- It's 2017 and there's a world of smartphones out there.
Smartphones are categorised into three main categories,
budget, mid-range, and premium.
In this video I wanna compare a smartphone
from each category and see what the differences
between the categories are.
So for my budget smartphone I picked the Moto G5 Plus,
which can be found on Amazon at its lowest for 230 bucks.
For our mid-range phone, I chose the OnePlus 5,
which can be found on OnePlus.net
for a starting price of 479 bucks.
And then for our premium phone,
I chose a Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus which can be found
on Amazon for around 740 bucks
as of the recording of this video.
Prices do fluctuate though, so link below
so you can check it out.
So, it's Jacklyn here for Android Central
and let's get into it.
(upbeat music)
Let's start with build.
Build quality is something that you're gonna notice
right away because you feel it the second
you hold the device in your hand.
The first thing you're gonna notice about it is
how it looks so it needs to look good and feel good,
at least in my opinion.
So, as the price increases build quality is gonna get
a lot better but let's start with the Moto G5 Plus.
It feels okay in the hand,
it definitely has a very plastic-y feel to it
and it's also pretty clunky given its thickness.
I also don't love the really chunky bezels
on the front of the phone.
So a common theme with the budget smartphones is
that there is really no great build quality there.
They all try to be like a premium smartphone
but they all really miss or at least the ones
that I have tried, have missed.
This one is definitely one of the better ones
but it's still not great.
That plastic-y feel really turns me off.
So when you go all the way up to the premium category
or the S8 plus in our case, for the example,
the material choice and looks and just build quality
as a whole really, really improves.
The S8 plus packs a Gorilla Glass 5 panel on the back
and a super sexy design with the display
pouring over the edges.
Giving the phone a very futuristic look and feel.
The bezels on the phone are also extremely thin
giving the S8 plus the highest screen to body ratio
out of the three devices.
In the mid-range category you'll often find phones
that pack a build that blow away the budget phones
but they don't really come that close to the premium phones.
And that's definitely true with the OnePlus 5 here,
which is what we're using a guideline.
Made out of a high quality metal, the five gives a solid
and slightly slippery feel in the hand.
Its buttons are also easy to press and not flimsy
in the least like the buttons found on the G5 plus.
However, the big bezels up front
make it an easy second place to the S8 plus.
So, as expected, the build quality on these phones
correlates to the price of them but an area
that doesn't follow this trend is the software.
Let's talk about that.
Both the Moto G5 Plus and OnePlus 5 run
a very stock version of Android.
They look a lot cleaner and have minimal
to zero bloatware, unlike the S8 plus.
The G5 plus and OnePlus 5 also fly through
software animations and other little things included
in the software like a swipe up.
And that's not to say that the S8 Plus or other flagships
are slow but most of them have a skin placed on top
of stock Android which ruins the experience
a little bit in my opinion.
The S8 Plus' skin is okay but in order of which software
experience I like best it would go OnePlus 5,
Moto G5 Plus, and then the S8 Plus.
Which is kind of surprising because the S8 Plus
is substantially more expensive but often with a higher end,
premium flagship phones as I've already mentioned
they often have heavier skins than the budget phones
or at least the budget phones that I typically test.
But an exception to that would be the Pixel,
but the S8 Plus is a pretty heavy skin
with a pretty significant amount of bloatware.
Definitely less than past years
but it's still not my favourite skin on Android.
Camera performance turns the tide again in the S8's favour
as it has one of my favourite cameras on the market.
With the Moto G5 Plus or OnePlus 5 I have
a very hit or miss camera experience.
The S8 Plus nails almost every single shot it takes.
The G5 Plus tends to misfocus or mess up the exposure,
while the OnePlus 5 is plagued
with similar issues alongside very shaky video
as it doesn't have optical image stabilisation.
And where that's okay in the Moto G5 Plus
because the price is significantly less the OnePlus 5
in my opinion should definitely have it for its price tag.
The S8 Plus does pack a stabilisation
so it gives it the W in video as well.
The OnePlus 5 does have two cameras
to the S8's singular shooter but as of now
the added depth of field effect
it feels a little bit like a gimmick.
As the shots never turn out quite how I expect them to.
Photo and video quality found on
each of these phones it makes it pretty clear
where manufacturers cut their budget.
I think that for the most part mid-range and budget
smartphones really do not have great cameras
but flagships almost always do nowadays.
If you look at other flagships like the G6
or the Pixel or the HTC U11, they all have
really awesome cameras so I think that the flagships
definitely win in camera performance.
And if you're a photographer like myself
that could be enough reason to go with something
like a flagship over a mid-range or a budget phone.
Another category which shows a main difference
in these smartphones is screen technology.
The Moto G5 Plus is 1080p panels,
nothing to laugh about especially for the price.
It gets pretty bright and it's also decently sharp
but the viewing angles are subpar at best
and so was the colour reproduction.
The OnePlus 5 on the other hand is also a 1080p panel
but it looked a lot better.
The colours pop more and the off axis
viewing angles are very respectable.
Even though both of these phones have very passable panels
the S8 Plus' 1440p vibrant panel creams them.
It is my favourite display in the market
but other premium phones at this price like the G6
also have pretty comparable displays to the S8 Plus as well.
If you buy a Moto G5 Plus or Honour 6x
or any other budget smartphone you definitely are not
gonna be disappointed every time you see the display
but you won't be blown away like I am
or like other people are when they see
the S8 Plus display every time they open it.
I'm just always amazed how vibrant and how sharp it is.
Really nothing like it.
The last two main areas I wanna discuss
is battery life and performance.
In terms of battery life they all have somewhat similar,
with the Moto G5 Plus having a slight edge.
The S8 Plus has the biggest battery at 3500 million powers
but it has to drive a 6.6 inch, 1440p amazing display
and it's super high end specs.
So the best I got it to last was somewhere
around 5.4 hours of screen on time.
The best I got the OnePlus 5 to last was also 5.4 hours
but my average was more like 4.5 hours of screen on time.
The Moto G5 Plus was the best out of the three of them
though as I've gotten six hours of screen on time
on moderate use multiple times.
The last topic to discuss is performance
and this one's a little bit of a tricky one.
The Moto G5 Plus is obviously outclassed
with its Snapdragon 625 chip and four gigabytes of RAM.
But the OnePlus 5, even though it's a lot cheaper
holds up against the S8 Plus.
They both have a Snapdragon 835
and where the S8 Plus maxes out at six gigabytes of RAM,
the OnePlus 5 goes up to eight gigabytes of RAM
with only a $60 price increase.
That's really impressive.
So the specs on the OnePlus 5 are absolutely killer
but that's definitely the exception
and not the rule for mid-range smartphones.
All of the phones have pretty solid performance though.
The Moto G5 Plus might lag a few seconds behind
in comparison to the other devices here
but in standard real world use
you probably won't even notice that.
Okay, so for the most part as expected the S8 Plus
took the cake in most categories but it's really impressive
how close the budget and mid-range smartphone came.
Now, I still think that premium smartphones like the S8 Plus
have a place in the market for tech enthusiasts like myself
or people that are willing to go on a $30 a month
payment plan or dish out the 600 plus dollars on day one,
but for someone that's just looking
for a great smartphone experience the Moto G5 Plus
and the OnePlus 5 or any other mid-range and budget
smartphone are gonna give the S8 Plus
and every other premium smartphone a run for its money.
If you enjoyed the video, you're gonna wanna give us a like.
We need it (laughs)
and give us a comment down below if you liked it,
what you wanna see next, and we'll catch you all later.
Bye.