broader spread, with Apple saving some of the key improvements for its more expensive devices.

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Photography has been a core focus of smartphones for the past years, with companies competing on imaging features that often revolve around pixel counts. Both consumers and manufacturers have become smarter and have started putting the focus on other aspects of digital photography, like HDR, low-light performance, and, of course, the all-famous portrait mode or bokeh simulation. Smartphone makers have even partnered with known camera or lens companies to back up their claims. Of all the major phone brands, Vivo has been working hard on raising its profile in that category, so we took the new Vivo X70 Pro+ for a test drive to see if its camera chops are all that the company makes it out to be.

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Great cameras, great performance, a great screen, and a great battery to power it all: Apple's recipe for the iPhone 13 Pro is fairly straightforward this year. Then again, like some of the best meals, simplicity can be the hardest thing to achieve. The iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max aren't short on fancy garnish, but the biggest question is whether, at their core, they're enough to sate your appetite for a not-inexpensive upgrade.

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The big Chinese brands are making waves in the smartphone market, but not all consumers might be aware these have sub-brands catering to specific audiences. Xiaomi's Redmi has long targeted the affordable mid-range market while OPPO's realme tries to appeal to younger audiences. iQOO, by comparison, has its roots in Vivo and has been catering to mobile gamers since it launched two years ago. That objective is reflected in the latest iQOO 7 Legend, mixing performance with the aesthetic marks of a car brand best known for its sports cars.

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The future makes skeptics of us all, and folding phones like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 still face an uphill battle. While the third generation of the range-topping foldable costs less than its predecessor, at $1,800 it's still a laptop-priced commitment to a form factor that remains controversial. Samsung's strategy - throwing the works at the Fold 3 in the hope that something sticks - doesn't necessarily help there.

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The Realme brand was created to specifically target a younger demographic, customers that don't always have the resources to buy the latest and greatest smartphones. More often than not, these users are willing to compromise on some things as long as they get the features that are important to them. In that context, the Realme GT Master Edition seems like the perfect compromise for such a crowd, especially with a quirky design that is meant to appeal to travel-forlorn youngsters. We take a deep dive to see how many compromises Realme had to make and if the essentials that the Realme GT Master Edition offers are enough to make up for them.

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