The Best Chinese Phones
Xiaomi Mi 9 Best for Overall Value 4.5 Outstanding Bottom Line: The Xiaomi Mi 9 offers a sleek design, top-of-the-line components, and spectacular battery life at a very appealing price. PROS Excellent value for the price.
Excellent value for the price. Strong performance.
Strong performance. Long battery life with fast wired and wireless charging.
Long battery life with fast wired and wireless charging. Solid cameras. CONS No official durability rating.
No official durability rating. MIUI 10 isn't as intuitive as some other UIs. Read Our Xiaomi Mi 9 Review Available at Amazon Check Stock (Opens in a new window)
OnePlus 7 Pro (Chinese) Best for Oxygen OS Lovers 4.0 Excellent Bottom Line: The OnePlus 7 Pro delivers top-of-the-line features for significantly less than you'll pay for most other flagship phones. PROS Excellent performance.
Excellent performance. Terrific notchless screen with 90Hz refresh rate.
Terrific notchless screen with 90Hz refresh rate. Intuitive UI. CONS Underwhelming camera performance.
Underwhelming camera performance. No official water-resistance rating. Read Our OnePlus 7 Pro (Chinese) Review Available at Amazon Check Stock (Opens in a new window)
Huawei P30 Pro Best for Photography 4.0 Excellent Bottom Line: The Huawei P30 Pro offers one of the most impressive smartphone camera experiences on the market. PROS Innovative camera with terrific image quality.
Innovative camera with terrific image quality. Sharp design. CONS Expensive.
Expensive. Performance isn't as strong as similarly priced competitors. Read Our Huawei P30 Pro Review Available at Amazon See It (Opens in a new window)
Oppo Reno 10x Zoom Best for Streaming Multimedia 4.0 Excellent Bottom Line: The Oppo Reno 10x Zoom is a strong option for smartphone shutterbugs and a solid phone for everyone else. PROS Excellent cameras.
Excellent cameras. Solid performance.
Solid performance. All-day battery life. CONS No wireless charging.
No wireless charging. Lacks official durability rating.
Lacks official durability rating. Choppy UI. Sold By List Price Price Amazon $719.23 $719.23 Check Stock (Opens in a new window) Read Our Oppo Reno 10x Zoom Review
Honor Magic 2 Best for Selfies 3.5 Good Bottom Line: The Honor Magic 2 is a beautiful powerhouse of a phone that misses the mark in a few key ways. PROS Stunning display with small bezels.
Stunning display with small bezels. Excellent cameras.
Excellent cameras. Good performance. CONS Magic UI is unwieldy.
Magic UI is unwieldy. Average battery life.
Average battery life. Lacks stereo speakers. Read Our Honor Magic 2 Review Check Stock (Opens in a new window)
Vivo IQOO Best for Gamers 3.5 Good Bottom Line: Smartphone gaming enthusiasts will love the Vivo IQOO, but everyday users will find better value in the Xiaomi Mi 9. PROS Excellent gaming performance.
Excellent gaming performance. Gorgeous display. CONS Underwhelming cameras.
Underwhelming cameras. Unintuitive UI.
Unintuitive UI. Mediocre battery life.
Mediocre battery life. Finicky fingerprint sensor. Sold By List Price Price Amazon $658.88 $658.88 Check Stock (Opens in a new window) Read Our Vivo IQOO Review
ZTE Axon 10 Pro 5G Best for 5G Fans 3.5 Good Bottom Line: The ZTE Axon 10 Pro 5G offers excellent performance and is one of the first 5G phones available in China, but it faces stiff competition from more affordable alternatives. PROS Speedy performance.
Speedy performance. Crisp AMOLED display.
Crisp AMOLED display. Excellent UI. CONS Pricey.
Pricey. Camera performs poorly in low light.
Camera performs poorly in low light. Fussy fingerprint sensor. Read Our ZTE Axon 10 Pro 5G Review Available at ZTE USA See It (Opens in a new window)
Buying Guide: The Best Chinese Phones
OB Roundup
The Top Phones You Can't Get in the US
The Chinese smartphone market is much more robust than what we have here in the US. There are dozens of phone manufacturers in China that release amazing handsets that never make their way to the States. As a US-based publication, we don't typically review phones or any other devices that you can't buy here, but there's so much innovation out there that we decided to take a look.
There are lots of hurdles when purchasing a Chinese phone in the US, not the least of which is actually buying one. We received all of our Chinese phones directly from manufacturers, bypassing the typical route of buying them online. Due to trade restrictions, we were unable to procure a Huawei P30 Pro review unit and attempted to purchase a Chinese version of the handset online. We attempted to purchase the phone from four different retailers and each time our order was suspended or cancelled (we ultimately checked out a global model of the phone). And such issues aren't limited to Huawei in particular; the current political climate makes it difficult to purchase nearly any Chinese phone online.
If you do manage to get your hands on a Chinese phone, the first thing you'll notice is that it looks very different from US or global smartphones. Chinese phones are stripped of Google's apps and services, meaning each phone has its own unique app store and productivity apps. And installing Google Services and its standard suite of apps can be a real challenge depending on the device you purchase. There are some companies that will do the legwork for you, but it's always possible the apps will be wiped when a system update occurs from the manufacturer.
The final thing to consider when purchasing a Chinese phone is how well it will actually work in your region. Since Chinese phones are optimized to work on Chinese networks, they may lack LTE bands US carriers rely on. This can lead to spotty service. Head over to in a new window) to find out if a phone has the right bands for where you live.
If you're interested in purchasing a Chinese phone, your best bet is to do your research. If there's a global version of the phone, you won't have to worry about installing Google Services and apps, nor will you need to hide or uninstall preloaded apps that are made for Chinese consumers. That said, you'll still want to make sure the phone works well with your carrier by checking out the technical specifications and ensuring it has all the LTE bands your carrier uses for service.
How We Test Chinese Phones
Testing Chinese phones in PC Labs is a little different than our usual smartphone testing protocol. When we test Chinese phones, we set up the device in English and use it for several days with the default applications. We also evaluate applications in Chinese with Google Lens.
Once we have a good idea of how the default apps and custom UI overlay operates, we install Google Services and a handful of Google apps on the phone to complete our lab tests. This can be an arduous process since these apps are installed differently on each phone. We then download all the benchmarking apps and other tools we need to complete our tests.
See How We Test All Phones
Camera testing is relatively straightforward. We test all of the cameras on each handset and their features in both daylight and low light and then review the results on a 4K screen. We then carefully review each photo to look for common camera issues such as background blurring, edge distortion, color accuracy, and depth of field.
We complete lab testing with a battery drain test. We test battery life by streaming high-resolution video over Wi-Fi at full brightness. This gives us an objective measure of how the phone will perform under strenuous conditions. It's not a perfect test since it can't predict exactly how the phone will last with moderate use or with long gameplay sessions, but it's consistent and allows us to draw general conclusions about battery performance on each handset.
Our Benchmark Tests Explained
For the most part, we relied on many of the same benchmarks tests we use on US phones to test the Chinese phones in this roundup. We did, however, add two additional tests—Ludashi and AI Benchmark—that are popular in China.
It's worth nothing that benchmark testing is great for getting objective data to compare similar smartphones, but doesn't necessarily reflect how each phone will perform in everyday situations. Benchmarks are good for a quick comparison rundown, but should never be the sole factor you consider when purchasing a phone.
For this roundup, we used six different benchmarking suites to get a better idea of how each phone performs in different conditions. Here's a quick rundown on the information that each benchmark provides.
PCMark is a robust benchmarking tool that simulates everyday smartphone tasks to evaluate handset performance. It tests how well phoness perform while completing specific tasks such as web browsing, video editing, writing, photo editing, and data manipulation. Once the testing is complete, it compiles information from each individual test and creates an overall performance score. One concern of ours is that PCMark hasn't been updated in a while, so it may not take advantage of the latest Android APIs. This is one of the reasons we run multiple different tests.
GeekBench is a popular benchmarking app that simulates real-world scenarios to determine single- and multi-core performance on smartphones. The latest version of GeekBench also tests GPU performance. While GeekBench can provide useful performance details, it's not perfect. Instead of testing the phone holistically, GeekBench tests individual components of the phone's hardware, meaning the results can be fragmented and misleading unless evaluated with great care.
Antutu is the world's most popular Android benchmarking tool. Like GeekBench, Antutu tests individual hardware components and presents you with an average score. Antutu tests CPU and GPU performance, RAM operation and speed, user experience when multitasking, individual run time for specific Google apps, and input/output speeds. It's an excellent test for comparison, but fails to account for how the phone performs holistically.
Ludashi (LDS) is a very popular benchmarking tool in China that is used by more than 100 million people. Like many of the tests we use, Ludashi evaluates CPU, GPU, storage, and RAM performance and provides an aggregate score. It compares components individually as opposed to holistically, however it also provides in-depth information about system components and can verify smartphone authenticity as well.
GFXBench is an intensive graphics benchmark that simulates online gaming. The tests provide frame rate scores for on- and off-screen graphics of varying intensities. While it doesn't replace the role of testing smartphones with actual gameplay, it's an excellent indicator of how a phone will perform in different gaming scenarios.
AI Benchmark tests how well smartphones perform AI-based tasks and provides a total score. The suite uses 11 different situations that require the handset to recognize objects, faces, play basic games, debug images, improve image resolution when zoomed in, simulate bokeh, simulate object recognition on self driving vehicles, enhance low-resolution images, and determine memory limits on intensive tasks. Of all the benchmarking tests used in this roundup, AI Benchmark might be the most useful to determine how future-proof your smartphone is.
We consolidated all of the benchmark scores into new, unified PCMag Benchmark Scores for computing and graphics. The computing score is determined by evenly weighting Antutu, LDS, PCMark, and Geekbench Multicore scores, normalizing each one to a percentage of a relatively high score for that benchmark. The graphics score evenly weighs the GFXBench Aztec Hi, Car Chase, Manhattan ES 3.0, and T-Rex offscreen tests to see how the phone performs on a variety of graphics APIs. Those are also all normalized to a percentage of a relatively high score. All of the resulting scores are below 100, but they're not out of 100; they could go over 100 in the future with better performance.
Should You Buy a Chinese Phone?
As mentioned earlier, China simply has way more cool phones than we see in the US. But after testing a bunch of them, it's hard to recommend buying one for use here. Unless you have a great understanding of other languages and the technical prowess to configure the phone exactly the way you want it, you'll probably have a hard time getting past the lock screen. And that's if you're able to order the phone in the first place.
That said, these handsets are a good indicator of the type of innovation we're likely to see here soon. So even if you won't be using the same exact phone, you'll likely get a chance to experience many similar features.
For buying advice in the US, head over to our roundup of The 10 Best Phones.
Top 7 smartphone brands in Chinese market in 2021
Chinese brand Vivo took the leading role in the country's smartphone market in 2021, according to market research company Counterpoint Research.
With a market share of 22 percent, Vivo lead China's smartphone market last year followed by Oppo and Apple, with market shares of 21 and 16 percent, respectively.
Realme witnessed a year-on-year growth of 379 percent to grab 3 percent of market share last year, becoming the fastest growing brand.
All the other brands accounted for 4 percent of the market share in 2021, during which full-year smartphone sales declined 2 percent year-on-year for the fourth consecutive year.
Let's take a look at the top 7 smartphone brands in Chinese market in 2021.
China Smartphones and Tablets
Chinese mobile phones – The best value for money!
Smartphones and tablets have become an indispensable part of our everyday lives. Everyone has one of these mobile devices manufactured in China. You, as a consumer, have to pay a heavy premium for the design and marketing of big international manufacturers. Advertisements, billions of dollars in profits, and brick and mortar shops are financed by consumers. This is not true with us!
Chinese mobile phones are the smart choice!
Are you looking for a smartphone that offers great value for money? Then a Chinese mobile phone is exactly the right thing for you! China has a huge market of mobile phone manufacturers, some of which are completely unknown in the rest of the world. A market with many suppliers is known for a lot of competition and low prices. So our Chinese mobile phones are sold in Europe and the rest of the world at great prices. Chinese phones are not inferior to the mobile phones of Apple, Samsung, Sony & Co., In fact, the opposite is already true. In most cases Chinese mobile phones already have all modern features and even contain more advanced technologies that you will not find in long-established and well-known companies - and all at a fraction of the price. Local manufacturers like Huawei, Oppo, Meizu, Xiaomi, Smartisan, Vivo, OnePlus and Nubia don't have to hide behind market leaders anymore when it comes to design, materials and workmanship.
More than 75,000 satisfied customers can't be wrong!
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